In Sideribus Domi / At Home In The Stars
SATB choral score with piano reduction
PEL2046-Choir and Piano
Full score and instrumental parts for small ensemble
PEL2046-FS/IP
Full conductor's score and orchestral parts
PEL2046-FS/Orch
A WORK FOR SATB CHOIR AND ORCHESTRA OR SMALL ENSEMBLE OF PIANO, BASS/GUITAR, KEYBOARD, PERCUSSION, CELLO, AND SOPRANO SAXOPHONE
PEL2046 "In Sideribus Domi: At Home In The Stars" - A thirty-minute concert work in five movements. A broad reflection on the themes of discovery, creativity, the arts and sciences, centering on the night sky. Five movements. Gorgeous melody lines and inventive jazz harmonies abound, with rhythmic complexity for singers and instrumentalists. A new poem by David Densmore forms the core of the work, beginning, "Discovery belongs to those who are willing to be lost", and concluding, "The goal of the arts and sciences? To make us better dancers."
This work was commissioned 2003 by the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, Charleston, WV through American Composers Forum as part of the Continental Harmony program. Continental Harmony links communities with composers through the creation of original musical works. The program is a partnership of American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional funds provided by the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and from Marshall Field’s Project Imagine with support from the Target Foundation. Commissioned by The Clay Center of Science and Art for the dedication of the new museum building in Charleston, WV.
Text excerpt:
We are stepping on music, friends,
All our discoveries bring us closer
to the unveiling of this theme.
The turbulence of the heart
A strange attractor.
The goal of the arts and sciences?
To make us better dancers.
- David Densmore, from “Text on the Arts and Sciences”
Video
Notes
I Prelude – The Science of Man
(At the creation of light the heavens sing and dance the Sanctus. As the night changes to day the choir sings a succession of chords consisting of piled up perfect fourths. Most of this movement is in 7/8, one of the happiest of dance meters.)
II The Art of The Divine
(The movement begins with the “star bridge”- chords of piled up perfect fifths. The ancient hymn “Conditor Alme Siderum” is interwoven with the main theme.)
III Discovery
(The central movement of the piece is a “samba” whose harmonies consist of the “star bridge” chords compressed. The ending affords all the instrumentalists an opportunity to improvise over the choir’s repeated figure.)
IV Creativity
(A personal testament of the need to strive in living and creating. The “Conditor Alme” theme is heard in the instruments, and the movement ends with an a cappella setting of a text by a living astronomer.)
V Finale/Reprise
(The last movement begins with an instrumental anthem over which the choir eventually sings the “Sanctus”. The “samba” theme from the third movement reappears and the piece ends with an explosive “Hosanna in excelsis”.)
Composer’s Notes:
"In Sideribus Domi - At Home In The Stars" by Paul Halley
When I first visited the Clay Center last March I was very impressed with the way the arts and the sciences had been brought together under the same roof, and what a gorgeous roof it is! It reminded me of the glorious days at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, where, back in the eighties we heard James Lovelock speak about his “Gaia Hypothesis”. This was essentially a scientific restatement of the ancient religious perspective on the inter-connectedness of all life, not just on planet earth but throughout the universe. Lovelock’s words led to the creation of a new setting of the Mass which became known as the “Missa Gaia”. Here was a marvelous, but all too rare, example of science and art coming together in recognition and celebration of an essentially religious idea.
Through the good graces of the Continental Harmony project I was commissioned to write a piece for the Clay Center on the themes of Creativity, Discovery and the Arts and Sciences. As an artist and an avid reader in the sciences, I was very taken with these themes, but how on earth was I going to turn them into a piece of music? For starters, what would I use for a text?
The search for the text generated the most frustrating aspects of the commission. Every serious endeavor, artistic or scientific has these moments. It took months to find suitable material and even when I settled on a handful of texts, none of them seemed to say precisely what I wanted to say. Most poets, especially the more contemporary ones, aren’t great fans of science. They feel science has taken over and stolen their thunder, as if science were now intent on proving all Merlin’s tricks to have been done with mirrors. All the mystery of life has been carefully analyzed, dissected and discarded. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. The universe continues to become more fascinating, beautiful, terrifying and wondrous with each new discovery. There’s enough mystery here to last us at least another 15 billion years!
