1975

Trusting Lightness

for soprano and piano

Premiere

21 August 1975

Janet Steele, soprano | Zita Carno, piano

Johnson State College
Johnson, VT

Work Details

Duration:

ca. 6 minutes

Vocal Range:

B3 – A5

Publisher:

Biscardi Music Press No. B48-75-1
(Available on Request)

Text:

By Jess Anderson, from Requiescat in Pace (Poems 1970–1974)

Text

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.

Jess Anderson