To Make a Prairie
Sheet Music

Women's Chorus and Piano (SSA choir and piano) - Moderate

SKU: SF.SEA-016-00

Composed by Elizabeth Alexander. Community Chorus, Junior/Youth Choir, Concert Music. Seasonal-Spring, Creation, Dreams, Secular, Choral. Octavo. With Text language: English. Duration 3 minutes. Published by Seafarer Press (SF.SEA-016-00).

Poem by Emily Dickinson, "To Make a Prairie".

A delicate setting of Dickinson's timeless poem about the power of dreams - the crucial ingredients of creation. The opening lines are sung in open octaves, creating a hollow, flutelike sound; not until the mystical word "revery" does a richer chord appear in the voices. Arpeggios in the piano sweep in irregularly, touched with haunting dissonances and understated syncopations. The meter alternates smoothly between 2/2 and 3/2, and shouldn't prove difficult for a women's choir. The song includes a brief mid-range solo near the end. Soprano: f '-f " , Soprano II: f '-d" , Alto: a-a'
Featured in: Choral Journal article "Quality Music for Women's Choirs" (Catherine Roma, 2004)

Text: To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee - One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few. Copyright by Little, Brown and Company. Reprinted by permission.