Nico
Muhly,

Syllables is an exploded setting of an old Icelandic text describing the end of the world. I say exploded as I elected to set the text both in English, fragments of Old Icelandic, as well as nonsense syllables taken from both languages. There is a constant, anxious pulse throughout the first section, which ends with a giant unison and the entire choir singing the same text for the first time in the piece. This texture melts into an aquatic, lilting piano accompaniment, over which a long, long line eventually dissolves into unison chordal syllables, as if the last things standing are the fragments of language.

Syllables was commissioned by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus as part of their 2006-2007 commissioning season, alongside works by Paul Morvaec and David Lang.

Read a review here.

Texts

Icelandic texts:
Sól tér sortna, sígr fold í mar,
hverfa af himni heiðar stjörnur;
geisar eimi ok aldrnari,
leikr hár hiti við himin sjálfan.

Geyr nú Garmr mjök fyr Gnípahelli;
festr man slitna, en freki renna.

Sér hon upp koma öðru sinni
jörð ór œgi iðjagrœna;
falla forsar, flýgr örn yfir,
sá er á fjalli fiska veiðir.

Þar munu eptir undrsamligar
gullnar töflur í grasi finnask,
þærs í árdaga áttar höfðu.

Völuspá 57-59, 61

English texts:
The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,
The hot stars down from heaven are whirled;
Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame,
Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.

Now Garm howls loud before Gnipahellir,
The fetters will burst, and the wolf run free;
Much do I know, and more can see
Of the fate of the gods, the mighty in fight.

Now do I see the earth anew
Rise all green from the waves again;
The cataracts fall, and the eagle flies,
And fish he catches beneath the cliffs.

In wondrous beauty once again
Shall the golden tables stand mid the grass,
Which the gods had owned in the days of old.

Trans. Henry Adams Bellows (1923)