Sonnet 60
Steve Cohen
About this work:
My setting of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60, for soprano voice and string quartet, is written as a memorial tribute to my beloved composition teacher, Giampaolo Bracali (1941-2006). The sonnet is a philosophical meditation on life and mortality. The technical challenges of setting a sonnet, with its complex and rigid schemes of both rhyme and meter, are great, and I’d like to think that my former teacher would appreciate my taking on such challenges in his honor.
The vocal part comes in halfway though the piece. The sung recitation of the sonnet is meant to be a summary and an explanation of the purely instrumental music that precedes it. The instrumental music touches on many of the themes in the sonnet, including the images of waves and water, expressed as washes of string chords and arpeggios. The music expresses grief, anguish, and anger at first, and then changes gradually to wonder at the mysteries of nature, the universe and eternity.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
–William Shakespeare
Year composed: 2008
Duration: 00:11:43
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Voice with Chamber/Jazz Ensemble, 2-5 Players
Instrumentation: 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Soprano