Remembrances
(with Laura Grosvenor)
In 2001 I set about reworking and expanding the work, orchestrating the whole thing and adding two new pieces: Leningrad, which tells the story of the siege of Leningrad in the Soviet Union's dark days of the war, and A Parade!, about the liberation of France. Orchestrating Remembrances also allowed me to reuinite it with the overture, which could not be practically played on the piano.
Music by John Reese
The overture is based on themes from the different parts of the work, following a short introduction.
Music by John Reese
Text by Laura Grosvenor
The opening chorus of Remembrances was based on a poem written by Laura's great-grandmother, whose granddaughter (Laura's mother) was left temporarily without a father when he was called overseas for military duty. The original poem, which was published in a local newspaper, told the story of a little girl who called the telephone operator, asking to be put through to her father overseas. Laura re-worked the poem, changing the child's gender and generally making improvements to the poetry:
I see his picture on the wall, He left when I was very small. I'm bigger now, the man at home, But sometimes I feel all alone. I think I'll call my Daddy now, Oh operator, please, Tell me what, and where, and how, To call him overseas.
I was greatly moved by these words, and the music almost wrote itself. Laura and I had originally intended to collaborate on the music, but when I told her about the ideas I had for the piece, she told me to "run with it". The result was a solid opening movement that set the tone for the rest of the work.
Music and Text by John Reese
I got the idea for this piece while asking my parents for some of their recollections about the war. They had a unique perspective: Both were in high school when the US entered the war, and both later served in the military. To my surprise, they talked not about fighting and death, but about the stateside rationing of such commodities as rubber, sugar, gasoline, and leather. Most interesting to me was the proliferation of shoes with laminated cardboard soles, replacing the rationed leather. "They didn't last very long," my mother recalled. Instantly, I had a mental picture of a little boy asking his mother for yet another pair of cardboard shoes, having worn out countless pairs with his boyish shenanigans. This idea blossomed into "Cardboard Shoes," a cute little solo that provided a crucial moment of levity after the somewhat depressing opening number.
Music by Laura Grosvenor and John Reese
Text by John Reese
Based on the famous Torah Song, this piece was a microcosm for the work as a whole, expressing its central theme: The resiliancy of Life in desperate circumstances. World War II was the most aggressive and cruel attempt to stamp out life on this planet-- and it failed miserably. While 60 million people died in the war, each of those lives was replaced tenfold when it was all over. "The Promised Land" describes the resiliency of the Jewish people in the face of barbarous persecution. Laura composed the core of the piece, a lively arrangement of the Torah Song, and I completed it with a countermelody that opens the piece. After a solo middle section in the style of Hebrew chant, the Torah Song enters triumphantly as the Jewish people celebrate their imminent deliverance at the hand of the God who has "never failed" them. I had my doubts about this piece as we worked on it-- I wasn't sure we had really captured the true spirit of the Jewish people. However, a member of the audience at one of the performances--a Holocaust survivor herself--assured us that we had.
Music and Text by Laura Grosvenor
Another light, fanciful piece, "Pull Together, Pull Ahead" is a tribute to the British ability to make light of desperate situations. Between repeats of the lively chorus are several spoken passages making jokes about falling bombs. A sample:
Boy #1: Is that thunder I hear? Boy #2: Why, no, those are bombs. Boy #1: Oh good. I was afraid it was going to rain.
Music and Text by John Reese
(Added in 2001)
One of the most horrifying episodes of the war, little known by westerners, was the Siege of Leningrad, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians through starvation and exposure. Leningrad is based loosely on a little girl's diary found after the siege, in which she poigniantly describes the suffering of the people around her.
Leningrad makes use of the Russian Orthodox version of the Ave Maria, in Russian. It is sung by the choir in four parts in the background while the soloist sings of losing family members one by one to the cold and hunger.
Music and Text by John Reese
(Added in 2001)
A Parade! tells the story of a little boy living in Paris who cannot remember when the city has not been occupied by the Germans. One day he witnesses Allied troops pulling into the city to the wild cheers of the people -- the Liberation of Paris. He mistakes the triumphant entrance into the city for a parade, which he has never seen, and marvels at the celebration of a city that has lived under a shroud for as long as he can remember.
Music and Text by Laura Grosvenor
Easily the most controversial piece in Remembrances, "The Cherry Blossom Falls" consists of a series of haikus about the destruction of Hiroshima, the music composed entirely in the pentatonic scale, Asian-style. Part of Laura's text was very nearly changed for the premiere performance. Where she had written, "We shall never repeat this error, Rest in peace." The director changed it to the less objectionable, "We shall never forget this sorrow, rest in peace." After Laura pointed out that these words were not hers, but taken from the American memorial in Hiroshima, the proper text was reinstated.
Music by Laura Grosvenor and John Reese
Text by Laura Grosvenor
This was the final piece composed for the initial performance of Remembrances, after the director requested a more "patriotic" piece. While patriotism is not the central theme of this piece it does figure heavily into it. More importantly, it serves as a fitting closure to the opening chorus. Laura wrote the main musical themes, while I filled in the accompaniment. I had fun with this one, simulating the sounds of church bells and fireworks as the people celebrated the end of the war.
Music by John Reese
Text from Isaiah, additional text by John Reese
This piece was born when Laura called me one night and said, "I have the perfect ending for Remembrances!" She then quoted the text from Isaiah:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.
These words described perfectly what happened in this country at the end of the war: Fighter and tank factories began to produce cars and refrigerators, armies were dissolved, soldiers went to college, got jobs, and began raising families. In fact, I owe my existence to this phenomenon; my parents met in college where they studied under the GI Bill, and eventually had nine children-- their own contribution to the "Baby Boom".
It only took me a few minutes to write the melody for the final chorus of Remembrances, and I think it is, in all modesty, one of the finest I have ever written. As Laura had predicted, this piece was the perfect way to bring Remembrances to a close.
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