Break, Break, Break

Program Notes

Origins

Friends of mine from the Cascadian Chorale—Jeremy Kings and Doug Wyatt—were singing with a newly formed sixteen-voice professional choir called Radiance (formerly Vox 16), directed by Markdavin Obenza. Markdavin founded the ensemble to develop emerging talent for the Byrd Ensemble and other professional choirs in the Seattle area. When they put out an open call for scores, I jumped at the chance—and promptly misread their suggested maximum duration of five minutes as a minimum. The result was a piece that took full advantage of the available voices, written for eight parts where I wanted the more complex textures to reflect the crashing sea or the inner turmoil of the narrator.

They premiered the piece on April 16, 2016 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Seattle. Whatever the misunderstanding about duration, it produced one of the most heart-wrenching passages I have written: the final six measures, where the tempo drops to half note = 36 and the music seems to simply stop breathing. And the relationship with Markdavin that grew from this collaboration ultimately led to the Byrd Ensemble recording of Stories and the inclusion of my Kyrie from Missa Dramatica on Vox 16’s Locally Sourced album.

The Music

Tennyson’s poem uses an interesting device to build emotional intensity. The poem opens with rather conventional imagery (crashing sea, coldness, grayness). So, too, the music starts with a texture that mimics the endless crashing waves—a cascade of falling voices resolving suspensions only to create new ones: “break, break, break, …” The main narrative is then taken up by the choir in a style that is thick with suspensions that reflect the narrator’s yearning. But Tennyson’s narrator unexpectedly describes a rather more joyful scene: boys and girls at play, lads singing, stately ships…, a mood which is directly reflected in the music. Only then does the narrator reveal his loss. Even though the closing of the poem (and the music) is similar to the start, the contrast Tennyson created has heightened our emotions, and we feel the ending very differently—we have changed.

The Structure

The piece follows a modified rondo form (A–B–C–D–B′–A′–B″–Coda). Two recurring ideas anchor the structure: a family of imitative passages (A, A′)—the cascading opening that builds the “Break” motif voice by voice, and its later transformations including the “never” canon; and a homorhythmic refrain—“Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stone, O Sea!” (B)—which returns two more times (B′ and B″), each in a new key, at a stronger dynamic, and with a more complex texture. The episodes between are entirely through-composed. The tonal trajectory reinforces the poem’s message: the music moves from chromatic ambiguity through A minor to D minor and never returns, mirroring Tennyson’s “will never come back to me.” And the dynamic climax arrives not at the final refrain but at its dissolution—a wash of interlocking vocal fragments over a D minor pedal (mm. 99–104) that evokes the sea itself before the coda’s quiet resignation.

Performance Notes

The primary challenges of Break, Break, Break are tonal rather than rhythmic. A cappella singing through remote modulations—including an enharmonic shift from A minor to Ab major—canonic counterpoint, and an experimental wash texture place this firmly at Level 4 (Advanced). The straightforward rhythmic profile (predominantly half and quarter notes in 2/2) is a significant accessibility factor, freeing rehearsal time for intonation and expressive shaping.

Notes for Directors

• Breath management is the primary vocal challenge. Singers are nearly continuously active, with only a handful of rests across the entire piece. The alto section sustains approximately 150 seconds without rest across mm. 1–55; bass is similarly taxed. Plan for staggered breathing throughout, and note that a minimum section size of six to eight singers per part is recommended to absorb staggered breaths without audible textural thinning.
• The imitative opening (mm. 1–10) is the highest-risk passage for first impressions. Voices enter one pair at a time in a tonally ambiguous, modulatory context—pitch security must be absolute from the first note, as each successive entry compounds any drift. Resist the temptation to sing above the marked p for pitch comfort.
• The Ab major excursion (m. 28) is the piece’s most dramatic tonal shift—an abrupt enharmonic pivot a half-step below the functional tonic of A minor. If the ensemble treats this as a gradual transition rather than a decisive recontextualization, intonation will sag. Drill the pivot measure separately.
• The “never” canon (mm. 77–86) is the peak rehearsal challenge. Staggered canonic entries over a cycling harmonic pattern expose any section’s rhythmic or tonal insecurity. The simultaneous poco a poco dim. compounds the difficulty: singers must maintain independent pitch against dissonant overlapping entries while getting quieter. Isolate each section’s entry, then combine voices gradually.
• The wash texture (mm. 99–104) is an all-or-nothing passage. All voices sustain interlocking scalar-third patterns over a D minor pedal with no harmonic landmarks. When every singer is fully committed, this is the piece’s most stunning moment—a choral evocation of the sea itself. When singers are tentatively approximating, it sounds chaotic. Drill at half tempo until patterns are internalized.
• The piece is scored for SATB with divisi in all parts at select moments. The Soprano, Alto, and Tenor divisi have separate staves; the Bass divisi (octaves) is notated on a single staff.

• The declared key signature is C major, but the functional tonal center is A minor for most of the piece, moving through many temporary key areas (including Ab major, D major, and several others) before arriving permanently at D minor for the final stanza. The tonal trajectory never returns—a deliberate musical analog to Tennyson’s “will never come back to me.”

Rehearsal Resources

The Text