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Meanwhile, there lurked at the back of my mind The irrational urge (too late!) to find Another theatrical project, which meant That hours and days were now to be spent In reading plays and considering oceans Of wild ideas and desperate notions. None took fire, which is just as well, For I then had the luxury, truth to tell, Of time to think as a pure musician, And ponder the art of composition. For hours on end I brooded and mused On materiae musicae, used and abused; On aspects of unconventionality, Over the death in our time of tonality, Over the fads of Dada and Chance, The serial strictures, the death of romance, “Perspectives in Music,” the new terminology, Physicomathematomusicology; Pieces called “Cycles” and “Sines” and “Parameters”; Titles too beat for these homely tetrameters; Pieces for nattering, clucking sopranos With squadrons of vibraphones, fleets of pianos Played with the forearms, the fists and the palms— —And then I came up with the “Chichester Psalms.” These psalms are a simple and modest affair, Tonal and tuneful and somewhat square, Certain to sicken a stout John Cager With its tonics and triads in B flat major. But there it stands—the result of my pondering, Two long months of avant-garde wandering— My youngest child, old-fashioned and sweet. And he stands on his own two tonal feet. . . . |
Leonard Bernstein