For SATB Chorus, Piano, and Optional Cello
Duration ca. 3’40”
Music by Loretta K. Notareschi
Words by Alyse Knorr
| Unfallen World View Score Sample | PDF license per copy (cello part included) $1.50/copy |
About the Music
Unfallen World is a commission from Nathaniel Voelker and the Soli Deo Gloria Choir of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Meaning “to God alone be the glory,” Soli Deo Gloria is a community choir dedicated to performing a wide range of sacred music. Voelker asked that the piece be inspired by the Christian theology of the science fiction novels of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945).
One of the most moving passages of the trilogy occurs when the protagonist revises his previous understanding of space, arriving at the epiphany that space is not empty, cold, and dead, as he had once thought, but rather the very source of life and beauty. Indeed, the human and extraterrestrial characters of the novels have a deep faith in both a sacred Intelligence and the profound goodness of all Creation. Also, they trust a divine plan that feels liberatory rather than limiting. Knorr’s words reveal this conviction, and in the music, I have sought to depict the words’ sweep of intimacy and grandeur, reflecting awe at both the tenderness and majesty of the universe.
-Loretta K. Notareschi, with Alyse Knorr
Lyrics
Call it not “space” but the “heavens,”
Not “cold” but rich with life.
A cosmic ocean full of glory
Spread across the sky.
Here is a world untouched
By evil, pain or greed,
Where all people live together
Fated, free in destiny
We are many, rich in difference,
But we speak a truth as one.
We trust the meaning in our lives,
As certain as the sun.
Here is a world untouched
By evil, pain or greed,
Where we trust in all that’s good,
The trust that makes us free.
We walk inside a will;
We live within intent.
We dive into the heart of joy,
The courage of lament.
Call it not “space” but the “heavens.”
Amen.
– Alyse Knorr