At this point I was visiting Susan Osborn and her husband David Densmore out on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest. Susan is a wonderful singer/songwriter and David is a painter, sculptor, and poet. I have been a major fan of David’s poetry for a long time, so I shared with him my anxiety about ever finding the right text for this commission. The night before I left, I found, on my bedside table, the poem that became the fulcrum of this work. Entitled “Discovery”, it is the center around which the other texts orbit. The opening line of his poem seemed appropriate in more way than one: “Discovery belongs to those who are willing to be lost.” The closing lines informed the quality and feel of the whole piece: “The goal of the arts and sciences? To make us better dancers.” Dancers are held in the dance by attractive forces that are invisible, like gravity. The human dance is a comprehensible form of the cosmic dance. Solar systems and galaxies are very large dances. When Einstein talks about “relativity” I hear him saying everything in the universe is related. We are all “relatives” and we are all caught up in the same dance of attraction, which can be exhilarating and frightening, creative and destructive. It is a dance which calls for some kind of explanation. Who is the choreographer? I believe it is God.
For me religion, ironically, is where art and science meet. I’m talking about the profound mystery inherent in both practices. Science has been given a bad rap by us humanists – and its getting rather old – as a dry, soulless activity involving a great deal of number crunching resulting in a great deal of usually harmful technology. This can’t be the case, especially now. Everywhere you look in the sciences you’re contemplating the infinite – either at the sub-atomic level or the cosmic level. Scientists must be constantly having their perspective changed. They can’t get too attached to any particular idea because the evidence before their eyes might not support it. In other words, they are constantly discarding prejudice. This strikes me as a very healthy approach, particularly in matters of the soul. I have learned that trying to second-guess God never works. I need always to assume I’m going to be turned around – “converted” – by God. I will always be surprised, and if, like a good scientist I’m not full of prejudice, the surprise will eventually be exciting and hopeful. Scientists must always be developing a finely tuned sense of their place in the cosmic scheme of things. This understanding can be either extremely depressing or exhilarating, depending on your perspective again. In my better moments I’m happy to be the creature and leave the creator part to God. So I find the news of my place in the universe to be very gratifying. (I’m particularly fond of my lineage with the stars.) It allows me to be more creative, not less, in the same way I imagine it allows scientists more opportunity for discovery. Religious belief, if it’s worth its salt, should broaden our horizons – improve our perspective. Religion and narrow-mindedness are contradictory approaches to life.
How did I come up with the title? When I visited the Clay Center it “happened” to be the day they were trying out the new show at the planetarium. With all these ideas banging around in my head I watched the “performance” and knew the piece had to be about the stars and the people who “discover” them, who travel back in time to the point when we were all stardust. When I look at the night sky, at first I experience an overwhelming sense of awe and mystery. Sometimes I get an uncomfortable feeling of coldness and isolation. There is so much darkness and the points of light are so pale and distant. But then my eyes adjust, my night vision improves and I reach for the binoculars. Now, with a new perspective I see endless, spectacular beauty – fields of gorgeous light and energy – and I feel the attraction. I feel at home. - Paul Halley, September 2003
Texts
In Sideribus Domi: At Home In The Stars
Words: Anne C. Lynch, Sanctus: Ordinary of the Mass - Roman Rite, Joseph Addison, Conditor Alme Siderum: 7th cent. Latin, David Densmore, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Rowan-Robinson
Music: Paul Halley
I Prelude – The Science of Man
(At the creation of light the heavens sing and dance the Sanctus. As the night changes to day the choir sings a succession of chords consisting of piled up perfect fourths. Most of this movement is in 7/8, one of the happiest of dance meters.)
