Introduction

Stephen Paulus is an American Classical composer known for his choral compositions as well as his operas. He is a Grammy Award winning composer. His choral works are often described by critics as rugged, angular, and rhythmically aggressive.

Overview

This movement comes from a three-part piece called The Earth Sings, all of which include a choir, piano accompaniment, and percussion. The text for this specific piece is from the MudBara tribe of Wave Hill, Australia. The text portrays the sun as a Goddess. The piece is based on three melodies introduced separately in different sections of the piece.

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.

Analysis

Text

The text of this piece is centered on the sun rising after a long night. It begins by painting a clear picture of the sun rising with a fp on the first words, “day breaks”. A couple measures later, all parts sing, in unison, an ascending melodic line on the words “the first rays of the rising sun”. The text painting continues on with a quarter note triplet on the word “stretching”. Each time the word “lighting” or “shining” appears in the text, all voices ascend. As the piece moves back to C dorian, after being in G dorian, the text shifts from talking about the sun, to talking about people moving under the sun. The text starts to personify the sun as a “she”. The final section, looking at the form diagram, consists of each part singing a different phrase of the piece, repeating it 3 times, before all parts ending the piece with a final fortissimo “day break”. This, combined with the crescendo written above the final repeated section, displays the final stages of the sun rising.

Form

As the form diagram attached above shows, the piece is split loosely into 3 sections. There is an A section, a B section, and then the piece circles back around to the A section with a few changes. When looking strictly at the text, there are no repeated words, until the final bubble where the music is written in G dorian. This makes it difficult to identify a clear form. When looking at the music, however, the mode of the piece creates a sense of form. C dorian and G dorian appear 3 times. There is also a clear vocal break in between each of the 3 sections, causing them to be more distinct as well.

Texture

There are many different forms used throughout this piece to produce its unique sound. These are the 3 main textures.

• Melody & accompaniment: Each time the text reads “Day breaks — the first rays of the rising sun, stretching her arms”, the melody is in the voices all together, and the accompaniment is in the piano.
• Homorhythmic/melody and accompaniment: This form of texture occurs when the rhythm in all the different voices is the same, and the words are being sung at the same time, but the pitches may be different. In this piece, rhythmic homophony is found primarily in parts of the B section, though the piano continues in an accompanimental texture.
• Polyphony: The last little bit of the piece requires each voice part singing a different text with different rhythms. This is repeated 3 times, creating a polyphonic texture before the final “day break!”

Rhythm & Meter

Arguably the most difficult aspect of this piece is the rhythm and meter. The rhythm changes constantly over the duration of the piece, and the rhythm, though not difficult to figure out when looking at the individual melodic lines, adds a deep complexity to the piece.

Rhythm: Outside of a few spots where there are across-the-beat triplets and dotted eighth and 16th notes, most of the rhythm is quarter notes and and eighth notes. Looking at the piece melodically, this is not very difficult. When taking into account the percussion and piano lines and the changing meter, the piece suddenly becomes more difficult. Most of the time, the left hand in the piano line does play on the down beat, but the right hand has difficult rhythms that do not always line up with the syncopation of the voice parts. As this song is about the sun rising in the morning and personifies the sun, the syncopation creates a dance-like feel to the piece with the voices and percussion adding grounding and stability and the feel of the sun gently rising. A prominent example of this is on pages 9 and 10 with the text “Burning through the gorge, she rises walking westwards, wearing her waistband of human hair…” Throughout this section, the piano plays syncopated eighth notes. In measures 43-44, the piano and maracas play the same rhythm. Both instances, combined with the text the voices are singing, give listeners a dance-like feel.

Meter: The beginning 10 measures of this piece alone change meter 7 times. The first 5 measures go back and forth between 3/4 and 5/4 before settling on 3/4 for a couple measures. The meter goes back to 5/4 for a measure and then stays on 4/4 for a larger part of the piece. This is a significant way to start a piece because listeners have no real understanding of where the downbeat falls, especially if it is changing every measure, until after measure 10. This combined with the clashing of drastically different rhythms happening between the piano and the percussion and voices causes the downbeat to be more difficult to find, if listeners are able to find it at all. The text in these opening measures reads, “Day breaks – the day breaks -”. Once securely in 4/4 meter, the text reads, “the first rays of the rising sun…”. Analyzing the text, meter, and dynamics all together, the opening phrase has a fp dynamic with a changing meter creating a sense of constant instability of the rising sun. The second phrase beginning “the first rays of the rising sun” is expressed with quarter notes, eighth notes, and a half note, all in 4/4 meter, really expressing the constant growth of the sun into the sky.

