Category: COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY
Composer: Jocelyn Hagen
Arranger: NA
Publisher: Graphite Publishing
Edition: –
Voicing: SATB divisi
Setting: a cappella
Reviewer:
Bert Pinsonneault
University of St. Thomas
R&R Chair College & University
Minnesota choral conductors are no stranger to composer Jocelyn Hagen, but this work deserves special highlight: music is especially evocative when composers employ extreme sensitivity to the natural rhetorical stress of language and poetry, letting a story unfold for the listener. In this piece, Hagen reveals herself to be a true master of text-setting parallel to a Samuel Barber or Dominick Argento. This text comes from the moment in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Queen Gertrude delivers the bad news to Laertes of his sister’s death. A complement to programs exploring loss, deprivation, and isolation.
Link: https://graphitepublishing.com/product/ophelia/
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibBX7CUZGo