An Ever Fixed Mark

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Composer: 
Jamie Klenetsky
Date Completed: 
November 2009
Premiere Date: 
February 25, 2010
Premiering Conductor: 
Erica Lowe
Premiering Ensemble: 
C4 Ensemble
Premiere Venue: 
Church for All Nations, New York, NY
Audio Sample: 
audio/mpeg iconEver Fixed Mark - Jamie Klenetsky
Composer Notes: 

  "An Ever-Fixed Mark" was written for the new music ensemble, C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective for their February 2009 "Shakespeare Settings" concert. This piece is a setting of Sonnet 116. I composed this in an attempt to express the depth of what "love" means to me in the context of the sonnet, a beautiful text that describes a lasting love beyond all things.

Duration: 
4'51"
Language: 
English
Choral Voicing: 
SATB
Divisi: 
Soprano (throughout)
Alto (throughout)
Tenor (throughout)
Bass (throughout)
Solo requirement: 
N/A
Text Source: 
Shakespeare
Text: 

 Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of two minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken,
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Significant Seasons or Days: 
Marriage
Keyboard accompaniment: 
N/A
Instruments: 
N/A
Contact for performance materials: 

Jamie Klenetsky
114 Franklin St., Apt 1H1
Morristown NJ 07960
jamieklenetsky@gmail.com 

Allow excerpts: 
No
Scoring notation: 
Standard notation
Score Sample: 
application/pdf iconAn Ever Fixed Mark - Score Sample
Difficulty Level: 
3