The Voice of One Crying Out

“The Voice of One Crying Out” is an art song for piano and mezzo-soprano. This work sought to merge the peasant rebel song “the cutty wren” with fragments of an english translation of John Gower’s poem “Vox Vulgaris”. This text setting is deployed to present two contrasting views surrounding the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. In the lingering aftermath of  the Black Death pandemic, the English peasantry, led by Wat Tyler, rose up against the government, in objection to high taxation, aggressive foreign policy, and generally corrupt and incompetent government officials. The Revolt resulted in the looting and burning of much of London.

I sought to contrast this historical event to the aftermath of COVID19, and its unforeseen (despite being wholly predictable and predicted) consequences on societal and political discourse. Musically, I experimented with a number of techniques I have explored in previous works, including some extended techniques. These include slaps, taps and scrapes on the strings of the piano, along with screaming, growling, and aleatoric writing in the vocal part. However, I sought to include such techniques in a largely approachable work, as I wanted it to be apparent in the work that the historical events presented hold clear and unsettling parallels with our own age.

In its examination of two opposing views of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, culminating in the eventual burning of London, this work offers a cautionary tale of the dangers of repeated history, and calls out for social unity in the aftermath of our contemporary parallel, the social upheaval of COVID19 and the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Credits: Nancy Galbraith (Composition Professor), Devony Smith (mezzo-soprano), Amir Farid (piano)

This project was made possible with support from FRFF Grant #2024-051