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In search for a deeper understanding of Emma Lou Diemer’s compositional style through the analysis of her shorter choral works for mixed chorus since 1987
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In search for a deeper understanding of Emma Lou Diemer’s compositional style through the analysis of her shorter choral works for mixed chorus since 1987
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Content
In Search for a Deeper Understanding of
Emma Lou Diemer’s Compositional Style through the
Analysis of Her Shorter Choral Works for Mixed Chorus since 1987
Nancy Noble Holland
A Dissertation Presented to the
Faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Musical Arts
(Choral Music)
May 12, 2017
ii
Abstract
Dr. Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927), an award-winning contemporary American composer, has
composed works for orchestra, chorus, symphonic band, organ, piano, and chamber ensembles.
Her choral works have been popular since 1962, with the publishing of her Three Madrigals,
composed for the Arlington Public Schools in Virginia as part of her Composer-in Residence
Award of the Ford Foundation. However, her later works, particularly her most recent choral
works are less well-known and less performed. Although she has been the subject of numerous
dissertations, books, and interviews, none has focused on her shorter choral works composed
since 1987. These works deserve more attention and more performances because of their
variety, versatility, accessibility, and quality. This dissertation will analyze eleven of her most
recent choral works to illuminate her continued contributions to the choral repertoire.
iii
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to many for their support and assistance in this project:
Emma Lou Diemer, for her time and hospitality and willingness to participate in this study;
My committee members—Cristian Grases, Tram Sparks, and Jo-Michael Scheibe
—for their insightful comments and guidance through the writing process;
Other faculty members at the University of Southern California—
Donald Brinegar, Sheila Woodward, Beatriz Ilari, Rotem and Adam Gilbert, Larry
Livingston, Lucinda Carver, Frank Ticheli, Morten Lauridsen, and others—
for their inspiration, mentorship and support;
Tatiana Taylor for her efficient and thorough transcriptions as well as her friendship and support;
Dan Cragan and Aviva Heston for their careful readings and helpful suggestions;
Bill Shepherd, my high school band director, and Clarice Parmelee, my piano teacher, who
instilled in me a love of music that has lasted a lifetime.
Jim Holland for his patience, love, and support throughout the process.
iv
Table of Contents
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
Index of Musical Examples vi
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
A. Reasons for the Study 3
B. Literature Review 4
Chapter 2: Biography of Emma Lou Diemer 10
Chapter 3: Analyses of Works 14
A. Methodology 14
B. Introduction to the Analyses 15
Sacred Works
1. How Lovely is Your Dwelling (1995) 16
2. Consider the Lilies (2006) 30
3. Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace (2006) 40
4. Thy Holy Wings (2009) 51
Chapter 4: Analyses of Works continued 62
Secular Works
5. I Know a Bird (1990) 62
6. Show and Tell (1999) 72
7. Bee, I’m Expecting You! (1994) 84
8. Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! (1995) 93
9. Come Said the Muse (2005) 110
10. Effervescence (2007) 116
11. Dolphins (2015) 127
Chapter 5: Compositional Style and Conclusions 138
Bibliography 143
Appendices
Appendix A: Summary of the Interviews 145
Appendix B: Interview Questions 147
1. General Interview Questions 147
2. Recurring Questions 149
3. Follow-Up Questions 149
v
4. Questions on Specific Works
a. Sacred Works 151
b. Secular Works 156
Appendix C: Transcriptions of Interviews 162
1. Interview Part I (8/27/15)
a. #1 162
b. #2 170
c. #3 177
d. #4 185
2. Interview Part II (8/28/15)
a. #1 193
b. #2 202
c. #3 214
d. #4 231
Appendix D: Institutional Review Board Documents 244
vi
Index of Musical Examples
Sacred Works
Example 3.1 Use of ascending leaps for word painting
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 13 – 15, 33 – 35 17
Example 3.2 G chords with color tones
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 1 – 2 18
Example 3.3 Flute melody, organ ostinato
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 2 - 4 19
Example 3.4 Shifting keys around circle of fifths
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 7- 8 20
Example 3.5 Limited sense of arrival
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 9 – 1 21
Example 3.6 Change of keys every two measures
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 40 – 43 22
Example 3.7 Canon and syncopated textures
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 52 – 56 23
Example 3.8: 3 + 3 + 2 ostinato rhythm
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 9 – 11 24
Example 3.9 Syncopated organ and vocal writing
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 13 – 15 25
Example 3.10 Irregular Harmonic Movement
How Lovely Is Your Dwelling, mm. 20 – 24 26
Example 3.11 Unpredictable Harmony
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 32 – 25 27
Example 3.12 Pianissimo ending
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 57 - 62 28
Example 3.13 Syncopated rhythm expressing agitation
Consider the Lilies, mm. 58 – 60 31
Example 3.14 Flowing accompaniment
Consider the Lilies, mm. 13 – 16 32
vii
Example 3.15 Descending broken chords in accompaniment
Consider the Lilies, mm. 41 – 44 33
Example 3.16 Descending scale patterns in G
Consider the Lilies, mm. 33 – 36 34
Example 3.17 Descending Drone
Consider the Lilies, mm. 27 – 30 35
Example 3.18 Altos and Sopranos singing in unison
Consider the Lilies, mm. 18 – 21 36
Example 3.19 Tenors and basses singing in unison
Consider the Lilies, mm. 18 – 21 37
Example 3.20 Forceful Dynamics
Consider the Lilies, mm. 27 - 44 39
Example 3.21 ii – V7 – I progression with fourth and ninth added
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 1 – 2 42
Example 3.22 Vocal melody in unison, syncopated accompaniment
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 3 – 7 43
Example 3.23 Circle of fifths movement, ending on F minor inverted
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 7 – 11 44
Example 3.24 Vocal melody in unison, shift from G to B-flat major
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 12 – 16 45
Example 3.25 B-flat to E minor, open sound
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 17 – 21 46
Example 3.26 Deceptive Cadence into C minor (measure 26)
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 23 – 26 47
Example 3.27 Linear progression to F minor inverted
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 27 – 31 48
Example 3.28 Coda, deceptive cadence to A-flat major 7 and F, unresolved
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 62 – 28 49
Example 3.29 ii – vii7 – i6 Progression
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 32 – 34 52
viii
Example 3.30 Third of chord omitted (measure 3, last beat)
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 1 - 3 53
Example 3.31 Cello pizzicato, flute melody, homophonic voices
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 1 – 3 55
Example 3.32 Cello melody, flute countermelody, piano pizzicato
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 27 -29 56
Example 3.33 Flute descant (otherwise similar to Verse 1)
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 49 – 51 57
Example 3.34 instrumental interlude
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 44 – 49 58
Example 3.35 Instrumental interlude after third verse
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 67 – 70 59
Example 3.36 Coda, ascending Flute scale, Cello arpeggio, piano chords
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 74 – 77 60
Secular Works
Example 4.1 Detached, skipping melody
I Know a Bird, mm. 1 – 3 63
Example 4.2 Key shifts from E to D mixolydian
I Know a Bird, mm. 10 – 12 64
Example 4.3 Onomatopoetic bird calls, increasingly dense
I Know a Bird, mm.16 – 21 66
Example 4.4 Bird calls increasingly urgent
I Know a Bird, mm. 24 67
Example 4.5 Echo and repetition of “whole night through”
I Know a Bird, mm. 38 – 40 69
Example 4.6 Repetition and echo of “Long for you”
I Know a Bird, mm. 41 – 44 70
Example 4.7 E-flat pedal and melody, detached and leaping
Show and Tell, mm. 1 -3 73
ix
Example 4.8 Ascending bass line, unstable key
Show and Tell, mm. 4 – 9 74
Example 4.9 Ascending E major scale in right hand
Show and Tell, mm. 9 – 11 75
Example 4.10 Unison voices until m. 27
Show and Tell, mm. 20 – 28 77
Example 4.11 F-sharp major, with initial melody figure in keyboard
Show and Tell, mm. 29 – 35 79
Example 4.12 E-flat major, overlapping first two verses
Show and Tell, mm. 36 – 44 81
Example 4.13 Coda, unison B, resolving on D major chord
Show and Tell, mm. 48 – 54 82
Example 4.14 Alternating meters: 2/4 and ¾
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 1 – 11 85
Example 4.15 D minor scale on “somebody you know” ends on B minor chord
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 12 – 15 87
Example 4.16 Repetitions of “That you were due”
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 36 - 38 88
Example 4.17 Ascending augmented arpeggio
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 19 – 22 89
Example 4.18 Recapitulation of the opening
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 8 – 11 89
Example 4.19 C-sharp and G-sharp in bass
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 30 – 33 90
Example 4.20 Repetition of “settled and at work, with ascending fifths in bass
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 34 – 37 90
Example 4.21 Descending bass line in octaves
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 38 – 41 90
Example 4.22 Repetition of “clover warm and thick”
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 41 – 45 91
x
Example 4.23 repetition of “Birds,” “Clover,” ending on B chord
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm.46 – 50) 91
Example 4.24 Abrupt shift from D minor to D major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 5 – 8 94
Example 4.25 No clear bass harmony, descending in C minor scale
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 13 – 16 95
Example 4.26 Tune in E-flat, bass line alternates between B-flat and A
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 21 – 24 95
Example 4.27 D major in tune, D minor in accompaniment
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 25 – 32 96
Example 4.28 Piano interlude in B minor, tune shifts into E-flat
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 37 – 44 97
