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Friday, Sept 7, 2001
Journal for orchestral work about Gettysburg.
7:30am CST -- En route to Philadelphia/Gettysburg
with Gwen on Northwest Airlines from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Thoughts on titles for work.
(Will be collaborating with composer Amy Scurria.)
1. Hymns and Hollows.
2. War Dead/War Drums.
3. John Brown
4. From These Honored Dead
5. Fields of Freedom/Freedom's Fields/Open Fields
6. Better To Die Free Than Die Slaves.
7. Lincoln’s Trees
8. Peace — Wounded Souls
9. Gettysburg Address — Honey Locust (Witness: Silent Witnesses,
Witness Tree)
10. Gettysburg Farewell
Revisiting Gettysburg -- The Last Full
Measure
10:30am EST
En route/late start—rain delay
.
Talking with Gwen about the piece and possible titles. It just dawned
on me that the Last Full Measure Book title could have musical implications,
like a measure of music, the last full measure of music in this piece;
perhaps a movement without measures to honor the lives and souls of those
involved.
Maybe the last measure of this piece is majestic and with full orchestral
scoring or one of the movements. Amy and I compose every other measure
as a metaphor of the last full measure given by the MN/PA soldier.
12:05 pm EST
I would like to compose a movement about the honey locust trees and other
trees at Gettysburg that survived and witnessed this battle. Lincoln loved
trees he has a famous quote about humans as trees. It is said that he
sometimes preferred the company of trees over people. Perhaps a movement
of just percussion and wood sounds for this.
Thinking about orchestral works/other songs and pieces about the Civil
War; Lilacs/George Walker, Lincoln Portrait/Aaron Copland, this is one
of my most favorite pieces of all times and I feel a real kinship with
Copland in revisiting Gettysburg. I am honored to be working on a subject
that Copland himself composed about. I wonder if Copland ever visited
Gettysburg? When Lilacs Last at the Door Yard Bloomed, by Hindemith.
The Wound-dresser by John Adams
Ashokan Farewell by Jay Unger
The Civil Wars by Robert Wilson and David Byrne
Check about Charles Ives pieces on Gettysburg or Civil War
American Salute/Morton Gould
(When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again)
Blood on the Fields by Wynton Marsalis
1 pm EST
I want to address issues of abolitionists, slavery, the voice of women
in Gettysburg and nature. (Also a victim of war) in this piece.
1:15 pm EST
Arrive in Philadelphia.
5:10 PM EST
Arrive in Gettysburg
Beautiful scenery
While walking in Gwen and I meet Amy Scurria at the Country Curiosity
Shop at Doggin House
5:30 pm EST
Unpack and meet Amy in Doggin House B&B parlor to talk. Gwen and Amy
have tea.
6:30 - 8 pm
We walk around in Gettysburg and look in a Civil War store and American
history book store.
- 8 pm
Dinner at Doggin House Tavern
(Olde/Irish setting in Civil War building: building was part of underground
railroad and slave hideout)
9:30 PM
Buy fudge and wait for Amy’s fiancé to arrive: we all sit
on porch and talk.
10:30 pm
Meet Dave; talk on porch a bit; talk with Gary Alan Wood about his arrival
tomorrow.
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Saturday, Sept. 8, 2001
8:30 am
Gwen and I have breakfast with Amy at Doggin House Tavern
10 am
Meet Gary and Suzanna and Dave in Doggin House (Gary coming by train to
Harrisburg; Dave picked him up at 8:45 am)
10:45 am
We all walk to Gettysburg Visitor Center
11 am
We begin our walk through Gettysburg National Park.
I am struck by the beautiful countryside and think about how sad that
so many died. War is a horrible thing. One loss is too many. As you stand
on the ridges you can imagine the battle scenes. There is timelessness
about this place — it certainly doesn’t feel like the twenty-first
century. Without all of the statues and monuments it would seem more timeless.
All of us stay together as we stop and look at various monuments honoring
various Union regiments. Gwen and Dave are taking photographs throughout.
Gwen is both taking film and digital camera shots/pictures. We all walk
through the grasses and clover, lots of Queen Anne’s lace and little
blue flowers as we look across the vistas. It is as if the thousands of
flowers are new life springing from the thousands of dead bodies of soldiers.
Again, the rolling hills and trees are so pretty, so peaceful. In the
distance I can see small orchards, barns, small creeks. It is quite still,
very quiet light breezes interspersed with insect sounds and buzzes.
We reach the PA monument and also the MN First Volunteer Regiment’s
monument. The plaque and monuments raise many questions for all of us
as we ask each other questions or openly imagine what it must have been
like.
Gary asked me if we would have enlisted or joined — left farm and
family behind? We all talk about how privileged those of us who are from
here are. We Americans certainly take that for granted — how troubling
that after almost 140 years we (the whole country) still cannot except
all people as themselves and that there is still racial and economic justice.
I must somehow address the need for equality in the music I write for
this piece.
