We must be soldiers for Art!

Tag: poem

  • More Thoughts on Rollo Dilworth’s Weather: Stand the Storm

    Professor Rankine wrote a powerful poem that I posted here. As we continue to rehearse Dr. Dilworth’s setting for the poem, I discover more about how the music brings out the further meaning of the poem.

    The Washington Chorus, Dr. Eugene Rogers, artistic director

    The poem starts in the peaceful environment of a university archive (“On a scrap of paper in the archives is written I have forgotten my umbrella.”) and the music is tranquil yet with a surprisingly urgent beat. Next it discusses the confusion of information that accompanied the start of the pandemic and the music takes on swirls and yet is in a persistent twelve-bar blues setting. Then for the devastating stanza “Six feet under for underlying conditions. Black” there is a dark and dissonant chord on the word “Black”.

    The most poignant repetitions are “eight minutes forty-eight seconds” over and over, then leading to “I can’t breathe” over and over. The music drops out of the twelve-bar blues to an urgent, rattling dissonance and confusion the concludes with repetitions of “in extremis.” Was the poet also making a reference to extremism here? That could be a valid interpretation.

    Then the music begins a march to accompany “whatever contracts keep us social compel us now to disorder the disorder,” perhaps inviting us to march in protest.

    The piece concludes with a reinstatement of tranquility as the poet observes “There’s an umbrella by the door, not for yesterday but for the weather that’s here” and builds to the sound of strength as the chorus declaims “We are here for the storm that’s storming because what’s taken matters.”

    This is why I love music so much, and choral singing in particular. It adds a drama to the words that is unmatched.

  • Rollo Dilworth’s Setting of Claudia Rankine’s Poem

    Dr. Dilworth has set Professor Rankine’s extraordinary poem to a thought-provoking piece of music that is both lyrical and dissonant. His title for the work is Weather: Stand the Storm, which captures both the title of the poem and the title of the spiritual (Stand the Storm) that is the central melodic theme.

    Dr. Dilworth wrote an extensive set of performance notes for his piece, which is something I really appreciate as a choral singer. I’ll mention just a few items out of the many elements he put into the music.

    The “George Floyd” Motives are different combinations of using the notes G and F. These notes are only one step (whole step) apart so they can create dissonance when they part of a chord and jagged leaps when they are part of a progression. These musical ideas generate exceptional poignancy regarding the death of Mr. Floyd.

    There are many deliberate numerical references in the score but I’ll just discuss one here, and that is 8:46. This was the amount of time that George Floyd was pinned down. Dr. Dilworth therefore uses 8/8, 4/4, and 6/8 time signatures to embed those numbers in his work.

    The section that has the text “Just us and the blues kneeling on a neck with the full weight of a man in blue.” is set to 12-bar blues.

    If you are interested in the complete performance notes you might be able to buy a copy of the piano reduction choral score from his publisher, Hal Leonard, LLC. It is ISBN 978-1-70518-585-8.

    Meanwhile, here is a link to a performance on Youtube that I think is particularly good: https://youtu.be/38drTqFhd6w. If you are in the Washington DC area, The Washington Chorus will be performing this work live at The Music Center at Strathmore on March 15th, 2025 at 7:30pm. You can get tickets here: https://thewashingtonchorus.org/stand-the-storm.