Example 4.29 dissonant chords under “flighty”
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 47 – 51 98
Example 4.30 B and C-sharp chords under “pleases”
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 55 – 62 99
Example 4.31 Return to E-flat, bass alternating from E-flat to B-flat minor
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 62 – 66 100
Example 4.32 extended piano interlude with ascending arpeggios
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 33 – 40 100
Example 4.33 C minor tune with dissonant chords in accompaniment
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 74 - 78 101
Example 4.34 Tune descends every line, A-flat, then F major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 80 – 88 102
Example 4.35 Each repetition of “pleases” set higher
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 89 – 98 103
Example 4.36 Last verse in a sense of G minor
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 98- 101 104
Example 4.37 Alternating between E-flat and A major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 105 – 112 105
xi
Example 4.38 Tune ascends in F major scale, then splits into fourths
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 117 – 12 106
Example 4.39 Repeating “Ding Dong! Ring a happy bell,” ending on pseudo G chord
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 125 – 135 107
Example 4.40 Example 9-1Word-painting “waiting” set over 15 measures
Come Said the Muse, mm. 129 – 147 111
Example 4.41 Basses in unison, voices added for “Sing me the universal”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 25 – 40 113
Example 4.42 Repetition of initial phrase with all voices
Come Said the Muse, mm. 73 – 80 113
Example 4.43 Repetition of “waiting”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 124 – 133 114
Example 4.44 Mezzo-forte setting of “this broad earth”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 41 – 48 115
Example 4.45 Accompaniment arpeggios, monotone syncopated melody
Effervescence, mm. 1 – 10 118
Example 4.46 Repetitive falling seconds for “purring”
Effervescence, mm. 51 – 54 119
Example 4.47 Repetitive falling seconds for “rain”
Effervescence, mm. 67 – 70 120
Example 4.48 “Faint trickle” separated by rests
Effervescence, mm. 63 – 66 121
Example 4.49 Augmented chord under “laughing in the spring”
Effervescence, mm. 98 – 101 122
Example 4.50 Word painting “the world is singing” but in minor key
Effervescence, mm. 94 – 101 123
Example 4.51 Canon at recapitulation of opening text
Effervescence, mm. 166 – 120 124
xii
Example 4.52 Repetition of “Joyous spring” at forte on tonal chords
Effervescence, mm. 132 - 137 125
Example 4.53 Coda, unison E-flat, ending on G9 chord
Effervescence, mm. 140 – 143 126
Example 4.54 Leaping intervals illustrating dolphins’ actions
Dolphins, mm. 1 – 5 128
Example 4.55 Staccato notes illustrating “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 26 – 27 129
Example 4.56 Legato notes for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 33 – 35 130
Example 4.57 staccato detached notes for “spirits are free”
Dolphins, mm. 41 – 43 130
Example 4.58 dissonant harmonies for “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 19 – 26 132
Example 4.59 C major with added G-sharps and F-sharps for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 32 – 34 133
Example 4.60 Original tonic of A-flat in final section
Dolphins, mm. 49 - 51 133
Example 4.61 Staccato eighth notes for “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 19 – 20 134
Example 4.62 Staccato octave leap eighth note for “squeak”
Dolphins mm. 29 – 31 134
Example 4.63 Staccato eighth notes for “spirits”
Dolphins mm. 41 – 43 135
Example 4.64 Legato quarter notes for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 33 – 35 135
Example 4.65 Flowing sixteenth note runs in accompaniment
Dolphins, mm. 46 – 48 136
1
Chapter 1:
Introduction
Emma Lou Diemer, born in 1927, trained at Yale (Bachelor of Music, 1949, Master of
Music, 1950) and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D. in Composition, 1960) and studied with
Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch, and Roger Sessions. She received a Fulbright Fellowship, in 1952
(studying in Brussels, Belgium with André Dumortier and Jen Absil at the Royal Conservatory).
In 1959 - 1961 the Ford Foundation and National Music Council selected her as the only female
(among twelve composers chosen) for the Young Composers Project.
1
She served as a
Composer in Residence for the Arlington Public Schools in Arlington, Virginia, composing
thirty-seven works in two years. One of her early choral works, Three Madrigals, heralded by
USC’s Charles Hirt and performed at the American Choral Directors Association National
Conference in 1962, became standard repertoire throughout high schools in America. Diemer
noted in an interview in 1995, her ability to compose music that has stood the test of time:
By lowering somewhat the level of difficulty and extremity of style, I was able to
produce some works that are still in the repertoire 35 years later.
2
She has become a renowned composer of numerous genres, and her choral works stand out as
accessible, sophisticated, and compelling. However, less attention has been given to her later
choral works.
In Emma Lou Diemer: A Bio-Bibliography (2001), Ellen Schlegel describes the caliber,
depth, and breadth of Diemer’s music:
Emma Lou Diemer has produced a large, diverse and sophisticated opus, which
includes compositions for orchestra, symphonic band, chamber ensemble,
1
Schlegel, Ellen Grolman, Emma Lou Diemer, A Bio-Bibliography, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
(2001): 8,12.
2
Brown, Cynthia Clark. “An Interview with Emma Lou Diemer, AGO Composer of the Year.” The American
Organist 29.2 (November, 1995): 44.
2
keyboard, chorus, voices, and solo and electronic instruments. Over 250 of her
compositions have been published since 1956, more than 100 of them recorded.
Her organ psalm settings and hymn preludes are considered standard repertoire, as
are a number of her choral compositions, including the very popular Three
Madrigals.
3
Dr. Diemer has won numerous awards, including an
ASCAP award received annually since 1962 for performances and publications, a
Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in Orchestral Music for her 1991 piano
concerto, and others. She was composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara
Symphony from 1990-92, and the 1995 Composer of the Year of the American
Guild of Organists.
4
Although several dissertations have been written on Emma Lou Diemer and her compositions,
none has examined her shorter choral works written since 1987.
The composer has provided this writer with a complete list of her choral works, including
forty-three works for mixed chorus composed since 1987. Through close study of eleven of
them and extensive interviews with the composer, the author has gained new insight into these
works and compelling reasons for performing them. Like Three Madrigals, these works are
delightful, sophisticated, complex, and yet immediately accessible, but they are relatively
unknown, seldom performed, and deserve more attention. The detailed interviews with the
composer have revealed her idiosyncratic compositional techniques that illuminate the works.
Diemer’s use of a variety of styles, text-painting, literary texts, optimism, abrupt shifts in key,
use of ninth chords, detached articulation and syncopated rhythms, repetition, and colorful
accompaniment, as well as dramatic tension, humor and ternary form are well-documented in
3
Schlegel, Ellen Grolman, “Emma Lou Diemer: A Consummate Musician.” (IAWM, International, Alliance of
Women in Music Journal), accessed online, June, 2015.
4
Duffie, Bruce. Composer Emma Lou Diemer, A Conversation with Bruce Duffie. http://www.bruceduffie.com.
1988, transcription in 2015.
3
several dissertations that focus on her works. However, none examines these choral works
composed since 1987.
Reasons for the Study
Choral conductors may be familiar with Emma Lou Diemer’s earliest popular choral
work, Three Madrigals (published in 1962), but have less knowledge of her later works,
particularly her more recent choral works. This dissertation will analyze eleven of her choral
works from 1987 to the present to illuminate her continued contributions to the choral repertoire.
All of these works encompass a wide variety, versatility, accessibility, and complexity.
Emma Lou Diemer’s choral works since 1987 include a wide variety of styles, settings
and literary poetry, drawing from texts by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Flannery
O’Connor. This paper will examine several secular works she has recently composed, for
example, complex modern madrigals, such as I Know a Bird and Show and Tell; a lively
contemporary courting song, Hey Boys! Hi Girls!; a contemplative setting of sophisticated
poetry, Come Said the Muse; a lighthearted, humorous romp, Dolphin;, and a tongue-in-cheek
Emily Dickinson letter from a fly to a bee, Bee! I’m Expecting You! Dr. Diemer’s recent sacred
works also cover numerous styles and settings, including a tonal sacred ballad, Thy Holy Wings,
with flute, cello, and organ; a lyrical Psalm setting with upbeat keyboard and flute, How Lovely
is Your Dwelling; a melodic anthem with textured organ, Consider the Lilies; and an urgent plea
for peace, Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace. Dr. Diemer’s works are lively, playful, and/or
poignant and thoughtful, full of material attractive to choral conductors in schools and churches
alike.
4
In 2015, the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and other organizations
recognized Dr. Diemer’s gifts in composition by including one of her most recent works,
Dolphins, in five choral reading sessions: the Massachusetts ACDA Summer Conference, the
Rodney Eichenberger Choral Conductors Workshop, the University of Michigan Summer
Symposium, the Kansas Choral Directors Association Reading Session, and the Missouri ACDA
Summer Reading Session. Many of her other recent choral works deserve equal recognition and
performances.
The principal aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive examination and
understanding of Emma Lou Diemer’s later choral works, especially for conductors, in order to
acquaint them with compositions that have previously been neglected. The author will examine
eleven of Diemer’s later choral works in detail, analyzing the harmony, rhythms,
accompaniment, setting of text, and choral writing, in order to discover her compositional style
and reasons for performing the works.
Literature Review
In the first dissertation written on Emma Lou Diemer, Cynthia Brown established the
importance of Emma Lou Diemer as a “Composer, Performer, Educator, Church Musician.”