12:30 pm
We snack briefly on dried cherries, water, juice, peanuts and crackers,
bagels.
We walk down to the grove and Plum Run just west of the MN monument.
1:15 pm
Amy and I exchange letters that we wrote to each other on this piece.
Gwen takes pictures of us exchanging letters under trees and seated on
rocks.
1:30 pm
All of us go back up to the PA monument, all this while walking through
the fields and wild grasses and flowers. There is a beautiful pink-tassel
grass that looks like little...
1:35 pm
Amy, Gary and I talk about the structure and direction of the piece we
(Amy and I) will compose. Gwen takes pictures of the meeting. It is decided
that we will write one movement 15 min. work in three continuous sections.
Amy will start the piece; her five-minute section will be followed by
my five-minute section and then the last section we will compose together
as well as orchestrate together.
Gary suggested the first section be the people the second being the plants
and we all agreed the third section should be about rebirth and/or freedom.
This came out of our discussion in which Amy says she connects more with
people and I connect more with the plants. I want the abolitionist and
freedom for the slaves to be part of this heroic and reconciliation last
section. My section either will be our complete dedication of the Gettysburg
grounds [an adagio with distant drum(s)] or a portrait of maybe three
sites in Gettysburg National Park. We talk further about timing for completing
this work October 2002. Instrumentation = 2/2-2-2/4-3-3-1/timp, 3-4 perc,
strings, possibility an offstage field drum or trumpet.
It was a good discussion. I feel very positive about working with Amy
and the piece.
2:35 PM
All of us walk back towards the visitors center.
We walk through the National Gettysburg Cemetery and see approximately
were Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. I am looking for the honey locust
about which Lincoln spoke. We don’t find it but I feel the tree and
other trees — so tell us the story. They shelter us in swaying canopies
as we walk along the grave stones honoring both the living and the dead.
I’m moved by all of the unknown body markers – beautiful white
and moss filled remembrances. People have left many plants in honor of
Lincoln on the plaque that contains his Gettysburg Address.
3:30 pm
We all eat a late lunch at the Union Line Grill, then look in shops. I
buy a jaws harp from the Civil War period, ($49) a CD of Civil War songs
for study/research, and two rusted Civil War horseshoes for possible inclusion
as additional on percussion instrument in the piece. We also saw an old
banjo. Civil war bass drum, bugles, clarinets, drumsticks at this store
— The Horse Soldier.
5:30-6:30 pm
We say our goodbye and thanks to Dave and Amy. Gwen and I drive Gary and
Suzanna back to Philadelphia.
9 pm
Arrive in Philadelphia. Check into Latham Hotel. Say our good-byes and
thanks to Gary.
10 pm
Gwen and I unpack, refresh and go out to walk a bit on the Philadelphia
streets, buy a cup of tea to go and head back to Hotel. (Gwen picked up
this holly leaf in the Gettysburg National Cemetery.)
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Sunday, Sept 9, 2001
5:30 am
Wake up and get ready to go home.
6:20 am
Leave for airport.
7 am
Arrive at Philadelphia International Airport.
8 am
Flight leaves for Minneapolis/St. Paul.
En route home thinking of titles for piece:
Gettysburg Portrait
A Place Called Gettysburg
Gettysburg: From these Honored Dead
The Last Full Measure
Gettysburg Score/Second Section:
The Place
The Wheatfield
Soldiers Flowers (Fallen Soldiers not Flowers)
The Honey Locust Tree
Hymns and Orchards
Lincoln’s Tree
Wild flowers and Drums
Wounded Fields
I need to find out more about the Gettysburg name. Read more about Gettysburg
in Civil War. I need to write sweeping and panoramic music as well as
an adagio-like string section.
10 am
Made it home.
November 8, 2001 (post
9/11 tragedy)
8:15 pm
I have thought for over a month, almost 2 about the tragedy of 9/11 and
our piece about Gettysburg.
In honor of the victims and their families of 9/11 and in honor of the
notion of peace, I have decided to title the five minutes I will compose
in our Gettysburg work: American Tragedy (Wounded Fields). I hope to compose
music similar to the mood of Barber’s Adagio for strings. American
Tragedy (Wounded Fields) will be for strings only and will be a reflection
on the fields at Gettysburg. I truly believe that we should honor the
dead by responding with peace. American Tragedy (Wounded Fields) will
be a lyrical call for peace. It will be a piece in honor of all victims
of war. I have always been drawn to the section in Copland’s Lincoln
Portrait “that these honor dead…” Music opens doors to
peace. I heard chords at Gettysburg that reaffirm this and that I am now
hearing as lyrical string lines and chords of reconciliation in which
I hope to address the fields of Gettysburg as well as fields across the
globe.
What a waste war is— an absolute waste of lives, earth. Peace is
still and always with us. I go to write, to compose for peace, for world
peace.
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Copyright 2002 The Philadelphia Orchestra
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