"At Home in America"

first performed at St. Peter’s Church

in the Citicorp building in New York City.

In beginning to design this series of concerts of American music, I knew I wanted to do one program showing how some of the roots of 20^th century American music are founded in folk and popular styles, but I didn’t want to do a program of obvious or academic Americana. While looking for repertoire I asked myself what factors evoke in me my strongest sense of America, and I realized that one critical element is how very personally I feel the fact of my Americanism. My first step was to look for texts that reflect this personal quality and they, of course, lead me to music that expresses it wonderfully.

Seven songs by Charles Ives on his own texts (1897-1921)

Resolution

Two Little Flowers (and dedicated to them)

Slugging a Vampire

Memories A. Very pleasant B. Rather Sad

Serenity (John Greenleaf Whittier)

The Things Our Fathers Loved ( and the greatest of these was Liberty)

Tom Sails Away

Excerpt from "A Death in the Family" by James Agee

"Knoxville: Summer of 1915" by Samuel Barber (1947)

on a text by James Agee

"The Blue Mountain Ballads" by Paul Bowles (1946)

on texts by Tennessee Williams

Lonesome Man

Cabin

Sugar in the Cane

Heavenly Grass

Three songs by Elliot Carter (1942-43)

on texts by Robert Frost and Walt Whitman

The Rose Family (Robert Frost)

A Dust of Snow (Robert Frost)

Warble for Lilac-time (Walt Whitman)

Poem: "There Was a Child Went Forth" By Walt Whitman

"Old and Lost Rivers" by Tobias Picker (1986) for piano alone

Three American Songs by Nils Vigeland (1998)

on texts by Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau

Nature (Henry David Thoreau)

A Noiseless Patient Spider (Walt Whitman)

Rumors from an Aeolian Harp (Henry David Thoreau)

Excerpt from "A Death in the Family" by James Agee

"Sure on this Shining Night" by Samuel Barber (1938)

on a text by James Agee

Several elements struck me about the poetry these composers wrote or chose to set in these pieces. There is an appreciation of homely detail, a joyful recognition of the small and close up by people who take time to notice what they see. I also saw what seems to be a sense of conscious reminiscence, possibly because in America we have only a brief collective tradition, we feel it very important to cultivate the memories of our own personal histories and seek in them some larger meaning. I found in these texts recognition of the heroism of commonplace people who, when called upon either by physical necessity or spiritual imperative, step forward into danger (war, loneliness) in order to honor some sense of responsibility in themselves. And finally I see a wonderful uneasiness which is, I believe, one of the truly fine elements of the American character. At our best we question our actions and our choices, question our motivations as we seek to do right and fulfill our responsibilities. This is not a currently popular or prevalent aspect of our national life, but remains a living, if hidden, stream which might help nourish our thirsty times.

The music of this program is very "white male" music. No women composers or poets, or artists of other ethnic origins are included, but in it I want us to listen for some of the characteristics I mentioned. In this, sometimes unfortunately, granted, dominant strain in our culture, there is a sensibility and emotion that reveals some of the best aspects of America, with some sentimentality, certainly, but also with a hope that these elements can be used, newly and differently, in our own time. There is a strength in these attitudes we need and a gentleness we often fail to see.

I have always loved to sing "Knoxville Summer of 1915." Like much of Barber’s vocal music it is very gratifying for the singer and effects audiences very deeply. In it we find much blatant nostalgia, but, in both text and music, there are many questions and much uneasiness. I knew I needed to understand more about what in the text had compelled Barber to write this deeply emotional piece, so I went back to the source. As a person raised in the Deep South, I found reading James Agee’s A Death in the Family and Laurence Bergreen’s biography of Agee very moving. I felt very strongly the difficulties that any person of sensitivity has in addressing the past and its tragedies, large and small, and how those tragedies can cause profound struggle in a person’s life yet leave a strong love for the past and its beauty alive in the soul. From this center the program is built.

America has never been the innocent, childlike nation some might wish to believe. The people who declared our independence, framed our constitution, fought the Civil War and went to war in Europe were not naïve people. Charles Ives’ songs, for example, text and music, express a deep uncertainty and humility before the complexity of the universe, but, also, that very American willingness to face up and take what comes, the knowledge that things must be confronted in the end. There is a profound faith inherent in that willingness, faith in self and in the value of individual vision.

These are just two examples, but in the works of all these poets and composers we hear the voices of men addressing fundamental conflicts in their lives. Some were homosexual men living in a culture that denied them the right to identify themselves, others sensitive men seeking to reconcile the prosaic demands of their daily lives with the complex promptings of their souls. Some were successful, some not. We can learn valuable lessons from those who felt these conflicts and engaged in the struggle, inspired misfits of America who, perhaps, tell us the most about America in those brief years before the 20^th century blew up in their faces. Americans have a peculiar relationship with the uncertainty only just below the surface of our comfortable lives. While we appear to ignore it we struggle to understand and overcome it, not just keep it at bay. So perhaps the enduring optimism of the American spirit is not just a subject for sentimental memory, but a deep source of strength in these dry and cynical times.