Nightwatch (6')

high voice with chamber orchestra (2-1-1-2, 2 horns, 2 perc., strings ) OR with piano

Assurance (from The Nightwatch cycle)

The Nightwatch (from The Nightwatch cycle)

Two tiny love songs by Joelle Wallach are grouped together asThe Nightwatch for high voice with either or chamber orchestra. “Assurance,” the first song, with astonishing melodic purity, opens the heart in a soaring yet poignantly simple expression of love: the words of the late poet William Stafford’s assurance to his wife that, even after his death, she would never be alone because his presence, through the prism of her own devotion, would pervade her perceptions of the natural world. “Nightwatch,” the second, eponymous song, is an outpouring of regret at leaving a lover, a river of flowing harmony in the melody reflects the flood of feelings as well as the water imagery of Madeleine Tiger’s poem.

“…impressive, its bare textures and wide registral gaps capturing the ear….a tremendous song [that] forms the perfect introduction to Wallach’s art. One can hear her expert ear, the way she can achieve with economy of means exactly what she wants to achieve. It also acts as a reminder that the art of the Lied is far from dead.” Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine

available at Amazon.com