Description
Premiere
21 August 1975
Janet Steele, soprano / Zita Carno, piano
Johnson State College
Johnson, VT
Text
Jess Anderson, from Requiescat in Pace (Poems 1970–1974)
Vocal Range
B3 – A5
Publisher
Biscardi Music Press No. B48-75-1 (available on request)
Program Notes
TRUSTING LIGHTNESS
Great gates sigh shut
To seal the iron grillworks
Guarding the region of my pounding
heart.
As through forgotten halls
Of some ethereal cloister,
A Mass by William Byrd
Filters through the galleries
Of winter’s sunny afternoon.
Somewhere another prisoner,
Also a child,
Cries out to be rescued
From the caverns of nothingness:
Let us into the light,
Release us into flight,
To leap up into the air,
Levitated by natural, trusting light-
ness,
Borne aloft on wings of tones,
On soft, loving gentleness.
