This piece began on a whim: to set a piece of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry for SATB a cappella. It was written fairly quickly over the course of about ten days straddling November and December 2022, and I had no real idea of what the piece would be until I had completed the main elements of word setting. I then realised that what I had written was essentially a quest for a clear, unambiguous chord of E major. So I went back and altered some parts of the harmony to make this the point of the piece.

Ultimately, E major is reached at the words "No More!", (although spelled in the piece as F flat major), Poe's moment in the poem of declaring himself no longer scared of death and the silence of the grave, the "corporate silence" found in "… lonely places / Newly with grass o'ergrown". The rest of the piece deals with the acceptance of death as a necessity, ending with a hard-won return to the same E major chord at the end of the piece, on the word "God" from where the piece fades to nothing.

MP3 is of a MIDI realisation. Anyone wishing to record, please get in touch.