The Rose-Window

solo voice
Written By Keith Kirchoff

for baritone solo and organ - 5:00 - 2025

Credits

Jonathan Motes, baritone
Keith Kirchoff, organ

Program note

Text by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Jessie Lamont

In there: their paws with soundless lazy steps
create in stillness a confusing stir;
and then how suddenly on one of the cats
your glance moves to and fro,–and then aware,

compellingly in her great eyes she takes
the glance, which, as by a maelstrom caught fast,
swims for a little while, and then–sinks,
and of itself has no more consciousness:

when these eyes, which are seemingly at rest,
open, and, as with a roar, together close,
drawing the gaze into the very blood–:

so out of darkness once in times long past
the great Cathedral's glowing window-rose
thus seized a heart and drew it unto God.

Keith Kirchoff
Next

Woodland Adventures