Long Summer

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This piece is inspired by Lincoln’s eloquent first inaugural address.  He closes with a remarkably musical line, referring to the ‘mystic chords of memory’.  There is an idealism in this statement, maybe even a naivete that had yet to be clouded by the strain of war, but also a bold sense of purpose and courage.  I decided to have a shot at my version of these chords.  There is the sweet hopeful tone of pure triads in the opening, that will eventually become more complex and layered, creating a virtual mirror as we look inward.

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Image: Harper’s Weekly, “The Inaugural Procession at Washington…” 16 March 1861, Library of Congress.

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Comments (2)

1. Noah 2:17 pm

   This is beautiful. It reminds me a bit of the score from Brokeback Mountain. So haunting and melancholy.

   Steven Spielberg is working on a Lincoln biopic. I could really picture this track being used at a few key moments in the movie…

   You should contact him!

2. Philip 7:04 am

   Sublime, profound beauty. It captivates and mesmerizes my spirit. It certainly reflects the vision that Lincoln’s words represent.

   Lincoln suffered, from childhood, a severe and sometimes debilitating depression.

   He wrote these words to John T. Stuart, his first law partner, in 1841:

   “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. ”

   William Herndon, another law partner, wrote:
   “He was a sad-looking man; his melancholy dripped from him as he walked…..The perpetual look of sadness was his most prominent feature.”

   Read other quotes about Lincoln and his depression here:
   http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln84.html

   Yet, he led our country through its most severe division. He rose above his nature and chose to think and live in a way that ultimately triumphed over his nature…or rather it was his true inner nature that shined through.

   Some of Lincoln’s quotes:

   “Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind. ”

   “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

   “I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end… I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me. ”

   “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better. ”

   “I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”

   “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

   That final quote demonstrates that despite his genetic tendency, he chose, on a daily basis to rise above it and be in charge of his mind and his destiny. More quotes are at:

   http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/abraham_lincoln_5.html