Music for SATB chorus, trombone and piano by Pamela J. Marshall

The Future of Life

Notes on the movements

Read the texts

1. Invocation

Solo trombone, mainly accompanied by wordless chorus. A descending minor third is a key interval in the invocation and throughout the piece. The mood is bold and declamatory with an underlying sense of mourning.

2. Bottleneck: A Letter to Henry

In the Prologue to the book, Dr. Wilson writes a conversational letter to Henry Thoreau, outlining humanity’s situation. It is both a lament for how close we are to “a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption” and a vision of how we might find a workable balance if we can readjust our goals and actions. He writes, “Surely the rest of life matters. Surely our stewardship is its only hope.” The opening music is aggressive, biting out accusingly at science and technology for bringing us to the brink. The chorus speaks of the conservation ethic that comes from Thoreau’s writings and sings with equal intensity, counterbalancing the aggressive opening, that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.”

 

3. Pay Mother Her Due

Chords of minor thirds ring out over a deep bass line and a trombone recitative transforms some of the music from the opening Invocation. The chorus sings, in a recitative style, about how easy it is to ignore species as they disappear. Then the music breaks into a fast and funky bass “Pay now or pay later”. In several verses, there are various plans for action now, versus a final option – do nothing – which is the most costly choice.

4. How Spiders Came to Hawaii

In this gentle, whimsical text, spiders get instructions on how to spin out a parachute and ride the wind. The trombone-and-piano introduction is lilting staccato and tenuto melodic fragments, my take on the texture of sounds in a meadow or forest.

5. Interlude

Trombone and piano continue the sound texture of the forest in a short interlude, with fragments from the Invocation and the minor-third motive.

6. A Bequest

What do we leave future generations if we continue to exploit the Earth’s resources beyond its ability to regenerate? All that’s left might be “the synthetic jungles of Hawaii” and a “scrubland where once thrived the prodigious Amazon forest”. Perhaps we also bequeath the challenge of recreating a functioning natural world. Much of this bequest is declaimed in unison and octave singing, making the severity of the situation clearly stated.

7. Bee-Song

Things may seem dire, but there is much cause for hope. As Thoreau taught us, many people in the world know there is much to value in the natural world, including the nourishment it brings our spirit. “Bee-Song” with text by Anne Baring is a beautiful hymn to this nuturing. The hive, the Earth, is our Mother, protecting and nourishing us.

8. Grand Grand Mother is returning

I am hopeful that we will achieve a balance so that the natural world will remain rich and beautiful, to sustain us and enrich our spirits. “Grand Grand Mother is returning” celebrates that continuity of natural processes - “the egg is always getting laid and laying” and human concepts too - “truth is being found and finding”. I believe in this energetic, rhythmic music to propel us forward from dire warnings of an ominous future to hope and positive action.

 

Acknowledgements

This choral music is inspired by the book "The Future of Life" by Edward O. Wilson

Texts of Bottleneck: A Letter to Henry, Pay Mother Her Due, How Spiders Came to Hawaii, A Bequest
Text adapted from "The Future of Life" by Edward O. Wilson , ©2002, published by Vintage Books, and used with his kind permission.

Text of Bee-Song
"The Song" by Anne Baring, first published 1996 in "The Divine Feminine" by Anne Baring and Andrew Harvey, and used with the kind permission of Anne Baring.

Text of Grand Grand Mother is returning
"Grand Grand Mother is returning" by Judy Grahn from her book-length poem, The Queen of Wands.

 

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