Product Description:
PDF score of Catch at Hope.
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Program Note:
Catch at Hope sets Christina Rossetti’s poem De Profundis which speaks to the frustrations of life and the desire to be nearer to the joy and beauty that Heaven or the idea of something beyond provides. Regardless of religious ties, the act of pining for joy and beauty is a fundamentally human act; and as we reflect upon the state of the world, whether we are experiencing stasis and crushing monotony, or are observing history’s most egregious moments repeat again and again, sometimes all we can do is strain our hearts and stretch our hands to “catch at hope.”
Instrumentation:
SS(S)AATTBB choir & Piano
Recording:
Score:
Text:
De Profundis
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scatter’d fire
Of stars, or sun’s far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
- Christina Rossetti (1876)
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scatter’d fire
Of stars, or sun’s far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
- Christina Rossetti (1876)