The Saddest Noise by Emily Dickinson Woodwind Ensemble - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1171219

Christopher Tin is a contemporary composer who is best known for his choral piece called Baba Yetu. With an impressive educational background in music composition, English literature, and art history, his compositions come to life with like nothing that I've experienced before. It is simply some of the most beautiful and expressive music I have ever heard.

The Lost Birds is a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humans. Tin’s soundtrack is a fantastic work of art, with its soaring musical phrases that make you feel like you’re flying.

The Saddest Noise is a choral piece, with its lyrics taken from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Noise,” which talks of the relationship between beauty and grief.

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows,
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.

The Lost Birds soundtrack was sung by the choral group, Voces8, who made the music and poetry come to life in a way that not many other groups could. It is simply beautiful.

This arrangement is scored for flute choir – 4 C, alto, bass, and contrabass. There is an optional cello part that doubles the contrabass. This is not a strict transcription - I added moving parts and changed/added notes to make it of more interest as an instrumental piece. I hope you like it.

Duration: 3.5 minutes.