The Day is Done - Stephen Paulus Performed by The Singers - Minnesota Choral Artists & Matthew Culloton Released on Splendid Jewel: Choral Music of Stephen Paulus Sheet Music available: stephenpaulus.com/products/th...
A very lovely and poignant song. As someone who enjoys doing musical arranging, I have a question about notation that I'm wondering if anyone could help me understand. This music is very obviously rooted in the key of D major, yet there is no key signature to reflect that; that part is left blank, resulting in lines littered with accidentals. I have seen that sometimes in musical works where the key modulates frequently or is wildly chromatic it becomes simpler to just omit the key altogether rather than indicating key changes every time there is a shift in tonality because that would quickly become confusing and tiresome. But this piece doesn't have any kind of modulation at all, so what is the reasoning behind omitting the key signature? If anyone knows of an explanation for that I would greatly appreciate it.
Some contemporary composers just have a preference for leaving key signatures empty and working exclusively with accidentals throughout. I've always thought it's a bit of a mind game: the composer may not want to "feel" locked into a particular key, and it also engenders in the performers a different mindset as they're reading the music. In this case, the piece is clearly in D-major.
Not sure of the reasoning, but Paulus did this in his "Pilgrim's Hymn" as well, though in that case it's a bit more warranted due to (like you said) lots of modulations. I can't speak for his other works (e.g., "The Road Home" has a key signature), but I think it just comes down to preference.
Very nice arrangement! And I thought I was the only one to set the words in music, so naiv I am: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rQ5oFIOMTa8.html
