Newlyweds

Available for purchase at GIA Music Publications
GIA item: G-7792
ASCAP Title # 880514190

Performance Notes from the Poet:
“Newlyweds” is inspired by a young couple I met at an airport. They had been married in a small civil ceremony and were literally flying “home” to celebrate their wedding with friends and family. “Newlyweds” is written in the often overlooked Welsh poetic form called the cynhunned. It requires a seven syllable line and often yields an astonishing lyric intensity. The play within the line results in rich alliteration and attention to sound that creates a kind of echoing across the lines that Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins aptly described as “chiming.” I am thrilled that composer Nathan Jones has been inspired by this poem, and it is an honor to have the piece included in this year’s Westminster Choir concert during the Spoleto Festival.

Marjory Wentworth
South Carolina Poet Laureate

Performance Notes from the Composer
Marjory is the author of three collections of poetry. I discovered her work while singing at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC with the Westminster Choir in June of 2009.

“Newlyweds,” from Wentworth’s collection Despite Gravity, is a simple and elegant text, containing many wonderful images – including red and yellow roses clasped in front of a young bride’s heart and ribbons spilling out of bags of unopened gifts. Such depictions invoke for me the feeling of excited uncertainty at the beginning of a married couple’s journey. To reflect this excitement and sense of traveling forward, I have used a rising suspension chain that mimics the unraveling and spilling out of the streaming ribbons. To represent the security and comfort felt at the beginning of this new level of commitment in a relationship, I provided solid chords for the lower voices. The final words (“…as they travel home with all they think they will ever need.”) return us “home” to the voices and music used at the beginning of the piece. However, in a desire to portray the unknown final outcome of the couple’s relationship, the ending of the piece leaves the music unresolved, for this is only the beginning – they have yet to live their life, writing their own story together.

Media

March 13, 2010
Youtube
Lafayette High School
Madrigal Singers
Ryan Marsh, conductor
Southern ACDA Convention
Memphis, TN

June 5, 2010
Listen
Westminster Choir
Dr. Joe Miller, conductor
Spoleto Festival USA
Charleston, SC