5
Diemer bases her compositions in past traditions while incorporating modern techniques: The
composer notes that she pays homage to tradition as well as some of the innovative techniques of
the twentieth century.
6
My intent in composing has always been to learn from and build on the music of
the past, to create sound successions and structures that under the right conditions
5
Brown, Cynthia, “Emma Lou Diemer: Composer, Performer, Educator, Church Musician.” Dissertation, The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1985. 3 – 16.
6
Ibid. p. 22. (Diemer, “Loneliness of the Long-Distance Organ Composer” The American Organist, 16 September,
1982: 45).
5
may be beneficial and pleasurable to the performer and listener, and to add useful
material to the repertoire of the medium at hand.
7
Diemer also aims to express herself through her compositions and to communicate with
her audience:
I am most interested in my subjective idea of expressive content,
emotion, education, entertainment, and amusement; all for purposes of
communication.
8
Finally, Diemer enjoys using many different styles in her compositions:
One finds oneself in the position . . . of utilizing a variety of styles that have an
individualistic core but differ in parametric detail. The alternative, to become
mired in one style for the duration of one’s composing life, is detrimental to the
composing spirit.
9
Therefore, first and foremost, Diemer’s compositions can be examined for her
characteristic use of experimentation as a primary strategy. She continually approaches
composing with fresh ideas and new styles, well into her eighties. JoAnn Rediger, in her
dissertation based on videotaped interviews with the composer in 1994, reiterates Diemer’s
attraction to a variety of styles. She notes that Diemer claims the influences of widely varied
composers of the past, such as Bach, Brahms, Khachaturian, Poulenc, Stravinsky, and Britten.
10
Specifically, Diemer gravitates towards the “color, drive and intensity” of Aram Khachaturian
(1903 – 1978), the complexity of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750), the “rich harmonies” of
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897), the “orchestration” of Hector Berlioz (1803 – 1869), the
7
Ibid. p. 5. (Diemer, Emma Lou. “Writing for the Mallet and Percussion,” Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion, 22
April, 1983, 13 & 14).
8
Brown, Cynthia. “Emma Lou Diemer.” 4 (interview with Emma Lou Diemer, December 13, 1984).
9
Brown, Cynthia. “Emma Lou Diemer.” 6. (Diemer, “Loneliness of the Long-Distance Organ Composer” The
American Organist, 16 September, 1982: 45).
10
Rediger, JoAnn. “Videotaped interviews and Emma Lou Diemer.” Dissertation., Ball State University, 1994:
139.
6
“freshness” of Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971), the accessibility of “color, melody, and rhythm” in
the music of Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) and Dimitri Shostokovich (1906 – 1975), the appeal
of Benjamin Britten’s (1913 – 1976) “apparently simple ideas . . . arranged in ‘catching
ways,’”
11
and the ability of Sergei Prokoviev (1891 – 1953) to “change keys” abruptly without
modulation. Like her professor, Paul Hindemith, Diemer “writes music for all kinds of
ensembles and a wide range of levels of difficulty”
12
, making her a truly versatile artist.
A second characteristic in Emma Lou Diemer’s choral compositions is her ability to
express the text through the music in text-painting. In her 1987 dissertation on The Choral
Music of Emma Lou Diemer, Mary Eileen McDaniel concluded that Diemer’s choral writing
complements the poetry and “enhances the overall expressiveness of a text,” demonstrating “her
sensitivity to the mutuality that exists between words and music.
13
McDaniel surveyed over one
hundred choral works that had been composed prior to 1987, including an in-depth analysis of
twelve choral works, analyzing the text, music, and the relationship between the text and the
music. James Francis Bender, in his dissertation of 1988, also noted the significance of text and
text-painting in the vocal works of Emma Lou Diemer. Further, Jennifer Morgan in 2005 noted
Diemer’s text-painting, especially in Bee, I’m Expecting You, in which she “imitates the buzzing
of the bee,”
14
in the stepwise chromatic wavering accompaniment, returning to the “bee motif” as
an “interlude or ritornello.” Additionally, Sparks (2010) pointed out the tonal shifts and text-
11
Ibid.
12
Rediger, JoAnn. “Videotaped interviews and Emma Lou Diemer.” Dissertation., Ball State University, 1994:
139.
13
McDaniel, Mary Eileen. “The Choral Music of Emma Lou Diemer.”Dissertation, Arizona State University, 1987.
Abstract.
14
Diemer, in Sparks. "Toward an Integrated Theory of Musical Worth and Pedagogical Value: An Analysis of
Commissioned Choral Works and Personal Perspectives of Emma Lou Diemer and Alice Parker." Dissertation,
Georgia State University, 2010: 78.
7
painting in O Mistress Mine.
15
Bender further noted Diemer’s trend of “patterning” and
“repetition of fragments of text to achieve special musical/poetic effects.”
16
The present author
will examine this text-painting theme, as well as patterning and repetition in several of the works
studied, illustrating how Diemer illuminates her text cleverly with humor and sensitivity,
musically “painting” the scene the poetry depicts.
A third characteristic of Emma Lou Diemer’s choral writing is her choice of optimistic
texts. Rediger pointed out that Diemer has chosen texts that are “upbeat and constructive,” and
that she tends to use inclusive language.
17
In Diemer’s interview with Bruce Duffie, she also
mentioned her tendency to be optimistic:
Ninety per cent of the time I prefer to be upbeat and optimistic and hopeful about
everything, and this can be expressed in music.
18
This dissertation will further explore the theme of optimism in Emma Lou Diemer’s choral
music, focusing on her texts about love and peace as well as her settings of the Psalms. One
example of optimistic texts is her musical plea for peace in Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace,
composed in response to the attacks on the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.
A final characteristic of Diemer’s choral writing is her use of unusual accompaniments,
abrupt shifts in harmony, and rhythmic interest, both in the accompaniment and in the vocal
parts. Rediger (1994) noted the influences of the “color, drive and intensity” of Aram
Khachaturian which may contribute to Diemer’s ability to evoke dramatic tension through some
15
Sparks, Elise. "Toward an Integrated Theory of Musical Worth and Pedagogical Value: An Analysis of
Commissioned Choral Works and Personal Perspectives of Emma Lou Diemer and Alice Parker." Dissertation,
Georgia State University, 2010: 73.
16
Bender, James Francis. “Three American Composers from the Young Composers’ Project.” Dissertation, New
York University, 1988: 88.
17
Rediger, JoAnn.“Videotaped interviews and Emma Lou Diemer.” Dissertation., Ball State University, 1994:143.
18
Ibid.
8
of these techniques, as well as the “rich harmonies of Brahms, the orchestration of Berlioz, and
the freshness of Igor Stravinsky.” Diemer’s catchy accompaniments and sprightly staccato
choral lines as well as her exploration of modal and chromatic harmonies may originate from
these august influences; however, she molded them to her own uses. Sparks pointed out that:
Primarily a pianist, Diemer did not set out to be a prominent composer of choral
works. However, she relates that one positive aspect of having many
accompanied choral works published, is that she is able, in a small way, to realize
creative composition on the instrument she knows best.
19
Most comfortable composing on the keyboard, Diemer brings a pianist’s skills to her
choral writing, incorporating complex ostinato accompaniments, dissonant chords, and light,
moving choral lines with detached articulation and syncopated rhythms. This paper will explore
these characteristics in several of her choral works composed since 1987. For example, in her
most recent composition, Dolphins, both the voices and the accompaniment “leap” and dance
like dolphins, with staccato, syncopated rhythms and “splash” with dissonant chords. Despite
her predilection for the keyboard, Diemer also expressed her delight in “the choral sound,
(which) is as you know the most communicative medium because of the human voice.”
20
Sparks
also quoted Frank Ticheli (born 1958), another contemporary composer:
The greatest works say something profound in plain and universal ways. In the
compositional process the mind and the heart should keep each other in check.
Greatness has a chance when neither force takes over.
21
Emma Lou Diemer certainly balances her mind and her heart in her compositions and manages
to “say something profound in plain and universal ways.”
22
19
Sparks, Elise. "Toward an Integrated Theory of Musical Worth and Pedagogical Value: An Analysis of
Commissioned Choral Works and Personal Perspectives of Emma Lou Diemer and Alice Parker." Dissertation,
Georgia State University, 2010: 82.
20
Rediger, JoAnn. “Videotaped interviews and Emma Lou Diemer.” Dissertation., Ball State University, 1994: 52.
21
Ticheli, Frank. Quoted in Sparks, p. 193. From Sheldon, D. “The difficult art of writing creative music for young
bands.” The Instrumentalist, 57 (12): 25-29.
9
Sparks also compared Emma Lou Diemer and her compositional style to that of Alice
Parker, focusing primarily on their educational value in a school setting, noting that the best
education comes from studying compositions of musical worth. This author would posit that
music educators would be well-served by presenting Emma Lou Diemer’s compositions to their
students. In this author’s opinion, her works are not only worth studying, the students will be
drawn in, experience some worthwhile music, and enjoy the process.
22
Ibid.
10
Chapter 2:
Biography of Emma Lou Diemer
Born into a musical family in Kansas City, Missouri, November 24, 1927, Emma Lou
Diemer was a child prodigy. Her grandparents on both sides were church musicians, and she and
her siblings took piano lessons as well as another instrument: her sister Dorothy played the flute,
and her twin brothers George, Jr. and John played the trumpet and cello respectively. By the age
of five, Emma Lou could play Paderewski’s Minuet after hearing it just a few times.
