This anthem for SAB chorus (sopranos, altos, and a unified men’s baritone part), organ, and handbells is a setting of Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Alles noch nie Gesagte” from Das Stundenbuch (The Book of Hours), in my own English translation. It was commissioned by Stefanie Watson, organist and music director at Emanuel Lutheran Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and is dedicated to her pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Eaton, a lover of Rilke. It was performed at the Sunday service celebrating his retirement.

I wrote this music to provide opportunities for text-painting, rather than to present technical challenges. I completed the English translation as part of the commission, so that the poem’s long sentences would fall more naturally on the voice. The SAB scoring can suit a choir of modest size, and the vocal writing stays within manageable ranges throughout, with only a few optional divisi spots (which the organ doubles).

The piece opens in A minor: three handbell chords over a pedal tone, then a dotted bell theme that rises through an open fifth, and repeats in the organ: a gesture of aspiration that colors the whole work. (The three-chord handbell figure serves as a punctuation mark, and recurs in various guises throughout.) The choir starts the theme first in unison, and then breaks into harmony at the poem’s first line. The last line of the opening stanza takes an unexpected harmonic turn to B-flat, a move that covertly foreshadows the modulations to come.

Rilke’s poem moves from inward devotion outward to the image of broad streams pouring into the open sea, and the music follows that lead. The harmony steadily migrates toward the flat side as the text reaches “this outpouring” and “the boundless blue.” At “the sea’s amassing, churning torrents” the organ turns percussive and detached, suggesting the crashing motion of waves. The author’s declaration to “proclaim you, like no one else before could to” heralds the peak of the work, led by a choral crescendo, and then an instrumental interlude in big chords crowned by a series of shimmering handbell shakes.

From there the opening mood returns as the organ and handbells recap the opening music. The choir sings the final verse much like the first, a little freer in its part-writing but in the same harmonic language. The choir’s last words, a prayer “earnest and solitary,” withholds its final cadence at “celestial hands.” The organ and handbells complete the journey, easing gradually to rest. The result is festive and devotional at once, grateful for the handbells that the dedicatee’s church could provide.

The first audio clip begins at measure 28, and the second at measure 88. Here is the text, in Rilke’s German and in my English translation:

English translation © John F. Cavallaro, all rights reserved.