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two songs for soprano and cello (2022) — written by Griffin Candey on poetry by
Jane Hirshfield — for Sabina Balsamo and Chas Barnard
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Honey
two songs for soprano and cello
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Griffin Candey
2023
I. The Promise
II. Bees
Program Note
Commissioned by SoHap Ensemble (Sabina Balsamo and Chas Barnard,) Honey takes on ideas of hope and hopelessness, a balance between the two, and the people around us who make the former possible. I am a massive fan of Jane Hirshfield and her poetry—her texts, calm at the surface but rippling with meaning for miles below, always allow rich windows for interpretation, and this cycle was no different. In The Promise, a narrative voice calls out for support from everything around her, finding solace only in her “loves”—in Bees, we dissect an almost trolley-problem-like decision, the balance between bliss and horror, and discuss the lure of uncritical, blank optimism in the face of this eternally-lingering question.
Movements
I. The Promise
II. Bees
Instrumentation
soprano and cello
Duration: 6'
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First printing, August 2024
Copyright ©2023 Griffin Candey. All Rights Reserved. Program Note Copyright ©2023 Griffin Candey. All Rights Reserved Published by Just a Theory Press | www.justatheorypress.com
text by Jane Hirsh!eld 1 . T H E P R O M I S E
2 . B E E S
text by Jane Hirsh!eld
Cello
heavy tremolo on the seventh, quasi sul ponticello — gliss. down on tremolo seventh (doesn't have to neatly maintain major seventh,) landing heavily on open A in m. 26
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