 |
|
    |
 |
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The other anthem that is part of "A Whitman Service" is "A Song of Joys"; to my mind this can serve in place of any Jubilate in a church. The graduating class of the Westminster Choir College commissioned it. "A Whitman Service" also includes five songs for baritone solo, one of which is a setting of "O Captain! My Captain!," the great Lincoln elegy. I was recently asked to write a piece for Marion Van Der Loo's church in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln gave a very moving address just before he left for Washington to take office. This is known as "Farewell to Springfield"; I used it for my text, and have included it in "A Whitman Service." The piece ends with a ten-minute cantata for baritone, mezzo, and chorus on "For You O Democracy." The entire work is intended for the concert hall although, as I have said, several sections originated as, and still can be used as, anthems, available in organ, and brass-plus-organ, arrangements. One of my most widely used short choral pieces is "Where the Music Comes From" (for SA and SATB), originally a song. I wrote the words as a kind of folk song—when I wrote it I called it my Cat Stevens song—for private use by my friends in a New Age consciousness-raising group that I belonged to in the seventies. I was prevailed upon to include it in a group of my published songs. I thought this was inappropriate, but the next thing I knew Leontyne Price was singing it in Carnegie Hall. Now I'm going to talk about "Hymn to the New Age," of which you have all been given copies. This anthem had a weird kind of genesis. Back in the seventies I was writing theater music every season for the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. The director, Bill Ball, often had grandiose ideas that included music. When he staged Shakespeare's Richard the Third he wanted to end with a great chorus of good triumphing over evil. He said he wanted a piece that reached for the highest feeling of triumph, and after it reached that it should go even higher. And when it got higher, it should go still higher, then higher again. I would never have written such a piece if he hadn't said that. But I did my best, and wrote what you will hear now. [A recording was played.] After I had written all the music for this production, and recorded it all with full orchestra, I went back home to New York while they were still rehearsing the play in San Francisco. Dozens of costumes were already made for the last big scene of the play; it was all white and gold, and bathed in sunshine. Two young boys were supposed to be blowing big long trumpets at the edge of the stage. Then I found out that they had to abandon the whole last scene because the chorus couldn't follow the tape! I use ample rubato when it's called for, generous retards, etc., and when the company chorus started rehearsing with the tape, they couldn't follow it. So they had to abandon the whole thing, chorus, costumes, trumpets, and all. I felt pretty bad about it, as if I had somehow failed them. Eventually I added new words and published it as "Hymn to the New Age." Since it was written for an amateur chorus, it's good for almost any celebration. I also made an arrangement for full symphony orchestra. Larry King (who did the brass arrangement) performed it for many years, every Fourth of July, at Trinity Church on Wall Street; it was even sung at the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. I saw this on television. It was much too slow. |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
Academics | Admissions | Alumni | Works | Listen | Look | Contact | Index | Home | Yale University
|