Juggler of Day (2007)

Premiere
27 October 2007
Cornell University Glee Club
Scott Tucker, conductor
Sage Chapel, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

This composition musically "paints the picture” of a blazing, mid-morning, rising sun that very gradually sets over the horizon.

Program Note
Scored for female chorus, Juggler of Day sets an Emily Dickinson poem juxtaposing sunrise with sundown, with the ecstatic, billowing textures continually coalescing into full, rich harmonies before dissolving again. A slow but relentless momentum dominates the first half, a long-breathed contrapuntal episode lyrically weaves and criss-crosses the voices, fluctuating like the sun’s glow just before it slides over the horizon, before the music slowly dissipates and fades in the final, twilit section.
— Paul Pellay

Text
Emily Dickinson

Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,
Leaping like leopards to the sky,
Then at the feet of the old horizon
Laying her spotted face, to die;
Stooping as low as the kitchen window,
Touching the roof and tinting the barn,
Kissing her bonnet to the meadow, —
And the juggler of day is gone!