Orison of Ste. Theresa [8']

Orison of Ste. Theresa is the first of four choral works Wallach composed during the 1984-85 year of a grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, awarded for “Outstanding Artistic Merit” and “Achievement as an Artist.” The work is a setting of Longfellow’s English translation of a section of a prayer by 16th century mystic, Ste.Theresa of Avila, who believed in the sanctity of simple acts when those acts were imbued with the grace of faith. The focus of this particular prayer (or Orison) is faith as consolation. And the music represents these in the gentle stroking of the choral line after the quietly gasping sobs of the strings.