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Score title
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Emily!
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Composer
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Barbara Harbach
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Date
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2007
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Instrumentation
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Soprano voice, trumpet, piano
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Program note
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Emily! for Soprano, Eb or Bb Trumpet and Piano is in three movements, based on the poetry of the great American poet, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) . The first movement, I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed, portrays a mystical state of experiencing the soul’s awareness, an awareness that is so overwhelmingly uplifting that she feels as if she had become intoxicated by drinking alcohol. The second movement, If You Were Coming in the Fall, is about love, time and separation, and addressed to someone who is away. The third movement, based on two poems Wild Nights! Wild Nights! and For Each Ecstatic Instant. Wild Nights! Wild Nights! is a poem of unrestrained passion and rapture. For Each Ecstatic Instant describes a relationship of joy and pain, and joy is inevitably paid for by suffering – joy is brief but the resulting pain lasts. The soprano, trumpet and piano intermingle and weave the melodies, each an integral part of the whole, forming a true trio.
Barbara Harbach
