Summer - Jamie W. Hall

Duration: 2'15"
Ensemble: SATB unaccompanied
Grading: Difficult
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Blazes the day
With heavy fruit abounding arm
To make a stay
Exclusive and enclose
Of all I chose.

In joyful toil
Pursue the promise golden made
To turn the soil
Sow, shelter, nurture, feed
Desire as need.

Press on I must
Exult as flower gives way to seed
Past years' growth trust
No doubt to turn awry
Love the bright sky.

The final instalment of a set of choral seasons entitled To Every Thing... — settings of texts by Reuben Thomas — Summer combines stillness, comfort, satisfaction with a hint of melancholy: knowledge that life's summer must end and autumn's decline must arrive.

Where Spring, Autumn and Winter depict transition and change, Summer uses a simpler harmonic language and an ABA+ structure which hopes to capture the static quality of those long August days that seem like they might never end.

Except where there are rests, this miniature should be performed with a staggered breathing arrangement to avoid any breaks in what should be an almost seamless texture.

See also To Every Thing…, the full cycle which contains Summer.