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Speakings is preceded here by two earlier pieces that find instrumental equivalents for the human voice: in Scena, a solo violin that swoops and swoons like an operatic diva; in Jubilus, a viola conducts conversations with the other eight instruments that eventually resolve into a stratospheric Tibetan chant.

These men were working out in their own fashion the psychology of the contemplative life, showing how we may ascend through "cogitation, meditation, and speculation" to "contemplation," and how we may pass successively through jubilus, ebrietas spiritus, spiritualis jucunditas, and liquefactio, till we attain raptus or ecstasy.