Is there any way I'd be able to get my hands on a pdf of this piece? I'd be very interested to take a look at some of those harmonies. Thanks in advance!

NOTES AND TEXT:

"The Untold Want" (2016 prizewinner of the Pacific Chorale Young Composers Competition) delves into Whitman’s poetry of the sea, and the American author’s fascination of its existential and spiritual metaphors. The music is immediately propelled by the vibrant exhortation “now…” addressing the Voyager with vigor and intrepid energy. A second poem is set, beginning “Gliding o’er all…” and spanning all of the wide dimension it describes. It speaks of life and death with fluency, and the choir will merge it with the energy of the former poem, appealing all the more “now” to set sail on life’s voyage.

I am drawn to the seafaring poems in the author’s work which led me to select this text, among many others. The unaccompanied choral setting of "The Untold Want" is conceived as a movement of a large choral cycle of Whitman poetry scored for choir, harp, and handbells entitled Voyaging. A 4-note motif at the word “Gliding” is one of its primary musical themes. My conception of the musical material of Voyaging began with 2011's "Aboard at a Ship's Helm," and its framework includes a setting of “O Captain! My Captain!” among other text settings of seafaring poetry from Leaves of Grass.

The untold want, by life and land ne’er granted,          
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
 
Gliding o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.
 
WALT WHITMAN

The Untold Want (John Alexander Singers)

Christian Guebert is a composer and music educator from Orange, California. His commissioned works include published and award-winning pieces, settings, and orchestrations for instrumental and choral ensembles. His music aims for immediacy, thoughtfulness, idiomatic performing style, and sonic depth. 

A prolific program director, he heads several yearly concert series including community handbell ensemble concerts and sacred music festivals, and he has served as adjudicator and clinician for handbell topics including several teaching appointments at National Seminars of Handbell Musicians of America. Guebert holds an MM degree (Cal State University, Fullerton, 2013, composition) and a Parish Music Certification (2015) and BA (2010) from Concordia University, Irvine, CA; he is now a PhD student in composition at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where he is a teaching associate for advanced musicianship and theory courses. He has taught university classes and lessons in theory, composition, ear training, singing, piano, counterpoint, orchestration, percussion, handbells, conducting, technology, and sacred music. Aside from current doctoral work, he also serves as music director at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Orange and adjunct professor at Concordia University Irvine (where he served as Composer-in-Residence). Recent publications include a handbell piece (Glad Adoration, Lorenz) and an orchestration of a choral work (Peter Anglea’s Silent Night, Beckenhorst). 

Recent works include a commissioning project as a Composition Fellow with Orange County-based Choral Arts Initiative, culminating in a March 2019 premiere of a large choral song cycle of Walt Whitman sea poetry set with harp and handbell ensemble (Voyaging, 2019), which incorporates “The Untold Want,” the prizewinning piece of the 2017 Pacific Chorale Young Composers Competition, performed by the John Alexander Singers.

The Untold Want (John Alexander Singers)

Christian Guebert

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