The Ecstatic Pilgrimage

Song Collection

The Ecstatic Pilgrimage is Leo Smit's enormous, six-cycle song group, which sets 76 poems of Emily Dickinson.

Smit discovered Dickinson's poetry in 1988, and The Ecstatic Pilgrimage was composed between 1988-1990. Nils Vigeland wrote that the songs of The Ecstatic Pilgrimage:

"...represent an extraordinary response to the poetry itself but also a declaration of personal affinity by the composer towards the poet. Leo referred to the composing of these songs as the happiest time in his creative life. In listening to them, one is struck by their consistency. They get right to the text. It isn't that the words aren't illustrated or inflected, but there is something else pushing the music forward. The songs are about the satisfaction of finding the notes in the words."

The sheet music for Childe Emilie and The White Diadem are available to purchase through Theodore Presser or Sheet Music Plus. For inquiries about Leo Smit and to obtain sheet music for the additional cycles, please contact Nils Vigeland at [email protected].

Date: 1990Composer: Leo SmitText: Emily Dickinson

Print vitals & song text

Song List

The six song cycles of The Ecstatic Pilgrimage:

1. Childe Emilie
2. The Celestial Thrush
3. The Marigold Heart
4. Beyond Circumference
5. Tinted Mountains
6. The White Diadem

Sheet Music

Childe Emilie

Composer(s): Leo Smit

Song(s): 1. I was the slightest in the House
2. Through lane it lay - through bramble
3. It troubled me as once I was
4. The Child's faith is new
5. Softened by Time's consummate plush
6. Papa above!
7. We talked as Girls do
8. They shut me up in Prose
9. I cried at Pity - not at Pain
10. Let Us play Yesterday
11. A loss of something ever felt I
12. Good Morning - Midnight
13. Up Life's Hill with my little Bundle
14. I'm ceded - I've stopped being Theirs

Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano, Soprano

Buy via Theodore Presser Company

The White Diadem

Composer(s): Leo Smit

Song(s): 1. I reckon - when I count at all
2. I dwell in Possibility
3. The Martyr Poets - did not tell
4. The Poets light but Lamps
5. I would not paint - a picture
6. To pile like Thunder to its close
7. Me - come! My dazzled face

Voice Type: Mezzo-Soprano, Soprano

Buy via Theodore Presser Company

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