Re: The Search for Nelly Gray, IX Battle of the Bands
Hi Sherry,
It would be indeed to hear such a reenactment, even more interesting to hear what one was really like and observe the effects on the listening troops. I intended to include the author and composer, or author/composer, of the songs I've used in the manuscripts of the movements themselves, as well as footnotes, such as the importance of Fort Wagner, but I have also been working against a 10 MB limit. So this information, along with a fleshing out of the orchestration, will be done in revision/addition. The main sources are the songs, most found in a number of places on the Net, but the music of the era (and the ones before and after the war) have always been favorites, and I have a number of tapes of many of the pieces, done by individuals and groups ranging from the Kingston Trio to the Morman Tabernacle Choir, which often have differences in melody and lyrics. I have seldom used the whole of a song, so most are longer than what you hear in Nelly. Instead I have chosen the verses that best express the emotional thrust of the whole. Except for professionals, like Work and Foster, there is a lot extraneous, repetitious material in many songs. The one thing I have successfully stayed away from is the politics of the war, not because it is uninteresting, but because I wanted to oppose the feelings of the ordinary person, soldier and civilian and slave and freed slave. The story of Joseph Selby (Ned) and Nelly Gray is historical up until the point he arrives at the home of the father of Benjamin Hanby, who wrote the song while at Oberlin College. Beyond that I am inventing a love story, which will not end as the Hanby song in which Ned is grown old and senile, hears a knock at the door, and dies as he finds Nelly as an angel.
The next movement will consider love and will probably be X part A and part B, though there are only three songs involved. One of them is "Lorena," which is beautiful not only in its melody but also in its complexity, and will probably take 5 MB in itself. Ned's aria, muses about love, and time, freedom, and what he will do after the war. The third, "Jenny Lorn," is sentimental, but interesting to compare with the attitude expressed in "Southern Girl." I am also using "Kathleen Mavourneen," instrumentally, for several reasons, some of which will be footnoted probably.
I hope this is the proper place for this movement. Certainly it should come before Sherman slashes and burns Georgia and Columbia falls and the "Unreconstructed Rebel" rails at the victors.
I am still trying to think of a way to foreshadow what happens after the war to the American Indian, whose eradication had been more or less government policy already. But perhaps that's a subject for another composition.
BTW, I used the usual Merlin Creative collection. I re-enabled MS Wavetable to give it one listen, and that one was enough. I'm glad you recognized that the band leaders were friends and fellow music students. That's not clear in The SC formatting of the lyrics.
all best,
mgj
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06-08-2010, 05:36 AM
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