A Letter From Giocondo
SATB choral score with piano reduction
PEL2022 -Choir and Orchestra
Full score and orchestral parts
PEL2022 -FS/Orch
A WORK FOR SATB CHOIR AND ORCHESTRA
"A Letter From Giocondo", the letter from a 15th century Italian monk, Fra Giovanni Giocondo c. 1513 to his students serves as the basis for a gorgeous work in three movements for choir and orchestra or wind ensemble. Melodic interplay, rich choral textures and exciting rhythmic accompaniment perfectly reflect the gracefulness and uplifting beauty of the text. A beautiful concert piece for Christmas, for Commencement Exercises, or any time of the year where a longer, orchestrated work is desired.
Commissioned by Juniata College, Huntington, PA in honor of President Robert W. Neff upon his retirement.
Texts
A Letter From Giocondo
Words: Fra Giovanni Giocondo
I salute you.
I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look.
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendour, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the Angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty; believe me, that Angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence.
Our joys, too; be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then, to claim it; that is all!
But courage you have: and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country – home.
And so, at this time, I greet you: not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem, and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the days breaks, and the shadows flee away.
A letter by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, c. 1513
Giocondo, Fra Giovanni
{joh-kohn’-doh, frah joh-vahn’-nee}
Fra Giovanni Giocondo, born c.1433, died July 1, 1515, was an Italian scholar and engineer whose writings, especially a 1511 edition of Vitruvius, were frequently consulted by contemporary architects. As an engineer he worked all over Italy and in France for Charles VIII and Louis XII, mostly as an advisor. He is known to have been engaged (1476-88) in Verona on the Loggia del Consiglio, at Poggioreale in Naples (c. 1490), on the defenses of Venice (c. 1506), and in Paris (1500-08) on the Pont-de-Notre-Dame. In 1514 he was appointed by Pope Leo X to assist Raphael at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
David Cast
Bibliography: Heydenreich, Ludwig H., and Lotz, Wolfgang, Architecture in Italy: 1400-1600 (1974).
