Sea Pieces

Sea Pieces is based on three poems by Emily Dickinson. In the first, Dickinson portrays a river that implores the sea to take her in. In the second, the sea prompts thoughts of eternity, in the form of a never-ending sequence of seas. The last describes the ‘divine intoxication of the first league out from land.’ The musical treatments are varied and contrasting. Babbling brook, cascading river, impassive ocean — and moments of wistfulness, wonder and elation — are all here.

Sea Pieces was premiered by Canty (female voices of Cappella Nova of Scotland) at the 2002 Whithorn Festival.