Love's Call
Item
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Score title
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Love's Call
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Composer
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Shulamit Ran
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Program note
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Love's Call (2016) is a setting for voice and piano of an English adaptation of a fragment from the Song of Songs. I extracted it from the libretto by Charles Kondek of my opera Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk). The subtle adaptation/rearranging by Kondek of this deeply passionate, iconic Old Testament text creates the kind of flow that I found especially evocative, inspiring me to compose this "stand-alone" short composition, in response to the commission by SongFest.
The piano in this work plays a role that goes well beyond that of accompaniment, setting up many of Love's Call important ideas, of which a two-chord opening progression and the nimble fast-note motion of the center portion of the work are especially prominent. The imagery suggested to me by the text was essential to the generating of the work's larger architecture, while at the same time inspiring lush harmony and arching melody.
—Shulamit Ran
Shulamit Ran