Interior intimo meo

(SATB choir, a cappella

Program Notes

            My dear friend and colleague was getting married, and I—being a poor graduate student—didn’t have funds for anything beyond a card. I wanted to give them something special, “from the heart,” and decided upon a dedicated composition. The text was carefully chosen from St. Augustine, as her husband is an Orthodox Christian, and St. Augustine is one of the Fathers of the Church. However, my friend herself is not a Christian, per se, so I selected a text about love that makes no overt mention of God, and—upon further reading—could as easily be about erotic, conjugal love as the radical love God has for God’s children. Then I tricked my friend into helping me record it!

            Taking a cue from the Latin text, the music is polyphonic, with nods to Palestrina and to 20th Century harmonies. The singers should be aware of the long lines, and understand that the vertical sonorities only occur in the context of horizontal motion. Each phrase of the poem beings a point of imitation, which is interspersed with quasi-homophonic sections, as well as paired imitative moments. When it reaches “pacem,” the rhythm doubles, and the newly elongated lines are designed to reflect the peace being sung. I have included IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) characters, as well as a translation for each line of the poem.

Original Latin text [PDF}