Score of the Week | iii Spokes | Timothy Tharaldson
Timothy Tharaldson’s “Spokes” is a very special score of the week for a number of reasons. There is Timothy’s music, and Euan Tait’s poem which he wrote specifically in celebration of MusicSpoke.
Anyone paying attention to the choral world right now knows that we have a new poet on the rise in Euan Tait. He’s been collaborating with several composers including a big premiere of settings of his work by Kim Arnesen. It’s for good reason.
To my mind, Euan’s extremely lyric gift comes from a poet that you can tell was raised on a steady diet of Shelley, Coleridge, and especially Wordsworth. In contrast to Wordsworth, however, I don’t find a vague sort of pantheism at the bottom of Tait’s poems. Instead, they betray a profound and rich spiritual life that make them exceptionally poignant. This very grounding is what keeps his poems from floating into sentimentality despite their lyric nature.
The setting has all the things that I’ve come to love about Timothy Tharaldson’s music. First and foremost, there is care for singable vocal lines. Vertical challenges are never gimmicky sonorities, but arise from some kind of compelling horizontal line. Timothy goes about setting this text in a very clever way.
He takes the line “barely audible music” (echoes of Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”?) and has the main SATB choir sing that text while a separate SSA chorus dramatically begins to sing a vocalise from the back of the room. While singing, they slowly walk up to join the main choir. It is a pretty spectacular effect. The SSA chorus IS the “barely audible music”. They join the large choir, interact with them, and build to a climax. After that, they once again become the “barely audible music” and sing their opening vocalise while walking back to the rear of the room again.
If you have the resources, it’s definitely worth your time to check it out.
Listen to Timothy’s “Spokes” at the link below.
iii Spokes | Timothy Tharaldson | MusicSpoke
Listen to more Scores of the Week at the links below.
