While the World Shall Last

ENS.2016.1 | 9′
Poems from Edward FitzGerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam
Voice & Piano

Score

Part 1 (from the Fifth Edition)

1

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17

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40

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47

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63

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72

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83

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Part 2 (from the First Edition)

1

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18

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46

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51

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57

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58

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60

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I wanted to write a song cycle like minimalist Webern: musical Cornell boxes, stripped of excess but decorative and intricately worked. Selections from Edward FitzGerald’s famous translations of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat were chosen for their brevity and rhythm and placed alongside or in opposition to a procession of small musical ideas. There are two parts corresponding to the fifth and first editions of FitzGerald, each comprising seven songs.