Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

c. 3 min 30 sec

11-13 December 2015
60th Annual Illinois State University Madrigal Dinners
Prairie Room, Bone Student Center
Illinois State University, Normal, IL
ISU Madrigal Singers
Dr. Karyl Carlson, director

Written for the 60th Annual Madrigal at Illinois State University.

SATB

Alfred, Lord Tennyson : Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

I was introduced to this poem through Ned Rorem’s beautiful setting of it in his Four Poems of Tennyson, which I had the pleasure of singing for the first time in 2003. Now, a dozen years later, I’ve returned to the text not as a singer, but as a composer. It’s always a challenge to work with a text that I strongly identify with another composer’s music – to create a new setting that is unburdened by the rhythms and harmonic language that so strongly color my perception of the text. My decision to set the poem for choir rather than voice and piano greatly helped. I’m not ashamed to say: anyone familiar with Ned’s song will hear hints of his setting in mine – my homage to the composer who has had such a huge impact on the ways that I write and think about music.

–Dennis Tobenski