Darkness sat brooding o'er the infant world,
That in chaotic gloom and silence lay,
Till from the throne of Light the sun was hurled;
Then that eternal night was changed to day,
Even thus, oh! Science, hath thy glorious light
Rolled the dark clouds of Ignorance away,
Dispelled the darkness of a deeper night,
Than that which once o'er chaos thickly lay --
The darkness of the mind; and thy mid-day
Is still far distant -- yet nor time nor space
Is unillumined with thy heavenly ray:
The clouds are rent that shrouded Nature's face,
And now she stands unveiled in all her loveliness.
- Anne C. Lynch (1815-1891); from “To Science”
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth
Translation: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts
- from The Ordinary of the Mass – Roman Rite
II The Art of The Divine
(The movement begins with the “star bridge”- chords of piled up perfect fifths. The ancient hymn “Conditor Alme Siderum” is interwoven with the main theme.)
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator’s power display;
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings, as they roll
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”
- Joseph Addison (1672-1719); para. of Psalm 19:1-6
______
Conditor alme siderum,
Aeterna lux credentium,
Virtus, honor, laus, Gloria,
In saeculorum, saecula.
Founder of the nourishing stars,
Your people’s everlasting light,
Virtue, honor, praise and glory
Be yours through all the ages.
- 7th cent. Latin
III Discovery
(The central movement of the piece is a “samba” whose harmonies consist of the “star bridge” chords compressed. The ending affords all the instrumentalists an opportunity to improvise over the choir’s repeated figure.)
Discovery belongs to those who are willing to be lost, and lost, stumble on the footing of the foundation of the new. Discovery belongs to those who see the real as it is, often overlooked, errors and intermittency, that hold the key to the patterns of the operation as a whole.
______
(This section omitted from musical composition.)
The Cantor's Dust* peppers our lives
signal error, random noise,
that cracks our choral perfection with hum.
Hour, by minute, by second inevitably
(if not predictably) with cosmic regularity.
Error, which cannot be overcome by struggle
or overpowered by signal strength
is tempered only by the redundancy of the choir itself, by acceptance of the lost and the new
by fresh discovery of the whole pressed into the myriad palms reaching toward the door.
______
Celebrate those who realize they hold the key.
That marvelous error that planted foot
in outsider soil, seeded with a heart unafraid
to reach into the fluid maze.
We who look back can say
"that day a solid discovery was made".
Those certain poles now lit for easy entry,
once hid the spiral equation of dragon’s breath.
Step lightly over the fissures God has woven
into the atomic sidewalk; the light
is pouring through the concrete, into the shimmering world.
We are stepping on music, friends,
All our discoveries bring us closer
to the unveiling of this theme.
The turbulence of the heart
A strange attractor.
The goal of the arts and sciences?
To make us better dancers.
- David Densmore
from “Text on the Arts and Sciences”
IV Creativity
(A personal testament of the need to strive in living and creating. The “Conditor Alme” theme is heard in the instruments, and the movement ends with an a cappella setting of a text by a living astronomer.)
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Conditor alme siderum, Aeterna lux credentium,
Virtus, honor, laus, Gloria,
In saeculorum, saecula.
Founder of the nourishing stars…
- 7th cent. Latin
______
Ah, this universe of light –
such colors, such harmonies
and my mind alive with visions
as I go traveling through all times
past the inscrutable galaxies
floating fire
through the great cities seething with activity
or the dazzling landscapes of summer:
and at my inner ear music
too subtle for air to bear
this life of the mind, mirror of all earth
- Michael Rowan-Robinson
from Our Universe: An Armchair Guide
V Finale/Reprise
(The last movement begins with an instrumental anthem over which the choir eventually sings the “Sanctus”. The “samba” theme from the third movement reappears and the piece ends with an explosive “Hosanna in excelsis”.)
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
- from The Ordinary of the Mass – Roman Rite
______
We are stepping on music, friends,
All our discoveries bring us closer
to the unveiling of this theme.
The turbulence of the heart
A strange attractor.
The goal of the arts and sciences?
To make us better dancers.
- David Densmore
from “Text on the Arts and Sciences”
*Cantor's Dust (Georg Cantor (1845-1918) Mathematician, born in St. Petersburg. Cantor worked out a highly original arithmetic of the infinite which resulted in a theory of infinite sets of different sizes.)
