Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet Ozymandias captures the haunting impermanence of human achievement—the rise and inevitable decay of empires, the arrogance of power, and the silent endurance of time. This choral setting brings the poem’s vivid imagery to life through shifting textures and layered harmonies that echo the crumbling monuments described in the text. Expansive, open sonorities evoke the vast, empty desert, while tense, clustered chords mirror the fractured remnants of the ancient statue. Moments of stillness allow the text’s irony to resonate: the proud words of the past, now surrounded by nothingness. The work does not aim to glorify or mourn but to reflect—on ambition, on the traces we leave behind, and on the quiet forces that outlast us all.
