for soprano, mezzo, vibraphone and cello (2013)
duration: 4’
text by Ross Baglin
GRT • 172
score available from
Australian Music Centre
recording available
Kingfisher
Halcyon
Tall Poppies, TP236, 2015
YouTube
YouTube interview
text
The rain of stars within a silver glass,
An angel-winged and phosphorescent mask
Of stone and liquid, crackling
Into inlay, acquifer of tears and spring -
Foil that flickers on hummingbird wing,
And in your lapidary water, Lucifer
Splits baulks of light to find the dark,
Whispering mysteries to the opal moon
review
“Stuart Greenbaum’s beautiful piece, Opalescence, uses their perfect unisons dissolving into harmonies to provide a wonderfully evocative expression of the play of light on water. Opalescence uses a beautiful impressionistic poem by Ross Baglin, suggesting the play of reflected light on a pool from stars and moon. Soft vibraphone sustained tones and glissandos in the vocal parts perfectly convey this watery phosphorescence. The voices join in unisons and then dissolve apart into gentle harmonies, and a cello joins in adding watery depth. It is well suited to the voices, and Greenbaum has made the wonderful text very clear in the vocal parts, which certainly adds to one’s enjoyment.”
Inge Southcott, Loud Mouth, Music Trust E–Zine, November 2016