World, O World – Jacob Collier's beautiful new choral piece – Sept. 6, 2023

Описание: Recorded live at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center from sixth row center featuring the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers, former members of the Aeolians. Ferdinand is the Director of Choral Activities, Chair of the Music Department, and a Full Professor at Oakwood University.

Allow me to add a few thoughts...

We're carried aloft by the soaring, piercing melody line and the richness of the harmonies in this remarkable new piece, but it’s the words (included below) that give Collier’s music its wings. He’s written a reflection on the glory of life, as seen through the eyes of someone nearing its end. And yet we know—we pray—that Jacob himself is only at the beginning of his journey.

Here is an artist who looks ahead across the vast sweep of his future and imagines the day it will all draw to a close. He knows that saying goodbye to this world he cherishes—adores, even pines for—will be the ultimate parting. In this poem, he sings not from resignation, but with a kind of sweet, aching foresight, as though already heartsick for a farewell still decades away.

I wonder: Who feels at this depth? Who at his age has ever carried such emotional weight and conveyed it with such transcendent skill?

As Jacob Collier steps fully into the public stage as he continues to mature in private, one can only marvel at the prospect of greatness still to come from this once-in-a-century talent. – GR

World, O World
by Jacob Collier

World, oh, world
You've been my home
Home
Home
Now it's time for me to go
Give me the wings to fly, fly
Sudden rise and sudden fall
You've been with me through it all
Always keeping by my side
Always by my side

Love, oh, love
You've been a friend
Love, oh
Love, oh
Now the road must reach an end
Come, it is time to go (It's time to go)
Time is swift to come to pass
Nothing stays and nothing lasts
Always moving on (Moving on and on)
Always moving on

And when I call your name
I think I love again
I lay my world upon your hands
Again, again
And when you call my name
I feel my fire again
Oh, you are my soul
Oh, take me home

Until we meet
Until we meet again
Until we meet again
Until we meet again
Goodbye
Until we meet again, until we meet again
Meet again
Goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye