Day Break

Concert Opener

Day Break by Stephen Paulus

Text:
Day Breaks- the day breaks- the first rays of the rising Sun, stretching her arms.
Daylight breaking, as the Sun rises to her feet.
Sun rising, scattering the darkness, lighting up the land... with disk shining, bringing daylight, lighting up the land.
People are talking, moving about, feeling the warmth.
Burning through the gorge she rises walking westwards,
wearing her waistband of human hair.
She shines on the blossoming coolibah tree, with its sprawling roots, its branches spreading; She shines!

This piece opens our concert.  Makes sense, right?  Day Break.  The piece is the first in a cycle of three entitled Songs Eternity, but we are only doing this one.  It might have been kind of neat to do the entire cycle, but I wouldn't have known what to cut from our program.  The second piece is entitled "Sea and Sky" while the third one is entitled "Wind and Sun."  For SSA chorus and percussion.  We are not using percussion at our Benefit concert.

The piece was premiered in 1997 by the Young Singers of Callanwolde, a group based in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is an organization that bring music education to children in grades 2-12.

The text comes from an unknown source who was a part of an aboriginal tribe in northern Australia.  It seems that the original poetry is a little different than what is sung in the song.

Poetry: At daybreak, the rising sun stretches her arms.  At daybreak, the goddess rises to her feet.  She rises, driving out darkness from the land.  She rises, bringing daylight and birdsong to the land.  Beneath  her, we move about, enjoying her warmth.  Above us, she moves about, walking westward.  She shines bright on the blooming coolibah tree, with its sparwling roots, with its spread branches.

Day Break is set up really into three sections.  There is an A, B, and C melody.  At the end of the piece, the three melodies are sung at the same time by the choir.  I think one of the striking things about this piece is that it seems through composed, until you hear the three melodies come back at the end.  There is a return of the A melody after the C section.  This is about ten measures in length and is similar to the A section from earlier, except the piano accompaniment becomes quite different as the ten measures progress.

Accents, sforzandos, and legato articulations are three very important things in this piece.  It helps distinguish each section and adds color to the text.

The climax of the piece?  In the very last measure.  The music builds in both thickness of texture and dynamically until the very last measure.

As a word of caution, the accompaniment is not easy.  This requires an extremely steady tempo.