1
By the age
of six, she had started to compose. By fifteen, Emma Lou had composed two piano concertos,
and she had decided that she wanted to train to become a professional composer. During high
school she would write music in the mornings before going to school, and she won an award for
her setting of the Twenty-third Psalm for voice and piano, as well as other awards from her Glee
Club, both for performing and composing.
She began college at Eastman School of Music, but transferred to Central Missouri State
Teachers’ College for her sophomore year because her father had started a Bachelor of Music
program there. Wanting more rigorous composition training, she finished her Bachelor’s Degree
at Yale University in 1949, and stayed on to complete her Masters in Composition in 1950. She
returned to Missouri where she taught piano, organ and counterpoint at Northeast Missouri State
Teachers’ College and continued to compose.
Diemer continued her formal composition training in 1952 at the Royal Conservatory in
Brussels, Belgium, with a Fulbright Scholarship. In the summers of 1954 and 1955 she studied
with Ernst Toch and Roger Sessions at the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood,
1
Schlegel, Ellen, Emma Lou Diemer, A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001: 3.
11
Massachusetts. In 1957 she won a scholarship to complete her doctorate at Eastman School of
Music, where she studied with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. Hanson, who once called
Diemer “one of America’s most gifted women composers,”
2
conducted and premiered her
dissertation project, the Symphony on American Indian Themes, with the Eastman-Rochester
Orchestra. Afterward, he wrote to her, “I was very pleased with your symphony. It came off
beautifully and I was delighted with the sound of the work.”
3
In 1959, the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project named Diemer as the first
woman Composer-in-Residence at the Arlington Public Schools in Virginia, where she spent two
years composing for choruses, bands, and orchestras. She learned to create compositions that
were accessible to young amateur musicians, using texts of literary merit (Shakespeare texts),
and finding a way to appeal to the singers, the educators, and her audiences.
In addition to composing, Emma Lou Diemer pursued an academic career.
In 1965 she began teaching theory and composition at the University of Maryland, where she
also taught eighteenth-century counterpoint, contemporary analytical techniques and
orchestration. In 1971, she accepted the position of Professor of Theory and Composition at the
University of California at Santa Barbara. There she also created an electronic music lab, and
continued to compose for orchestra, organ, band, and chorus.
In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Diemer served as organist at several churches
in Santa Barbara: First Church of Christ Scientist from 1973 to 1984 and First Presbyterian
Church from 1984 to 2000. Since retiring from UC Santa Barbara in 1991 as Professor Emerita,
2
Hanson, Howard ed., The New Scribner Music Library, vol. 4 of A Century of Piano Music
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972): 43.
3
Hanson, Howard, Personal correspondence with Emma Lou Diemer, March 30, 1959. (quoted in Ellen Schlegel,
Emma Lou Diemer, A Consummate Musician. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001).
12
she has completed many commissions, served as composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara
Symphony 1990-92, and has won numerous awards.
4
[Diemer] has received awards from Yale University, The Eastman School of
Music, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mu Phi Epsilon, the Kennedy
Center Friedheim Awards, the American Guild of Organists (Composer of the
Year), the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers/ASCAP
(annually since 1962 for performances and publications), the University of
Central Missouri (honorary doctorate), and many others.
5
Emma Lou Diemer prides herself on her ability to compose for professionals and
nonprofessionals alike. She is particularly drawn to the creative use of melody and rhythm,
enjoys creating an indeterminate tonal center, and focuses more on color and harmony rather
than tonality. She creates dramatic appeal, “some humor or whimsy or exoticism” in order to
engage fully the listener and performer.
6
Emma Lou Diemer readily confesses that her compositional process consists of
improvising at the piano “until something really seems to be worthwhile,” and then she begins to
write it down.
7
Consequently, many of her works have a feel of spontaneity about them. She
does not adhere to a particular school or set of rules. Rather, she likes “the element of chance” in
her composing.
8
Despite her dedication to chance and improvisation, Emma Lou Diemer pays close
attention to the structure of her works. Often setting works in ternary form, she follows an
instinctual attraction to presenting an idea, introducing a contrasting motif, and reinstating the
4
Schlegel, Ellen, Emma Lou Diemer, A Bio-Biblography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001: 19.
5
http://www.emmaloudiemermusic.com/page/page/6385944.htm, accessed June, 2015.
6
McCray, James, “American Choral Music with Organ: The Music of Emma Lou Diemer.” The American Organist
21.11 (November 1987): 70
7
Rediger, JoAnn. “Videotaped interviews and Emma Lou Diemer.” Dissertation., Ball State University, 1994: 44.
8
Ibid: 72.
13
initial material, perhaps in a different key or mode, or with a varied texture. Overall, however,
her goal is to communicate through her music. She prefers to write music that “moves people,
not that moves them out of the room.”
9
9
Diemer, “My Life as a Composer,” The Piano Quarterly 12/9 (1985): 58-59.
14
Chapter 3:
Analyses of Works
Methodology
After reviewing the forty-seven choral works by Emma Lou Diemer composed since
1987, the author chose eleven for further analysis: four sacred and seven secular. The eleven
compositions span a wide variety of styles, harmonies, accompaniment textures, rhythmic
figures, instrumentation, and texts. For each work, the author examined the text in terms of its
source, form, themes, metric structure, rhyme scheme, diction (whether formal or informal),
figurative language, and sound patterns (consonance/assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration).
Next, the researcher examined the musical settings of each work, the melody (range and
contour), harmony (chord structure, range of voice parts, homophony and polyphony), form, and
rhythmic structures, as well as tempi, dynamics, and accompaniment. Once the text and music
had been established, one could examine the relationship between the music and text, comparing
the original text with that used for the composition, the use of deletions, repetitions,
substitutions, as well as comparing the forms of the text versus the music, how the music
enhances the text, and the effect of the accompaniment. Finally, performance issues were
approached, including anticipated problems and/or challenges, and suggestions for ensemble size
and enhancing the performance.
Based on the analyses of the works, the researcher created an interview protocol for the
composer, including some more general overall questions about her compositional process, the
commissions she receives, choice of texts, preferences in harmony and rhythm and poetry, and
her advice for conductors (see Appendix A: Interview Questions, General Questions). The
researcher also created specific interview questions based on each work, focusing on commission
15
origins and restrictions, dramatic effects, harmonic, rhythmic, and textural choices, word-
painting techniques, and performance considerations. The interviews took place on August 27
and 28, 2015 in the composer’s home in Santa Barbara, and were audio-recorded. A full
transcription of these interviews can be found in Appendix B on page 147.
Introduction to the Analyses
After the interviews, the author analyzed the transcriptions and discovered some
recurring characteristics in the works studied. (see Chapter 5: Compositional Style and
Conclusions on page 138 for a full discussion of these findings). In analyzing the works, the
author focused on some of the themes that arose out of the interview. These themes included the
composer’s approach to the texts: choosing well-respected literature, using gender-neutral
language, selecting optimistic texts, and employing word or text-painting (the music following
the meaning of the text and illustrating it as in falling tones for “rain,” leaping intervals for
“dolphins,” buzzing chords for “bees”). In addition, the composer’s approach to harmony is
unusual, avoiding predictable progressions, shifting keys abruptly without modulations, adding
color tones and ninth chords, breaking away from traditional harmonies. Furthermore, she
employs creative rhythms, detached articulation, accompaniment that departs from the choral
lines, ostinato accompaniments, and chanting in a prescribed rhythm. Finally, she brings drama
and tension to the works through judicious use of dynamics, tempi, and repetition to create fully
formed artistic works. The analyses that follow focus on her eclectic use of word-painting,
harmonies, rhythms, dynamics, tempi, and form.
16
Sacred Works
#1: How Lovely is Your Dwelling (1995)
A sacred anthem with lyrical keyboard and flute, How Lovely is Your Dwelling sets the
text of Psalm 84 with straightforward vocal writing and a rhythmic ostinato in the
accompaniment. Emma Lou Diemer embellishes a tonal framework with color tones of ninths
and sevenths, and continual changes of key, giving the composition a sense of wandering or
unstable keys. Diemer’s unpredictable rhythms and harmonies contribute to the eclectic charm of
the composition.
Commissioned by Vick and Nancy Geiger (of Trinity United Church of Christ, Jasper,
Indiana), How Lovely is Your Dwelling sets only the first two verses of the text, although the first
three verses are printed in the introduction to the song.
How lovely is your dwelling, O Lord!
My soul longs, my soul faints for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young,
At your altar, O Lord, my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house
Ever singing your praise!
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
They go from strength to strength.
Diemer chooses to make the diction more colloquial by using “Your” instead of “Thy”
and “longs” instead of “longeth.” She also selects gender-neutral pronouns, such as “Your”
instead of “His,” explaining “I always have trouble with ‘He’ and ‘Him.’ I try to avoid that,”
later adding: “I don’t think of God as ‘he’; I don’t think of God as ‘she’ either, but as a force.”
1
1
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p. 160).
17
Diemer employs a minimum of word-painting in this work, although the melody leaps up
at the first mention of “Lovely,” and leaps up another octave for “at your altar” and for “Lord,”
elevating the words “lovely,” “altar” and “Lord” (see Example 3.1).
