SSAA + piano or SSATB + piano

NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER

I have an undergraduate double major in voice and piano, and understood early on the critical collaborative nature of the piano when it included in performance. The piano is not merely accompaniment, but should be an equal player in the drama and expressive outcome of a work. “Revelation” is based on a part of the book of Revelations, one of the most controversial and difficult descriptive accounts of future apocalyptic events. The severity and cataclysmic nature of the events is staggering. The work isolates one of those “apocalyptic sequences” – the sounding of seven trumpets, each one (until the seventh) heralding a more horrific event than the trumpet before it!

TEXT

First trumpet - Land: Hail and fire thrown down on the earth
Second trumpet - Sea: Mountain of fire thrown into the sea, destroying sea creatures and all ships
Third trumpet - Rivers and Springs: All water becomes bitter
Fourth trumpet - Heavens: Moon and stars turn black
Fifth trumpet - Abyss: A third of humankind is destroyed
Seventh trumpet - Final triumph and holy kingdom is established.

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Commissioned by Capital City Girl’s Choir, North Carolina.

SATB recording by THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES, Z. Randall Stroope, conductor