Daniel Elder - "Echoes" (from The Greatest of These)

"Echoes" by Daniel Elder (from the Greatest of These)

Music Copyright © 2016 by Hal Leonard Corporation (purchase music here: http://goo.gl/hlVVIJ)
Recording Copyright © 2016 by ChoralTracks

Commissioned and first performed by The University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, Eugene Rogers, director.

"The Greatest of These" is a secular cycle based on a sacred concept. Written for unaccompanied men's chorus and based on the spiritual tenet of the three principal virtues, the title of the set takes its name from the scripture "Now faith, hope, and love abide; but the greatest of these is love." Each piece is set to original poetry by the composer and explores each respective virtue in turn. These poems are constructed uniquely like riddles, each being a first-person character piece in which the virtue as a corporate being describes itself in mysteriously cryptic ways. What results is a visceral presentation of these three ideas which allow the listener to delve deeply into the emotions championed by each.

Written on the virtue of hope, "Echoes" makes a profound statement using a rich yet simple harmonic palette that strives to create a sense of nostalgia. Hope here assures that in the darkest of experiences, when all joy is but a distant flicker of light in the memory, it serves as a spark for the "immortal flame" of life that can illuminate even from the deepest shadows.

"At the close of the age, when memory wanes
And the progress of time now halts it flow;
When all that once was bright ceases to glow,
Leaving only echoes of what remains:

I am the softest shadow, slightest spark;
Conscious now residing within a dream.
Nearly nothing yet everything, I gleam—
Shielding the immortal flame from the dark.

And as to fantasies from lightyears hence,
You will find my song best, and sweeter still
If open wide your dreaming eyes you will—
The dawn to come, the passage to commence.

Al the bonds of darkness thus loose their hold
And await the herald of dawning gold."