This piece is the earliest in my catalog, written in 1987 with a pencil. I set the words of the thirteenth of the Odes of Solomon, an ancient hymn that holds up the Lord as a mirror in which the soul learns the true shape of its own face. The piece is for unaccompanied a cappella SATB choir, in G major, and marked semplice. It waited a long time for its first hearing: it was premiered in Trenton, New Jersey by Mostly Motets, a sixteen-voice a cappella chamber choir directed by Tim Carpenter, in 2011, nearly a quarter century after I wrote it.

The work is mostly homophonic, and its texture thickens by degrees. It opens with a simple melody in unison sopranos and altos, mezzo-piano, on “Behold, the Lord is our mirror,” a tune that returns at the close. Two-part women’s harmony enters at “Open your eyes,” and the tenors join at “And learn,” building a crescendo to a forte at “declare,” which is repeated before the music comes to rest. The full choir enters at “Then wipe the paint from your face,” quietly again, and from there a second crescendo grows toward the peak of the piece at “unblemished,” the voices beginning to shift against one another before easing back to a hushed “with Him,” the tenors lingering a beat behind.

The closing “Alleluia” takes up the opening melody once more, but now the homophony opens out into counterpoint, the voices moving independently, an early hint of the contrapuntal, chant-influenced writing that would later become characteristic of my work. The tenors follow a measure behind with a dotted, dancing figure set against the longer notes of the basses. The final “Alleluia” holds its strength to a tight G-major chord, the tenor syllables catching up a measure after the rest.

The audio sample is taken from the opening of the piece. Here is the complete text: