Tokens

for SATB chorus

1975

3 minutes

Poetry: e. e. cummings

Commission: University of New Orleans

Premiere: University Chorale
New Orleans, Apr 2, 1976

Publisher: music 70

Movements:
1. Buffalo Bill’s defunct
2. O sweet spontaneous earth

Notes: The first piece employs startling contrasts, from Renaissance counterpoint to an harshly dissonant, chromatic close. The second piece moves from a reflective opening to a triumphant close.

In retrospect this is perhaps the first of my compositions reveals some of the playful attitude toward musical language that becomes characteristic of my works after 1979. There is no question that I was inspired in this regard by e. e. cummings’s playful and dramatic use of language in “Buffalo Bill’s defunct.”