It won't quite do to claim, with annotator Donald Chittum, that American composer David Bennett Thomas "is free to use any musical materials, constructs, and modes of expression that suit his musical intentions with complete freedom and ease." He is not as eclectic as all that, and the music here falls easily into the basic vocabulary of a great deal of contemporary American choral composition: it is tonal, essentially lyrical, and filled with stacks of thirds and fourths that, if you retune your ears slightly, would ...
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It won't quite do to claim, with annotator Donald Chittum, that American composer David Bennett Thomas "is free to use any musical materials, constructs, and modes of expression that suit his musical intentions with complete freedom and ease." He is not as eclectic as all that, and the music here falls easily into the basic vocabulary of a great deal of contemporary American choral composition: it is tonal, essentially lyrical, and filled with stacks of thirds and fourths that, if you retune your ears slightly, would suggest jazz in a different rhythmic context. This said, one can indeed note with pleasure the flexibility of Thomas's musical language, and his determination to respond to poetic texts in an individual way. Thomas draws on an impressive range of texts, from the Matins responsory O Magnum Mysterium to American haikus about the seasons, seventeenth century British metaphysical poet George Herbert, the Psalms, and three deadly poems about war from Walt Whitman's pen. Each of these calls...
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