This program reflects on the Civil War as seen through Whitman’s eyes. As a volunteer nurse in a Washington, D.C. military hospital, he was witness to the many horrors that wars inflict.
René Clausen’s Three Whitman Songs and Jeffrey Van’s A Procession Winding Around Me: Four Civil War Poems offer contemporary settings of Whitman’s poetry, the latter with guitar along with a world premiere: Ian Sturges Milliken Whispers of Heavenly Death. Also included is British composer Charles Villiers Stanford, who set Whitman’s elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” with full Victorian splendor. In addition, we present the final installment (over three seasons) of Bach’s six motets, Der geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf.
Pre-concert talk - 3:15 pm
Civil War Poetry of Walt Whitman
Dr. Karen Karbiener
| A Procession Winding Around Me: Four Civil War Poems | Jeffrey Van (b. 1941) |
| Der geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, BWV 226 | J.S. Bach (1685-1750) |
| Three Whitman Settings | René Clausen (b. 1953) |
| Four Walt Whitman Songs | Kurt Weill (1900-1950) |
| Whispers of Heavenly Death (premiere) | Ian Sturges Milliken (b. 1984) |
| Elegiac Ode, Op. 21 | Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) |