Voicing: SATB a cappella
By Michael John Trotta
Words by Rabindranath Tagore
About the poet . . Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali writer, painter, and musician perhaps best known for his poetry. In 1913, he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his work. Gitaniali (Song Offerings) is comprised of 103 English poems dealing with a metaphysical nature of union. The nineteenth poem in the collection, If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence, is used as the foundation of this choral work. The imagery highlights the path of interior reflection as offering solace to the disquietude of waiting for light in the midst of darkness.