This is the first movement (Prologue) of a five-movement work featuring texts by Johannes Kepler, John Donne, and the Psalms. Dedicated to Swiss astrophysicist Arnold Benz, a relative of the composer, the work is based on melodic ideas written to be overlaid with images of various constellations. "The Heavens Declare" is a setting of Psalm 19: 1-4, in which tenor soli and SATB choir alternately declaim the text in a call-and-response structure.