Item #22476 From the Book of Hours. Du, nachbar Gott. A song cycle for soprano and orchestra. [Autograph manuscript of the first movement of an early chamber version featuring flute, percussion, soprano, and piano]. James PRIMOSCH.
From the Book of Hours. Du, nachbar Gott. A song cycle for soprano and orchestra. [Autograph manuscript of the first movement of an early chamber version featuring flute, percussion, soprano, and piano]

From the Book of Hours. Du, nachbar Gott. A song cycle for soprano and orchestra. [Autograph manuscript of the first movement of an early chamber version featuring flute, percussion, soprano, and piano]

[ca. 1994].

Folio. Unbound. 9 pp. Notated in ink on 14-stave Passantino brand paper.

Scored for soprano, flute, percussion and piano. With text by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). Several corrections in whiteout.

Together with:
A typed letter signed by the composer regarding the manuscript.

"This cycle of orchestral songs sets four poems from an early collection by Rilke entitled "Das Stundenbuch," or in English, "Book of Hours." Although the title refers to a medieval book of prayers for the various times of day and seasons of the liturgical year, Rilke's texts occupy a position some distance from conventional piety. There is a melancholy to the spirituality expressed here, which speaks of an experience of God that is fragmentary, imperfect, and unattainable. The solitude evoked in the second song (as layers of busy activity are gradually peeled away) offers some solace, but the third song is very dark and fierce, filled with a desperate, even manic desire for God. The last song returns to the mood of the first, but now in a global rather than individual context. This song, like the set as a whole, speaks of our world's brokenness, yet strives to stammer fragments of God's name." Carl Fischer website.

Primosch was an American composer and pianist. The present work, with text by Rainer Rilke, was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and first performed on 10 January 2002 by them under Antonio Pappano with Lisa Saffer as soloist. This manuscript version "was prepared for a reading session at the Marlboro Music Festival in 1994."

"Primosch's compositional voice encompasses a broad range of expressive types. His music can be intensely lyrical, as in the song cycle Holy the Firm (composed for Dawn Upshaw) or dazzlingly angular as in Secret Geometry for piano and electronic sound. His affection for jazz is reflected in works like the Piano Quintet, while his work as a church musician informs the many pieces in his catalog based on sacred songs or religious texts." - website of publisher Theodore Presser.

Item #22476

Price: $1,000.00  other currencies

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