About this work:
This work was the musical portion of a multimedia installation depicting the historical culture at the begging of the 20th century in rural Petersburg, NY, and Cincinnatus, NY, both tiny villages where Barton McLean grew up, performed in 1995 at the Petersburg Veterans memorial Hall. Later, McLean extracted the best from the installation music, fusing it into a coherent, quasi-symphonic electroacoustic tape work. Used as a constant thread in the 39-minute musical tapestry are tunes that were sung and played during that period. The sheet music was largely supplied by Hilda Allen, geneaologist-historian, musician, and long-time resident of Petersburgh after considerable thought, research, and remembering on her part. Some of the tunes are, "Santa Lucia," "When You and I Were Young," "Oft in the Stilly Night," "Varsoviana," "Hand Organ Polka," "Long Long Ago," and "Good Night Ladies." The music was composed in a modern recording studio at McLean’s house using computers and synthesizers. Several models for quotation composition presented themselves, among which were Charles Ives and Lukas Foss, as well as McLean’s principal teacher and mentor, Henry Cowell. McLean chose to strike out on a somewhat different path from these, in that he tried to present as much of the complete tunes intact as possible, while still maintaining a contemporary rigor and “bite” to the texture. Ironically, when McLean composed the work in 1993, the room which housed his studio in the north end of the 1790 farm house contained original stencilling completed in the early 1800s before wallpaper was invented. So, blending the old with the new was a very natural thing for him to undertake. Central to the literary idea of the work is a phrase uttered by 90-year-old Victoria Green which serves to frame the composition, appearing at the beginning as well as the end. The words are, simply, “that is all gone now ... you can’t hardly see where it is.” Many field recordings were made by McLean, such as the combined churches chorus in Cincinnatus, NY, and the musical saw performed by Petersburg resident Earl Hewitt. Priscilla McLean sings the vocal solos. Forgotten shadows of the past ...are we all destined for a similar fate, hastened perhaps by the new urgency of the Millennium?
Musical-historical installation based on historical figures of the past in Petersburg, NY. World premiere at Petersburg Memorial Hall on Oct. 14, 1994. Exists as a 48-minute audio tape. Concert version (39 minutes) released on Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI CD 846) in 6/2000. Presented at a CRI CD release event at Engine 27 in NYC on 6/7/2000 (co-sponsored by the Electronic Music Foundation).
My website (where you can find my email as well)
http://www.fairpoint.net/~rainfor1/McLean_MAXMSP/Main_page.html
Phone: 518 658 3595
YouTube playlist (with 32 videos and counting)
https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3ACAB7BAD86CE7B4
Also check out my entry in Wikipedia
Although I, Barton McLean, hold the copyright, I nontheless hereby gladly authorize anyone to make copies and perform the work for noncommercial and/or educational purposes providing that my name is reasonably displayed as the composer. I do not under any circumstances authorize selecting portions of the work to appear intact in another person's composition, or to appear under any other composer's name, without my written signed authorization.
Regarding the audio file accompanying this work: I, Barton McLean own the copyright to the composition itself. Being aware that this work has been released on a commercial CD, and that the CD company might possess the copyright to that particular sound recording of the composition, I nonetheless claim copyright to this specific sound recording posted here, because it is not the exact recording released on CD. Rather, it is another mix down and revision of that work which may approximate the commercial CD in most respects but nevertheless is a distinct sound recording of which I claim the copyright.