Many, many years ago at a recital I ran into Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ poem Süße Stille, sanfte Quelle (Sweet Stillness, Soft Springs). While Georg Frideric Händel expertly set his friend’s text, it was the words I carried with me since (sorry Georg). From time to time I’ve recalled the sentiment the poem captured so eloquently—searching for stillness and peace—but not in their original liturgical context, more in my humanistically universal way. Many years later, I had a colleague and dear friend, the fierce, warm, and brilliant musicologist Dr. K. M. (Kay) Knittel. I showed her Brockes’ poem, and she kindly translated it from the German. While I started setting her translation, I never finished. Fast forward to this past summer (2023) when I was contacted about this choral commission, I coincidentally came across some of Kay’s scholarly articles, books, and her Brockes’ translation. The text seemed even more relevant, an antidote to our world’s current darkness, strife, and anger. After reviewing my old sketches and notes I came to the quick conclusion that there were missing components in what I wanted to convey. By the end I only set two brief excerpts from the Brockes, which are printed in italics. The rest of the text I crafted myself. We live in an increasingly violent, mean-spirited, and often graceless time. People spend more time perfecting their rapid-fire social media insults in the “aether” than processing, let alone making connection with others. My Sweet Stillness is a plea for the opposite: for peace, kindness, and the grace that comes through humility as sometimes we all misjudge, misspeak, and are wrong. The music creates a neutral space to contemplate, center, feel, and extend grace to one another. The work is dedicated to Kay “who still lights the world around us.”

Sweet Stillness

Sweet stillness, gentle source of quiet calm!
Even the soul will be made joyous
Darkness leads to darkness,
Hatred leads to only hatred.
Loving one another
Lights the world around us.
Only love can do that.
In stillness sweet we start to hear
Each other’s song.
In stillness sweet we start to see
All we can be!
Be caring, be kinder, be open, and hopeful,
And loving, and listening, and finding sweet stillness.
That stillness, calm.
That eternally waits for us.
Darkness, hate, and silence
Bring on darkness, hate, and silence.
Loving one another,
Lights the world around us.
Only love can do that.
Amen.

Süße Stille, sanfte Quelle: Barthold Heinrich Brockes (translation of excerpt by Dr. K.M. Knittel)
Additional text: Joel Phillip Friedman. Brockes’ words are printed in italics, all other words: Joel Phillip Friedman

This project is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.