Example 3.1 Use of ascending leaps for word painting
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 13 – 15, 33 – 35
18
Beginning with a general tonal sense, Diemer adds color tones of sixths and ninths.
Creating an initial rhythmic ostinato in the organ, alternating between a G major chord with a
color tone of a ninth and a D6 – 9 chord, with a bass pedal point of G, Diemer establishes a
general sense of G major (see Example 3.2).
Example 3.2 G chords with color tones
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 1 - 2
19
Over this pulsing current, the flute plays a lyrical melody, based on the G major scale,
and at measure 5, adds a C-sharp, indicating the secondary dominant, D major, while the organ
ostinato shifts to alternating between A with a dissonant 9 and G major 7 chords (see Example
3.3).
Example 3.3 Flute melody, organ ostinato
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 1 - 4
20
After six measures of the G pedal point, Diemer shifts keys in measure 7, first to F-sharp
minor (with a 9
th
), and B minor. In measure 8, Diemer shifts from B minor 9 to E minor 7,
moving around the circle of fifths, but not resolving in any tonic, following her predilection for
avoiding a tonic key (see Example 3.4).
Example 3.4 Shifting keys around circle of fifths
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 7 – 8.
21
In measures 9 and 10, the bass establishes a C pedal point, but the manuals move up the
C scale in triads, in the halting rhythm of the ostinato. When Diemer returns to the opening
figure and G pedal, she creates only a limited sense of arrival, since she precedes it by a C7 and
C6 chord, the IV of G (see Example 3.5).
Example 3.5 Limited sense of arrival
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 9 - 10
22
Later the keys fluctuate rapidly: at measure 40, the organ ostinato sequence changes key
every two measures, giving a sense of wandering keys (as in “Denn wir haben hie keine
bleibende Statt,” the opening passage of Movement VI in Ein deutsches Requiem by Johannes
Brahms, Opus 45). Many of Diemer’s works demonstrate this tendency to create an unstable
tonal center (see Example 3.6).
Example 3.6 Change of keys every two measures
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 40 - 43
23
As for the vocal writing, Diemer creates a canon at measure 52, where the basses begin at
the octave one measure after the sopranos and altos, and continue until measure 63 (see Example
3.7). She also adds syncopated textures, both in the accompaniment and the voices).
Example 3.7 Canon and syncopated textures
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 52 - 56
24
Diemer’s syncopated rhythms draw on techniques from predecessors. Having studied
Stravinsky’s irregular rhythms, Diemer creates an ostinato in this work in a 3 + 3 + 2 rhythm,
which she identified as “almost a Latin rhythm,”
2
inverting it in measure 9 (see Example 3.8).
Example 3.8 3 + 3 + 2 ostinato rhythm
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 9 - 11
2
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p. 160).
25
The organ rhythm dances like an offbeat gigue, while some of the vocal setting is also
syncopated, as in “is your dwelling, O Lord” (see Example 3.9).
Example 3.9 Syncopated organ and vocal writing
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 13 – 15
26
With ties and quarter-note triplets as well as shifting accents, Diemer creates many
unpredictable rhythmic combinations in this composition. The thought process behind such
intricate and detailed rhythmic work is contained in Diemer’s own words:
I found when I first started writing choral music that there wasn’t anyone writing
much with rhythm. It was all sustained and legato all the time and a lot of choral
music is that way now too, so I really tried to add some rhythm in the
accompaniment and sometimes in the voices and…so [How Lovely] is an example
of that.
3
Diemer also creates some irregular harmonic movement. In measure 20, the A7 chord
resolves by moving the seventh (G) upward to the root, rather than typically downward to the
third of the next chord. Also, the last two beats of measure 24 resemble G-sharp diminished,
which would lead to a modulation into A major, but moves instead to an unexpected F-sharp
passage (see Example 3.10).
Example 3.10 Irregular Harmonic Movement
How Lovely Is Your Dwelling, mm. 20 – 24
3
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p. 160).
27
Also in measure 32, Diemer creates a unique cadence: E minor 7 followed by F major 7
on her way to re-establishing the key of G in measure 33 with the return of the rhythmic pattern.
She takes a circuitous route back to the original key (see Example 3.11). Diemer delights in
using unpredictable harmony.
Example 3.11 Unpredictable Harmony
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 32 – 35
28
As in many of her works, Diemer heightens the dramatic tension within the composition
using dynamic and tempo changes. For example, she sets a ritardando at the end of phrases,
such as at measure 48, at the third repetition of “courts of the Lord,” at measure 62, at the third
repetition of “O Lord,” and at measure 64, asking for a slower tempo to the end. She also builds
drama with terraced dynamics at the beginning of the composition: piano at measure 13 for the
soprano and alto entrance, mezzo piano at measure 16 for the bass entrance on “my soul,” mezzo
forte at measure 21, when the voices split into parts on “my heart,” and forte at measure 25 on
“God,” the peak of the phrase. After a quiet middle section at measure 28, and a declamatory
recapitulation at measure 38, Diemer allows the drama to ebb as the dynamics become
increasingly soft: mezzo piano at measure 52 on “How lovely,” piano at measure 57 on “How
lovely,” pianissimo at measure 59 on the flute echo, and pianissimo at measure 62 for the voices,
as if the scene is receding, or ascending to Heaven (see Example 3.12).
Example 3.12 Pianissimo ending
How Lovely is Your Dwelling, mm. 57 - 62
29
As in many of her works, Diemer sets How Lovely is Your Dwelling in ternary form,
outlining the structure of an arch. Diemer creates the form by limiting her setting to the first two
verses of the Psalm. Whereas the poem continues on to the “Blesseds,” Diemer chooses to return
to the first statement of “How Lovely” along with the original melody, thus closing the circle.
This composition is adaptable to most ensembles, although it requires a skilled organist
and flutist. The organ part includes a scale on the pedals (measure 27) and the flute part also
includes some scale passages, both of which demand technical dexterity. The vocal parts also
require a moderate level of competence. Whereas Diemer scores the vocal parts for SAB voices,
any performance would need a minimum of 6 – 12 singers to be effective (2 to 3 on a part). In
measure 13, Diemer adds “optional” extra harmonies, and the changes in dynamics and tone,
especially in measure 28, necessitate flexible, full voices. At measure 21, the alto divisi would
require at least 2 on a part to be effective. On the other hand, the divisi lasts only six bars, and
one could simplify the part if necessary.
To enhance a performance, the conductor should pay close attention to dynamic changes,
make sure the organ ostinato is crisp and rhythmic, and contrast the rhythm of the organ with the
fluidity of the voices and flute. In addition, the conductor will need to be aware of the meter
changes, altering the conducting pattern as needed: 3 + 3 + 2 at the beginning, switching to 4/4
when the voices enter at measure 13, returning to 3 + 3 + 2 at measure 33, and 4/4 at measure 44,
in two at measure 47 for one bar, 3/2 at measure 48, and returning to 3 + 3+ 2 at measure 49.
This kind of mixed meter requires dexterity and flexibility, as well as an intimate knowledge of
the score.
30
#2: Consider the Lilies (2006)
A melodic anthem with textured organ accompaniment, Consider the Lilies sets a
familiar New Testament Scripture, Matthew 6:28-31, 33-34a, chosen by Dr. Constance Speake,
who commissioned the work. Dr. Speake and St. Peter Community Church, Northbrook,
Illinois, commissioned Consider the Lilies on the occasion of Dr. Speake’s retirement as Director
of Music.
Consider the lilies, lilies of the field,
Consider the lilies, how they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory
Was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass in the field,
Which today is and tomorrow is cast into the fire.
Shall not God clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or,
What shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
But seek ye first the kingdom of God
And all these things shall be added unto you.
Take, therefore, no thought, for the morrow,
For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
Consider the lilies, lilies of the field,
Consider the lilies, how they grow,
The lilies, the lilies.
Emma Lou Diemer remarked “the text lends itself to a very lyrical [work],”
4
and the
setting is lyrical, calm, and gentle, for SATB choir with organ accompaniment. The consonant
melody is in a moderate range, and the harmony is diatonic and straightforward; the homophonic
unison setting is simple. Given the limited range and uncomplicated writing, the composer had
4
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160)
31
hoped that more choir directors would program it. Diemer expressed surprise that the
composition had not become more popular: “I thought: this is another anthem that should really
catch on, people should really like it.”
5
As in many of her works, Diemer again sets well-respected literature that expresses
optimism. Although the setting does not include any real word painting, the rhythm feels
agitated at “What shall we eat? What shall we drink?” (see Example 3.13). The syncopated
rhythm conveys the anxiety about these basic needs of life.
Example 3.13 Syncopated rhythm expressing agitation
Consider the Lilies, mm. 58 - 60
5
Interview, August 28, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.?)
32
Diemer verified that her choice of rhythm followed the sense of the words: “to me those
words were... very rhythmic and kind of chanting.”
6
The section contrasts with the beginning,
which feels calm and gentle, describing the lilies, the accompaniment flows at “they toil not,
neither do they spin,” as if we have reassurance in their beauty (see Example 3.14).
Example 3.14 Flowing accompaniment
Consider the Lilies, mm. 13 - 16
6
Ibid
33
The accompaniment texture changes at measure 42, “was not arrayed,” altering from held
half notes under “yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory” to flowing descending
broken chords under “arrayed, arrayed like one of these,” indicating a fuller wardrobe for the
lilies than for Solomon (see Example 3.15).
