SSA, horn, and piano
Suitable for women’s chorus or advanced children’s chorus
Poem: William Shakespeare
Duration: 6 min 45 sec
Commissioned by the Contra Costa Children’s Chorus
Here is a recording and here is a score of the treble version.
Here is a recording of the mixed chorus version.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit…. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Also available for mixed chorus.
The words for The Music of the Spheres come from Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. They tell what a pleasure it is to listen to music at night, when the stars themselves seem to join in the universal harmony.