Orison of Ste. Theresa [8']

for SATB voices with string orchestra and harp OR with string quartet and harp OR with piano
Publisher: E.C.Schirmer
Orison of Ste Theresa score

Orison of Ste Theresa score

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.

Based on a poem by Ste. Theresa of Avila

translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing afright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth.
Patient endurance
Attaineth all things.
Whom God possesseth
Nothing is wanting.
Alone God sufficeth.