Harmony

• Modal – C dorian, G dorian, A mixolydian

This piece is written in several different keys, all modal. As shown in the form diagram, the piece begins in C dorian, decorating the C minor 7th chord throughout the section. It then switches to G dorian decorating the G minor 7th chord. The pattern is then repeated with an added A mixolydian in section B. The final section of the form diagram is again C dorian and G dorian, also decorating and adding ornamentation on top of the C minor 7th and G minor 7th chords respectively.

Teaching

• One of the Utah standards for secondary choirs reads, “Standard L3.MC.CR.3: Improvise/generate rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic ideas and phrases in three or more parts” (p. 81). In measures 25-30, there are 2 voice parts that are singing the same words on the same note as the third voice moves around, creating a melodic idea. In class, the director could have each student sing a melodically different part as all the other voices sing the same rhythm and words as written in the score.
• Another standard reads, “Standard L3.MC.CR.2: Generate both antecedent and consequent phrases within the context of a style” (p. 81) In measures 16-26, there are antecedent and consequent phrases sung at first between both soprano parts and the altos and then between the top soprano part and bottom two voices. In class, we could work on singing these phrases perhaps on different notes. We could have the sopranos sing their part in the beginning measures and have an alto in the choir sing something back.

Rehearsal

• Beginning of the piece measures 1-10

As stated above, the rhythm and constant change in meter make this piece particularly difficult for both the conductor and singers. Looking at the start of the piece, the meter changes every measure. For counting purposes, this might affect singers’ abilities to start exactly on the downbeat with confidence. Not to mention that this piece is written entirely in modes that middle school and high school singers may not know, making it even harder to find the right starting pitch. On top of this, with the meter change it may be a challenge to count the rests in measures 5 and 6. Having students conduct the meter while speaking the text in rhythm could be a good practice to help the students practice for performance day.

• The fact that it is written completely in different modes

This piece uses two different modes on three different starting notes. Students may look at the written-in accidentals and feel nervous about singing it. The entire piece is challenging pitch-wise, but especially the mode changes. For example, the top sopranos come in by themselves at rehearsal 4 (measure 32) singing in C dorian. Just two measures prior, all the parts were singing in G dorian. This entrance may be particularly difficult. A way to combat this could include singing through each modal scale represented in this piece while warming up as well as before practicing the different sections of the piece.

• Rehearsal 8, measures 65-66

As far as pitch is concerned, at rehearsal 8 (measures 65-66), the altos come in on an F. The right hand of the piano is trilling on F a measure before, and as they come in. As the piano is playing both F and G, this makes it difficult for the altos to come in by themselves on the correct pitch. A good way to work through this challenge could be by rehearsing without the piano trilling a couple times to make sure the altos know the the note they come in on and when, adding in the piano part trilling slowly back and forth between notes, and then practicing as though it is performance day.

• Rehearsal 9 to the end

The piece ends with each part singing different words, pitches, and rhythms at the same time. At the end of measure 76, the Soprano 1s sing a half note, Soprano 2s sing a quarter note triplet, and the Alto has a half note and quarter note. Especially considering the triplet, these different rhythms may prove hard to master, but add to the piece. A helpful tool for overcoming this particularly difficult spot in the music could be to practice each part separately with the piano. Have all students, no matter their voice part, sing the top soprano line a few times, then the bottom soprano, then the alto. Then work on piecing the different parts together. Start with everyone singing the top soprano, then have the other two parts move down to the bottom soprano line, then finally have the altos move to their respective line of music.

Performance

• One thing that really stands out in this piece are the written dynamics and how they reflect the text. The piece starts with a fp with a crescendo into the next part of the phrase. A few pages later, there is a diminuendo on the word “warmth” as all voices are moving downwards. There are a couple more simple markings and a crescendo at the end of the piece, but a lot is left up to the conductor and what the kind of feeling they are going for. A lot is left up to text painting.
• Understanding the role of the percussion and piano as well as their relationship with the voices is key in performing this piece well. Sometimes, pieces are composed and played more for the piano than the voices and vice versa. This piece is clearly written for the voices to start out at parts while also accommodating quite a bit of measures of rest intended for listeners to focus in on the piano and percussion parts and the role that they play in the overall performance of the piece.
• In this piece specifically, the form and harmony elements work together. The form is created by the mode shifts. Understanding the relationship between the form and key changes creates a better understanding of the overall sound and individual chord sounds a conductor is looking for.
• The dynamics and text painting work together nicely in this piece. Stephen Paulus, the composer, once stated that rather than finding a text for his music, he creates the music to back each text. The syncopation, dance-like piano accompaniment, and dynamics all work together to better this piece. As mentioned above, the melodic lines will ascend and descend based on the text. For example, all voice parts ascend and the top soprano part reaches one of the highest notes in the piece on the text “she shines”. On the dynamics side of analysis, all parts crescendo as they ascend, allowing the picture of day break to be clearly created in the mind of all listeners.