Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet
Composer:
Matthew Fields
Date Completed:
August 1997
Premiere Date:
August 1, 1999
Premiering Ensemble:
Vocal Arts Ensemble Ann Arbor
Premiere Venue:
St Andrews Episcopal Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Audio Sample:
Composer Notes:
Conductor Notes:
Work is within reach of typical baroque/madrigal ensembles.
Duration:
3'30"
Language:
English
Choral Voicing:
SATB Divisi:
N/A
Solo requirement:
N/A
Text Source:
William Shakespeare Text:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely, and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd
And ev'ry fair from fair some time declines
By chance or Nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wandrest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Significant Seasons or Days:
N/A
Keyboard accompaniment:
N/A
Instruments:
N/A
Scoring notation:
Standard notation
Score Sample:
Difficulty Level:
4