Example 3.15 Descending broken chords in accompaniment
Consider the Lilies, mm. 41 - 44
34
The accompaniment also adds variation and texture that is warm, gentle and supportive.
The strings play syncopated repeated rhythms, the flutes play the lyrical melody, and the organ
sustains a drone, establishing the key and keeping the whole composition anchored.
The harmony Emma Lou Diemer identified as a “warm harmonic sound.” She begins
and ends the work with her typical tonic chord colored with a ninth, but she also establishes and
returns to the key of A major, departing only briefly to C major and G major, and making
smooth transitions:
On the bottom of page 4 you have that transition from the key of A gradually to a
kind of a C. I always try to make transitions sound smooth…sometimes you can
just change…you don’t have to always modulate, you don’t have to transition; you
can just go from one to the other. Prokofiev does that. He’ll start off in one key and
then he’s in another one, and fortunately there was no messy modulation.
7
In measures 35 and 36, Diemer makes the smooth transition from A to C via descending scale
patterns in G, the V of C (see Example 3.16).
Example 3.16 Descending scale patterns in G
Consider the Lilies, mm. 33 - 36
7
Interview, August 27, 2015. (see Appendix C, p. 160).
35
As for rhythmic interest, the composition includes syncopation and variation, with
repeated rhythms off the beat and flowing descending scale patterns setting the words “they toil
not, neither do they spin.” In contrast, the “flutes” (stops on the organ) maintain the lyrical
melody in a gentle, lilting rhythm of quarter notes and half notes. In contrast, the organ
maintains the syncopated ostinato while also sustaining a drone on A, establishing the key and
keeping it anchored. The drone starts to descend on “they toil not neither do they spin” (see
Example 3.17).
Example 3.17 Descending Drone
Consider the Lilies, mm. 27 – 30
36
Whereas the melody, harmony, and rhythm are all fairly straightforward, Emma Lou
Diemer varied the texture to provide added interest. She commented:
When it comes back to A, the texture changes (you’ve got the alto and the bass,
right?)…so you have a different timbral sound when it returns and then that
melody is repeated by the soprano and tenor...it’s a very common use of the
voices, you know, pairing the lower voices, men and women, and then pairing the
higher voices tenor and soprano.
8
At the beginning, she pairs the sopranos and altos singing together (see Example 3.18).
Example 3.18 Altos and Sopranos singing in unison
Consider the Lilies, mm. 4-8
8
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
37
Later she pairs the tenors and basses singing in unison before setting “they toil not” in fully
mixed harmony at measure 27 (see Example 3.19).
Example 3.19 Tenors and basses singing in unison
Consider the Lilies, mm. 18 - 21
38
She also adds repetition to the form of the poem, creating a rondo form in the music,
repeating the same music but set to men’s voices, as opposed to the opening women’s voices.
Although the original text is through-composed, the music repeats the initial melody in between
each of the verses so that it becomes a Rondo (AABACADA).
As Emma Lou Diemer declared,
If there are several verses, I like to come back to something that’s been done
before. I like to do that. So very often it’s an ABA type of structure that comes
about. [Ternary form] gives you a sense of completing and also liking
something enough to repeat it.
9
The “lilies” theme carries the work forward, repeated after each verse. On each repetition,
Diemer changes the dynamics as well as the texture, building from the first statement at piano,
the second at mezzo piano, to “And yet I say unto you” at a forceful forte (see Example 3.20).
9
Interview, August 28, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.?)
39
Example 3.20 Forceful Dynamics
Consider the Lilies, mm. 37 - 44
40
The dynamics and the texture form an arc, becoming more complex and louder toward
the center of the composition, and lighter and quieter toward the end, ending on pianissimo.
The whole work is accessible and flowing, set in a manageable range with minimal divisi (only
at measure 74). The conducting would be relatively straightforward as well, since it is set mostly
in 3/4, only changing to 4/4 at measure 56. The composition could fit several different universal
themes: the worth and dignity of each person, environmental concerns, and the acceptance of
one another as we are. In the author’s opinion, it is simple and accessible enough for most
church choirs to learn.
#3: Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace (2006)
An urgent plea for peace, Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace was composed for the
Waging Peace Through Singing Project of the University of Oregon and published in 2006.
Emma Lou Diemer chose to set a poem by her sister, Dorothy Diemer Hendry, written in 2002 in
response to the attacks on the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.
Neighbor, take this torch of peace, run it down the line.
We will banish hateful darkness where our torches shine.
Astronauts and angels watching over us at night say,
“All continents are glowing. What an awesome light!”
People of the Earth re-pledging want and war will cease.
We are waging peace, good neighbors! We are waging peace!
Inspired by her sister’s poetry, the composer composed the work in order to “enter a contest . . .
about trying to wage peace instead of war.”
10
A six-line poem of three couplets, the text follows a simple rhyming couplet scheme of
AABBCC. The informal diction (“neighbor,” and “run it down the line”) makes the reader feel
close to the action, and the colorful alliteration (“angels and astronauts,” “want and war,” “take
10
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
41
this torch,” and “we are waging peace”) illuminates the poetry. Like her gender-neutral sister,
Dorothy Diemer Hendry refers only to gender-neutral nouns: “neighbor, astronauts, angels,
people,” and “we,” including everyone in the language of the poem.
The harmony follows the pattern of Emma Lou Diemer’s composing style, setting up a
traditional chord progression, but obscuring it with ninths, omitted thirds, and other color tones.
As she notes, the harmonies “skirt the tonality,” incorporating “the avoidance of the tonic chord,
like Brahms.”
11
As in the sixth movement of the Brahms Requiem (where the key meanders to
illustrate Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt, “Here we have no abiding city”), Diemer
creates an unsettled feeling in the harmony throughout the song, concluding on an unsettled F9
chord. Diemer remarks,
It’s not until the end that you get some type of resolution to an actual tonality.
It ends on F (an F9 chord). Until that everything is up in the air.
12
In the end, the ninth undercuts any feeling of solidity or finality in the final chord, perhaps
indicating the continuing unfinished work of waging peace.
As for the rhythmic structures, although the melody is set in straightforward quarter
notes, Diemer sets the keyboard part with an offbeat syncopated ostinato. The pulsing
accompaniment fills in the harmonies or creates clashes with the melody, creating a texture of
insistency with its offbeat rhythms and arpeggios. Diemer describes it as “a driving
accompaniment, kind of urgent, syncopated all the way through.”
13
The urgency creates constant
tension, lending a battle-like atmosphere to the song, portraying the unrelenting struggle to find
peace.
11
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
42
Diemer repeats the whole poem twice, as well as repeating the last line three times (“we
are waging peace”), each time a little softer. She repeats the musical setting exactly, so that
measures 1 – 30 are identical to measures 33 – 61. This repetition gives the composition a sense
of return, although the harmonies wander and incorporate non-chord tones, deceptive cadences,
sudden leaps, and changes in key with no preparation or modulation.
One can see the harmonic pattern in the first two measures, where Diemer chooses to
outline a basic ii – V7 – I progression in E-flat, but adds the fourth, and places the ninth in the
bass (see Example 3.21).
Example 3.21 ii – V7 – I progression with fourth and ninth added
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 1 - 2
43
In measures 3 – 6, Diemer introduces the vocal melody, in unison, outlining an E-flat
scale in measures 5 and 6, but accompanies it with the urgent syncopation and same
progression as in the introduction, with the ninth and then the fifth in the bass (see Example
3.22).
Example 3.22 Vocal melody in unison, syncopated accompaniment
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 3 - 7
44
In measures 7 – 11, Diemer follows the same basic progression as in m. 3 – 6 (ii – V7 – I), but
meanders around the circle of fifths (A-flat, D-flat, G-flat) and then slides stepwise from A-flat
to G-flat and touching briefly on D-flat before landing on F minor, but inverted, with C in the
bass, obscuring the tonality further (see Example 3.23).
Example 3.23 Circle of fifths movement, ending on F minor inverted
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 7 - 11
45
Measure 12 repeats the vocal melody from measures 3 – 6, also in unison, with the same chord
progression (ii – V7 - I), but Diemer changes the key to G, and in measure 13, creates a G pedal
over a V7 chord. In measure 15, Diemer leaps into B-flat major 7 with no preparation (see
Example 3.24).
Example 3.24 Vocal melody in unison, shift from G to B-flat major
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 12 - 16
46
Measures 17 and 18 follow a similar progression (ii – vii diminished – I) now in B-flat, but the
harmony moves into E without the third in measures 19 and 20, giving it an E minor feel,
creating a very open sound (see Example 3.25).
Example 3.25 B-flat to E minor, open sound
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 17 - 21
47
Measures 23 – 26 follow the same tune as in measures 3 – 6, but now the tune is in A-flat,
finishing in an A-flat major 7 chord (measure 24) and a deceptive cadence into C minor in
measure 25, further undercutting any sense of stability (see Example 3.26).
Example 3.26 Deceptive Cadence into C minor (measure 26)
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 23 - 26
48
Finally, in measures 27 – 30, although they outline the same tune as in measures 7 – 11, the key
slides down with no preparation to C-flat, in a manner we have come to expect of Diemer. There
is a linear progression, but based on a stepwise motion, not the circle of fifths: in measure 29, C-
flat to B-flat diminished; in measure 30, A-flat to F minor, resolving on the word “peace,” but
the F minor chord is inverted as it is in measures 10 and 11 (see Example 3.27).
