EACH JUBILANT CHORD
Musical settings of Thomas Traherne

Emma Chopourian

Thomas Traherne Songs

A setting for soprano and piano of stanzas 1,2,5 and 6 of Thomas Traherne’s poem The Salutation (in the Philip Traherne version).

These little Limbs,
These Eys and Hands which here I find,
This panting Heart wherwith my Life begins;
Where have ye been? Behind
What Curtain were yr from me hid so long!
(Where was, in what Abyss, my new-made Tongue?)

When silent I
So many thousand thousand Years
Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos ly,
How could I Smiles, or Tears,
Or Lips, or Hands, or Eys, orEars perceiv?
Welcom ye Treasures which I now receiv.

From Dust I rise
And out of Nothing now awake;
These brighter Regions which salute mine Eys
A Gift from God I take:
The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Skies,
The Sun and Stars are mine; if these I prize.

A Stranger here,
Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,
Strange Treasures lodg’d in this fair World appear,
Strange all and new to me:
But that they mine should be who Nothing was,
That Strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.


A performance of the work may be viewed on Youtube given by Helen Arnold (soprano) and Emma Chopourian (piano). The recording was made at Michaelhouse church, Cambridge on 16th September 2015.