For a Breath of Ecstasy: 5. Spend All You Have on Loveliness

A lovely piece for women's choir with oboe obbligato. The text is taken from Barter, the first in a set of Pulitzer Prize-winning poems from American poet Sara Teasdale. Despite the poet's history of poor emotional and physical health, the text captures a hopeful attitude that foreshadows the spirit of optimism that was the precursor to the Roaring Twenties. Beautiful harmonic shifts and interesting voice leading make the text come alive. "Spend all you have on loveliness and never count the cost, for one white hour of singing peace counts years of strife well lost..."