Example 3.27 Linear progression to F minor inverted
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 27 - 31
After a transition back to E-flat through B-flat (measures 31 and 32), Diemer chooses to repeat
the entire poem with her original setting in measures 33 – 61 (identical to measures 1 – 30). The
coda, from measure 62 to the end at measure 68, continues the original ii – V7 – I progression of
the first two bars twice, repeating the text “We are waging peace,” but not resolving. Instead
Diemer creates a deceptive cadence to IV (A-flat major 7) in measure 65, portraying perhaps the
illusoriness of peace. In measure 66, Diemer abruptly transitions into an F-flat major 7 chord
49
with a chromatic suspension sliding into F, clearly avoiding a typical V – I ending. The music
ends as unresolved as the peace process (see Example 3.28).
Example 3.28 Coda, deceptive cadence to A-flat major 7 and F, unresolved
Neighbor Take This Torch of Peace, mm. 62 – 68
50
Although Diemer does not employ “word painting” per se, the music enhances the text
pictorially. She sets the word “Peace” as the highest note of the first line, with an ascending line
leading up to “Neighbor take this torch of peace,” as if holding the torch up to the light.
Likewise, the melody descends under “Hateful darkness” and ascends under “Where our torches
shine” as if light shines “above” darkness. Also, the three repetitions of “We are waging peace”
at the end of the song feel emphatic at first, and then less and less so, as if the singer is not sure
of him/herself.
As for performance, this composition due to its limited range, unison writing and
straightforward rhythm is, in this author’s opinion, well suited for any choral ensemble. The
whole-tone scale of the second line could provide some challenges, as could some of the more
unusual harmonies. Adding the organ could enhance a performance, especially if the organist
had Diemer’s organ skills. The accompaniment requires a talented keyboard player, with all its
varying rhythms and constantly changing chords. Conducting the work should not present too
many challenges, since most of the meter is in a simple 4/4. In measure 3, one could conduct the
6/4 pattern in a slow 3. This work would be especially appropriate for a concert or service on the
peace theme.
51
#4: Thy Holy Wings (2009)
Composed for the South Dakota Saint Cecilia Trio, Thy Holy Wings sets selected verses of
Psalm 25 to a Swedish folk tune. The commission by the South Dakota Saint Cecilia Trio
requested both the tune and the instrumentation of flute, cello and keyboard. This tonal work
based on a simple melody has gained some popularity, partially due to its simplicity and
accessibility, as Diemer acknowledged in the interview.
14
Diemer sets two versions of the text, the first, originally by Caroline V. Sandell-Berg and
translated by Ernest E. Ryden, and the second, paraphrased by William Miller and Jaroslav Vajda.
Both texts comprise four verses of the Psalm, and both appear under Diemer’s musical setting.
Psalm 25 (in 4 verses)
Thy holy wings, dear Savior,
Spread gently over me;
Through the long night watches
I’ll rest secure in thee.
Whatever may betide me,
Be thou my hiding place,
And let me live and labor
Each day, Lord, by thy grace.
Thy pardon, Savior, grant me,
And cleanse me in thy blood;
Give me a willing spirit,
A heart both clean and good.
O take into thy keeping
Thy children great and small,
While we sweetly slumber,
Enfold us one and all
Alternate verses:
I lift my soul to you, Lord,
I trust, O God, in you.
Show me your paths and guide me,
Teach me all I should do.
Remember your great mercy,
Your everlasting love;
Forgive me, God, my Savior,
My guilt and sin remove.
Your covenant and mercy
Are with me all my days
To comfort and to bless me
When I walk in your ways.
Whenever I look upward,
I find you waiting there,
To bear me and to keep me
Safe in your loving care
14
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
52
Contrasting with her earlier works that shift keys abruptly, Diemer sets this poem to a
well-established, diatonic, tonal melody in G major that repeats for each verse and contains no
abrupt shifts in key or ninth chords. In measures 32 to 34, Diemer begins a linear progression,
with the bass line descending by step. After touching on III, Diemer creates a cadence following
a typical ii – V - I cadence, substituting vii7 for V. The use of F-sharp minor and G minor
inverted (i6) make the progression sound unusual. Diemer creates unexpected sounds, even in a
tonal composition (see Example 3.29).
Example 3.29 ii – vii7 – i6 Progression
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 32 - 34
53
Also, often the third of the chord is omitted, as in measure 3 last beat, and again in
measures 7, 15, 23, 50, 54, and 62 (see Example 3.30). This has the creates an ambiguous open
sound, not weighted in either a major or minor mode.
Example 3.30 Third of chord omitted (measure 3, last beat)
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 1 -3
54
In terms of the form of the work, Diemer creates a three-part form three times, setting
two verses of the poem for each statement of the melody. The first verse follows an AABA
pattern and each verse continues that pattern.
More clearly, here is the form:
First Verse
A: Thy holy wings, dear Savior,
Spread gently over me;
A: Through the long night watches
I’ll rest secure in thee.
B: Whatever may betide me,
Be thou my hiding place,
A: And let me live and labor
Each day, Lord, by thy grace.
Second Verse
A: Thy pardon, Savior, grant me,
And cleanse me in thy blood;
A: Give me a willing spirit,
A heart both clean and good.
B: O take into thy keeping
Thy children great and small,
A: While we sweetly slumber,
Enfold us one and all.
Third Verse
A: Thy holy wings, dear Savior,
Spread gently over me;
A: Through the long night watches
I’ll rest secure in thee.
B: O take into thy keeping
: Thy children great and small,
A: Thy holy wings, dear Savior,
Spread gently over all.
55
Diemer varies the accompaniment for each verse: in the first verse, the flute plays in unison with
the soprano melody, while the other voices provide a homophonic accompaniment, and the cello
plays pizzicato arpeggios (see Example 3.31). The effect is varied in texture, allowing the choral
part to remain pure, following the melody supported by homophonic chords.
Example 3.31 Cello pizzicato, flute melody, homophonic voices
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 1 - 3
56
In the second verse, the cello plays in unison with the men’s melody, while the women’s voices
are silent, and the flute plays a countermelody and the piano provides a pizzicato accompaniment
(see Example 3.32).
Example 3.32 Cello melody, flute countermelody, piano pizzicato
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 27 -29
57
Verse three imitates verse one almost exactly, except the flute plays a descant in contrast to the
melody (see Example 3.33).
Example 3.33 Flute descant (otherwise similar to Verse 1)
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 49 - 51
58
An instrumental interlude lightens the texture between the second and third verse. The
piano plays a solo for eight bars, the cello and flute play a duet for two bars, and the cello plays a
solo for two bars, the last recreating the beginning introduction (see Example 3.34).
Example 3.34 Instrumental interlude
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 44 – 49
59
Similarly, Diemer adds an instrumental passage after the third verse, with piano pizzicato
arpeggios and cello and flute obbligato (see Example 3.35).
Example 3.35 Instrumental interlude after third verse
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 67 - 70
60
She concludes the work with a lighter coda, the possibly angelic choir singing half-note “ah”
chords accompanied by piano chords, cello arpeggios and a light flute obbligato (see Example
3.36).
Example 3.36 Coda, Ascending Flute scale, Cello arpeggio, piano chords
Thy Holy Wings, mm. 74 - 77
Unlike earlier works, Thy Holy Wings does not build much dramatic tension, the dynamic
marked mezzo forte almost throughout, except for a few bars of the last verse. Like many of
Diemer’s works, Thy Holy Wings does adhere to a ternary form, repeating the last verse as a final
verse, and repeating the last section as a finale. As Diemer said in the interview,
One automatically writes in sonata form because that’s all you’ve heard.
First theme...development…recap. So it’s a natural kind of structure.
15
Due to the predictable harmonic structure, the diatonic melody, and homophonic voicing,
as well as the accessible range, many amateur ensembles would find Thy Holy Wings easy to
15
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
61
learn; it could be an effective anthem or festival selection. The conductor would need to hire an
accomplished flutist and cellist with the ability to play in ensemble with each other and the choir,
as well as to play the sixteenth notes of the last verse. On the other hand, in this author’s opinion,
most choirs would have little difficulty navigating the choral parts. The conductor would need to
work with the ensemble on the interval leaps, the connected legato phrasing, and clean unison
homophony. Otherwise, one could employ a small or large ensemble, as long as one could hire
excellent instrumentalists and encourage the sopranos to use limited vibrato. Diemer asserted
that “I think that in any composition you should have minimal vibrato unless it’s some kind of
effect.”
16
16
Ibid.
62
Chapter 4:
Analyses of Works Continued
Secular Works
#5: I Know a Bird (1990)
A complex modern madrigal, I Know a Bird, sets another poem to music by the
composer’s sister, Dorothy Diemer Hendry. The poem consists of four sets of couplets
(two quatrains) interrupted by one line of onomatopoetic bird-calls. This is a light poem that
combines birdsong with romantic longing:
I know a bird that sings all night
Mad with love in the full moon light.
He steals his rolling roundelay
From proper birds that sing by day
Hip, chip hoo-ee, cheer-up cheerily, coo-coo.
How do I know he pours his song
Mad as moon light all night long?
I myself the whole night through,
Hear him while I long for you . . .
The rhyme scheme follows a simple repeating pattern (AABBCDDEE). The bird's songs
are illustrated through onomatopoeia and alliteration (“chip chip,” “ cheer-up cheerily,” “mad as
moonlight,” “rolling roundelay,” “hear him”). Diemer chooses an appropriately skipping
melody, that leaps up a major sixth and flits up and down lightly like a bird, all staccato notes,
following her own tradition of detached, light rhythmic writing (see Example 4.1).
