Night Song, Op.21 (Bird, Peter)

Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's	1
Composition Year	2013
Genre Categories	Songs; For mixed chorus, percussion; Scores featuring mixed chorus; Scores featuring percussion soloists; For chorus with solo instruments; English language

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Pbird (2013/5/18)

Publisher Info.	Peter Bird
Performers	Sibelius
Copyright	Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 [tag/del]
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Complete Score
*#281446 - 0.10MB, 9 pp. - 0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 414×⇩ - Pbird

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Pbird (2013/5/18)

Publisher. Info.	Peter Bird
Copyright	Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 [tag/del]
Misc. Notes	Explanation of names in text on page 9 of the PDF.
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Work Title	Night Song
Alternative. Title
Composer	Bird, Peter
Opus/Catalogue NumberOp./Cat. No.	Op.21
I-Catalogue NumberI-Cat. No.	IPB 14
Key	F major
Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's	1
Year/Date of CompositionY/D of Comp.	2013
First Publication.	2013
Librettist	composer
Language	English
Average DurationAvg. Duration	4 minutes
Composer Time PeriodComp. Period	Modern
Piece Style	Modern
Instrumentation	Mixed chorus, drum

This style of this song is inspired by both Native American and African choral traditions. The Paiute place-names in the text fix it in the lonely lands north of the Grand Canyon: the High Plateaus around the Arizona-Utah border. (Paunsagunt, Kaibab, & Kaiparowits are the great plateaus which frame the country; Kanab & Nankoweap are two permanent creeks which supported small Indian villages.) This song expresses the joy of togetherness on a starry night with gentle breezes in the pines and perhaps a far-off sound of running water.

This is a shingled part-song consisting of repeated 4-bar phrases of 5/4. The diatonic pitches are easy to read, and the only challenge is to count correctly until this meter becomes natural. As each voice part has only 4 or 5 distinct phrases (totalling 16 or 20 distinct bars), it is not hard to memorize. It could serve well as a concert-closer (or encore number) in an evening concert.