Music of the Stars (2024)
SATB and strings and percussion or piano accompaniment
Text: Brian Odongo (Music of the Stars); Neil deGrasse Tyson (The hardest thing): James Weldon Johnson (The Gift to Sing)
Duration: 15 minutes
Commissioned by the Chamber Singers of Iowa City member, James Petersen and his spouse David McCartney in 2020
I Music of the Stars
II The hardest thing
III The Gift to Sing
Music of the Stars offers an enlightening commentary on the power of music to console and uplift in challenging times. Characterful string writing accompanies the engaging vocal lines, with McDowall artfully employing vibraphone, glockenspiel, and suspended cymbal to sprinkle a touch of celestial sparkle throughout the score. An excerpt from a folksong from Ukraine is woven into the first movement’s gentle setting of Kenyan poet Brian Odongo’s atmospheric depiction of the music of the ancient stars that watch over humanity below. The second, up-tempo movement presents American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s absorbing explanation of ‘light’ and how we perceive it. Lastly, the affirmatory final movement sets American writer James Weldon Johnson’s well-known text ‘The Gift to Sing’, drawing the piece to a close with the emphatic, joyful statement: ‘And I can sing’.
Programme Note:
Music of the Stars Cecilia McDowall
I Music of the Stars
II The hardest thing
III The Gift to Sing
‘Music of the Stars’ was commissioned by long-time Chamber Singers of Iowa City member, James Petersen and his spouse David McCartney, to celebrate the Chamber Singers’ fiftieth season. In normal times this anniversary commission would have been programmed to take place during the 2020-2021 season but due to the global COVID pandemic has been delayed until this year.
James and David suggested a commission which could celebrate the power of music in these difficult times. I was most touched to be offered such a rewarding commission. Finding just the right text to set is such an interesting process and I felt this one was particularly engaging. In recognition of the racial issues which face us every day the commissioners and music director, David Puderbaugh, offered texts written by people of colour; James Weldon Johnson and Kenyan born, Brian Odongo. The latter text was discovered by another CSIC singer, Elaine Reding.
To continue the theme of music, singing and the stars I discovered an absorbing explanation of ‘light’ and how we perceive it by the American astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is an outstanding science communicator and I found myself drawn to, and fascinated by, his planetary postings which have a clarity I had not encountered before.
The atmospheric text of the first movement, Music of the Stars, evokes ‘dark night clouds’, illuminated by ancient, radiant stars as they watch over mortals’ adventures below; the ‘music of the stars’ sings to ‘seafarers, wayfarers and soldiers’. There is a gentle, almost mesmerising pace to the poem which I hope is reflected in the music. I wove a little Ukrainian folksong into this movement, just a wisp of the song, (In the garden flowers are growing, Boys will quarrel where I’m going) as it just seemed impossible to ignore the unfolding horror in Ukraine. I would be mortified if this seemed a posturing gesture but as I was writing I found it hard not to be affected by these shocking events and to feel, at the same time, utterly powerless as a witness.
In the text of the second, up-tempo movement, The hardest thing, Tyson explores the concept of how we analyse color. Certainly, when reading Tyson’s explanation of how the universe is studied, one begins to sense what an extraordinarily complex science astrophysics is. Setting prose to music needs a different approach, I feel, and I aimed to bring a more conversational style to the word setting, sometimes repeating the little phrase endings, to give a little more emphasis.
The poem, The Gift to Sing, will be so familiar to many. I found this a wonderful poem to set; there is something so quietly confident, so intimate and ultimately joyful about it. Each verse ends with a solution to the day’s challenges – ‘I softly sing’; ‘and sing and sing’; ‘And I can sing’. These heart-warming words bring an affirmation of what the power of singing can do for us all in times of difficulty. The text speaks to us all in these most exacting times. How glorious it is, at last, to sing again.
The work is scored for strings and percussion, and I have used the vibraphone, the glockenspiel and suspended cymbal to add colour to the texture, hoping to sprinkle a little celestial sparkle over the score. I do hope this work brings a response to the times in which we now live.
© 2022, Cecilia McDowall
Music of the Stars
Cecilia McDowall
1. Music of the Stars
The dark night clouds are starlit
As though to mock the moon
That arises at each twilight
To take the mantle from the sun
All united in an assignment
To light the dark auditorium below
The radiant stars gloriously move
Age to age whispering its adventures
It’s the music of the stars
Singing the past, present, future
Singing a past heard in legends
Singing a present felt by all men
Singing a future obscure to mortals
It’s the music of the stars.
The inaudible lyrics of the stars
That need neither lute nor lyre*
To arouse the heart with its ancient rhyme
That chime that is older than any note
Like a spell enchants the audience
Its melody wanes towards daybreak
Like a script come to a timely end
Its rhythm diminishes
Like beats fleeting from dawn
Its harmony dis-accords
Like harpers’ strings breaking
It’s the music of the stars
Singing a ballad to seafarers
Singing a hymn to wayfarers
Singing an anthem to soldiers
It’s the music of the stars.
*In the garden flowers are growing,
Boys will quarrel where I’m going.
[Ukrainian folksong]
Brian Odongo (1994)
2. The hardest thing to explain about the universe
The hardest thing, I think by far, is how we analyze spectra — light broken up into its component colors. It’s so abstract, so removed from the actual object we’re studying. See, chemists study chemicals in the lab. Biologists study life on Earth. But astrophysicists can’t go out there and grab a piece of a galaxy and put it in a laboratory. We have to study a picture of the thing, and then analyze the light that comes from it. Nearly everything we know about our universe comes through the analysis of light. It’s all just light – and ninety-nine percent of it happens to be invisible to the naked eye.
from Being an astronomer
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958)
3. The Gift to Sing
Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day – I softly sing.
And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note – And sing, and sing.
I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song – And I can sing.
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)