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A Lincoln Portrait
The Tufts Symphony Orchestra

In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, conductor Andre Kostelanetz commissioned Aaron Copland to compose a work to fortify and comfort people during that time of national distress.  Copland used excerpts from different Lincoln speeches, combined with musical quotations from well-known American songs.  Regarding Lincoln Portrait, Copland wrote, “In the opening section, I wanted to suggest something of the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln's personality.  Also, near the end of that section, something of his gentleness and simplicity of spirit.  The quick middle section briefly sketches in the background of the times he lived.  This merges in the concluding section where my sole purpose was to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself.”

 

Beat! Beat! Drums!

Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation;
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his grain;
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses?
No sleepers must sleep in those beds;
No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—Would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking?  would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.

Beat! beat! drums!—Blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation;
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer;
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man;
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties;
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
                                                                                   (text: Whitman)

 

Reconciliation
Tufts Chorale & Chamber Singers

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
…For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and stiff, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.