SUNDAY
AT MCDONALD’S (1993) |
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In Sunday at McDonald's I chose five poems by A.R. Ammons that are uniquely intimate in the poet's writing. The title of the song cycle comes from the middle poem. I liked the pairing of the sacred and the everyday. Even though the poems are from different collections and were written at different times, I chose them and ordered them to make a specific musical shape. In the first three poems the narrator has some kind of realization, even transcendence, by observing the night sky, the afternoon clouds, or by looking "to the still star bending, fixed ahead." The fourth poem is light, a grounding, a letting go. And the final song is the most intimate. Splendor is found in the lover's body, not in "spools or drifts of stars." |
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Images and motions are conveyed both in the piano and the voice, which are equal presences. Stars and reappearances, wind, the zaniness of "babies gumming french fries," pricked balloons, and the tenderness of falling hair are all reflected in the music. Sunday at McDonald's
was written for Dawn Upshaw and Jeffrey Kahane. |
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