Ethan Watts: 'God Gives Love' (2025), for acappella SSATB quintet (Score Video)

'God Gives Love' performed by members of the Peabody NEXT Ensemble on November 1st, 2025 at Grace & St. Peter's Church, Baltimore, MD. Music by Ethan Watts, text by Sara Teasdale. I chose to compose in response to Monteverdi’s madrigal Darà la Notte il Sol, whose text describes the solitary pain of mourning. The poem, by the Italian bishop Scipione Agnello (1586-1653), appears to draw on Greek mythology, referencing Glaucus, the once-mortal fisherman turned sea god, who weeps an ocean of tears at his lover’s tomb. “The sun will light the earth by night and the moon by day,” Agnello writes, “before Glaucus will cease to kiss, to honor this breast which was the nest of love, now crushed by the weighty tomb.” For my piece, I chose the poem Dead Love by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), whose work I first encountered through Eriks Ēšenvalds’ setting of Stars. In contrast to Agnello’s emotive Glaucus, Teasdale’s poem conveys a profound grief and isolation, where the heart grows silent as God gives love—and then takes it away. Her language is direct and unadorned; her tone, quietly accusatory. My setting unfolds in three sections that mirror Darà la Notte il Sol, following its shifts in texture while expanding and commenting on its musical ideas. Teasdale writes, “I cannot weep, I cannot pray/My heart has very silent grown,” and I sought to reflect this stillness, offering a deliberate contrast to Monteverdi’s outpouring of sorrow. From the outset, I knew how I wanted the piece to end: by subverting the quintessentially Renaissance cadence. I push the soprano line downward, leaving the work unresolved. This unsettled conclusion mirrors the nature of my own questions and doubts about the role of the divine in human suffering. For more info, please visit: https://ethanwattsmusic.com/god-gives... Performers: Divira Pahwa, Zoe Chessa, soprano Abby Sherman, alto Larson Miller, tenor Ethan Watts, bass –Soli Deo Gloria– Copyright 2025 Ethan Watts Music (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved.