Notes

Be Not Afeard was composed in 1989 for mixed chorus, piano, synthesizer and percussion (one player). The text is from The Tempest, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. The percussionist was too close to a mic and played too aggressively, but  the chorus does a great job of evoking the magic in the words.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

PLAY

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