Prayers of Steel
Chester Biscardi
About this work:
"Prayers of Steel," for baritone and piano (1998) [B2 - F#4]
Text: Carl Sandburg
Published by Biscardi Music Press (B48 number) and distributed by Classical Vocal Reprints (CVR number): No. B48-98-1 No. CVR3621
Prayers of Steel was written in the fall of 1998 at the MacDowell Colony. Sandburg’s strong, sinuous, athletic poetry inspired a vocal line which is agile, with an edge, and at the same time conveys a great deal of warmth, and, at the end, transcendence.
Prayers of Steel
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue
nights into white stars.
Carl Sandburg, from Harvest Poems (1910-1960)
“Prayers of Steel” from CORNHUSKERS, copyright c 1918 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1946 by Carl Sandburg, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company.
Year composed: 1998
Duration: 00:03:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Baritone