Declaration
Margaret Brouwer
About this work:
Declaration is a set of songs for soprano, piano and violin addressing violence and war looking at the inhumanity of war in different ways. Poet, Ann Woodward points out in the poem Thorn that one can watch the tragic details of a war on TV as if it were a story and not a representation of real people being killed. The theme of the basic commonality of all human beings threads through Woodward's poem. The second song, ...all men and women..., continues this theme with an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence about the equality of all. The third song, Whom do you call angel now? is a song of mourning. It was taken from a set of poems by David Adams called September Songs, which he wrote after September 11.
Thorn and Whom do you call angel now? were originally intended to be folk songs. In the end, I decided to make them an integral part of this song cycle. In fact, these two songs were written first. However setting these works as art songs proved to be a real struggle. After trying a plethora of possibilities, I decided the strongest presentation would be to leave the accompaniment simple, even stark at times. The 21st century is a time of plurality in musical styles. The past periods of music are available for composers to draw upon, including the atonal period which lasted for the entire twentieth century (and is still going on). I am exploring this rich referential diversity in my music.
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:11:30
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Voice with Chamber/Jazz Ensemble, 2-5 Players
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, ,1 Violin soloist(s), ,1 Soprano soloist(s), ,1 Mezzo-Soprano soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: These songs can be sung by either mezzo-soprano or soprano