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Work

Charles Edward Ives

Charles Edward Ives Composer

The Incantation, S.280   

Performances: 1
Tracks: 1
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Musicology:
  • The Incantation, S.280
    Year: 1921
    Genre: Solo Song / Lied / Chanson
    Pr. Instruments: Voice & Piano
This song was dated 1921 in Ives' 114 Songs publication of that year, but may have been written earlier. An eerie, Gothic text by Lord Byron is set to an obsessively repeated pattern of four notes in the vocal part that is varied only slightly in pitch and rhythm, like a demented waltz. The piano plays constant harp-like arpeggiations of a complex harmony that mysteriously supports the vocal line: "When the moon is on the wane, and the glowworm in the grass, and the meteor on the grave, and the wisp on the morass ... when the falling stars are shocking ... and the silent leaves are still in the shadow of the hill ..." The voice suddenly breaks out of its pattern to declare: "Shall my soul be upon thine with a power and with a sigh." The murky mood is intensified by the composer's instruction to use the pedals "almost constantly." A spine-chilling oath of spiritual possession.

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