63
Example 4.1 Detached, skipping melody
I Know a Bird, mm. 1 - 6
64
Although the key signature indicates C major, the melody outlines E major mixolydian, with a
lowered seventh D in the bass. Again, Diemer is particularly drawn to abrupt shifts in harmony,
following a practice of her teacher, Hindemith, as well as favorite composers Prokofiev and
Rachmaninoff.
1
At measure 10, the key abruptly shifts to D mixolydian, with a lowered seventh
C in the bass (see Example 4.2).
Example 4.2 Key shifts from E to D mixolydian
I Know a Bird, mm. 10 - 12
1
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
65
The overall structure follows a ternary form, typical for Diemer:
A: m. 1 – 10: “I know a bird” theme (E myxolydian over D pedal)
m. 10 – 16: “I know a bird” theme (D myxolydian over C pedal)
B: m. 17 – 29: onomatopoetic bird sounds (d/f minor over G-sharp/A-flat pedal)
A: m. 30 – 47: “I know a bird” theme with different words
(“How do I know he pours his song”)
(c minor/major over D-flat, then C pedal)
CODA: “I know a bird” theme with original text (d minor over C pedal)
Resolves to original tonal center - E
66
As in many of her works, Diemer creates text-painting and pictorial composing in I Know a Bird,
using rhythm, melody, and dynamics to imitate the bird calls, and to imitate bird characteristics,
like flitting to and fro. The rhythm flits about in dotted eighths and sixteenth notes (see Example
5 - 2), and Diemer chooses a quick bird-like tempo (fast, light), setting the tone (“a bit wistful”)
as well as the speed. Her terraced dynamics follow the waking up of the birds, beginning
quietly, even in the bird call section (measures 17 – 29), starting and ending pianissimo, but
building to mezzo forte in the middle (measure 25), and relaxing to the end of the section
(measure 30). The onomatopoetic bird calls of the middle section (measures 17-29) generate an
increasingly dense texture, as the altos and basses begin with “chip, chip,” the tenors add “hooo-
ee” at measure 18, and the sopranos chime in with “cheer up” at measure 20 (see Example 4.3).
Example 4.3 Onomatopoetic bird calls, increasingly dense
I Know a Bird, mm. 16 - 21
67
Also, Diemer punctuates the beginning chirps with rests, but as more birds/voices chime in, they
become increasingly urgent, the sopranos singing sixteenths instead of eighth notes, and the
tenors and basses singing consistent eighth notes at m. 24 (see Example 4.4).
Example 4.4 Bird calls increasingly urgent
I Know a Bird, mm. 24
The terraced dynamics follow the drama of the song, beginning and ending quietly, and building
to mezzo forte at the climax of the densely textured bird calls in measure 24. The accompaniment
follows the melody in the treble with repeating bass eighth notes in fifths and sixths. The
reinforcement from the accompaniment would help the singers, while the bass adds contrast and
68
a pulsing rhythm. The a cappella bird-calls, in contrast, could challenge an amateur chorus, with
no support from the accompaniment.
Diemer often employs repetition to enhance a song.
2
In this song she repeats statements
in an echo format: the sopranos and altos sing the first line, “I know a bird who sings all night,”
and the tenor and bass immediately echo the same line. Similarly, the sopranos and altos sing the
second line, “Mad with love in the full moonlight,” and the tenors and basses echo that line as
well. Also the birdcalls themselves are reiterated numerous times:
1. “chip, chip,” repeated 18 times (altos and basses)
2. “hoo-ee,” repeated 17 times (tenors)
3. “cheer up,” 4 times (sopranos)
4. “Cheerily,” 10 times (sopranos)
5. “Coo-coo,” 9 times (all voice parts)
The layering and increasing number of bird calls overall create a cacophony of sound in a static
harmonic texture, with increasing tension as the layers become denser and more intense
dynamically, and decreasing tension as they dissipate and thin out.
After the bird calls, at measure 30, the melody returns to the original theme, although this
time it is set in C Minor, the minor mode perhaps reflecting the sadder tone of the second
quatrain, as the speaker longs for his/her love. The tenors and basses introduce the melody this
time, and the sopranos and altos echo them: “How do I know he pours his song?” and “Mad as
moonlight all night long?” At measure 38, after the tenors and basses begin the line, “While I
2
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
69
long for you,” the sopranos and altos echo it while the tenors and basses continue singing,
illustrating the length of their longing by repeating, “whole night through” (see Example 4.5).
Example 4.5 Echo and repetition of “whole night through”
I Know a Bird, mm. 38 - 40
70
“Long for you,” (measures 43-44) is repeated and echoed five times, perhaps as a way to reflect
the persistent longing of the lovers and generating tension and drama. It also ends on an
unresolved C7 chord, evoking the feeling of unresolved love expressed in the poetry (see
Example 4.6).
Example 4.6 Repetition and echo of “Long for you”
I Know a Bird, mm. 41 - 44
71
In the coda, all voices join in singing “I know a bird who sings all night” four times in
harmony and canon. All of the repetitions and layering serve to create the sound of many birds
singing at once, producing the effect of a woods filled with bird-song, an onomatopoeic
rendering of the whole poem.
This work presents challenges for amateur singers, specifically the leaping melody and
the bird-calls. One risks over-singing the top note of the melody if the singer lands on it too
enthusiastically. The bird-calls present a rhythmic challenge, like skipping rope, each singing
part must time its entrance precisely. Slow practice with sections practicing separately might aid
in the learning process, rehearsing first with the piano and gradually removing that support. A
small ensemble of skilled singers could quickly learn this song. Any ensemble could position
themselves around the room, thus surrounding the audience with the textured atmosphere of a
bird-song-filled forest. Overall, it is an effective, innovative, complex madrigal, and in this
author’s opinion, worthy of performance.
72
#6: Show and Tell (1990)
Another creative, complex madrigal and setting of the Dorothy Diemer Hendry’s poetry,
“Show and Tell” portrays a lively dialogue between a young girl and her “beau.” The poem
itself creates an easy binary form (AAB): one verse spoken by the boy, one verse spoken by the
girl, and one spoken by both.
I am such a bashful beau
I must wait for you to show
If you love me, my dear belle,
Show me, show me well!
I am such a modest belle
I must wait for you to tell
If you love me, my dear beau,
Tell me, tell me so!
What is the good of shyness dear?
Faint hearts never win, I hear.
Fan the flame of courage high!
Must show our love and tell it, too,
And keep it always true.
In mock formal language, the characters present themselves as a “bashful beau” and
“modest belle,” needing to “fan the flame of courage” to woo each other. Emma Lou Diemer
creates a song that follows this form exactly, with some words repeated for emphasis. She molds
the song into a ternary form, by repeating the first verse at the end of the work.
In her usual text-painting fashion, Diemer’s melody follows the rhythm of the words,
specifying that singers perform the song “detached and accented,” thus underscoring the drama
of the situation. Once again the harmony shifts abruptly. Before establishing E major as the
central key, the harmony shifts from E-flat/C minor to D-flat and then to E. She sets the second
verse in C major and D major, and returns to E-flat major for the final verse.
73
Although the composition begins with a sense of a key, it shortly moves away from that
tonal center, following Diemer’s predilection for avoiding the tonic. Beginning with an E-flat
pedal, although staccato, detached and leaping up an octave in measure 1, a seventh in measure
2, and a sixth in measure 3, the bass line establishes E-flat major, and the melody, sung by the
men, traces five notes of the E-flat scale with a rhythmic outline of the text “I am such a bashful
beau” (see Example 4.7).
Example 4.7 E-flat pedal and melody, detached and leaping
Show and Tell, mm. 1 - 3
74
The E-flat pedal continues through measure 5, “I must wait for you to show,” but descends to a
dissonant chord on the words “if you love me,” at measure 6, destroying all sense of tonal center.
The bass line then ascends by step (whole tone scale: F, G, A, B, C-sharp) under the text “my
dear belle, show me, show me, show me well!” The ascending bass line reinforces the “beau’s”
mounting anxiety and need for reassurance from his “belle,” and leaves the audience wondering
if there is a central key (see Example 4.8).
Example 4.8 Ascending bass line, unstable key
Show and Tell, mm. 4 - 9
75
The lightly rhythmic and leaping tune, ends on a B, while the accompaniment establishes E
major, and repeats the opening figure in the right hand, in an ascending scale, with two sixteenth
notes and two eighth notes (see Example 4.9).
Example 4.9 Ascending E major scale in right hand
Show and Tell, mm. 9 - 11
Meanwhile, the bass line follows a line of parallel fourth chords, descending chromatically, and
transitioning back to E-flat Major, re-establishing the original key.
At measure 11, the initial theme repeats under the second verse text, again establishing E-
flat Major, this time sung by the women. The bass line under this text essentially repeats the
original figure, although the left hand fills in the rests and the right hand is an octave higher.
Once again (at measure 14), Diemer writes a dissonant chord on the word “love,” and repeats the
rising whole tone scale in the bass (measures 14 – 16) under the text “my dear beau, tell me, tell
me, tell me, so,” the repetition and rising bass line echoing the anxiety of her beau. The same
interlude follows the verse, with the lightly rhythmic leaping figure in E major and the bass line
descending chromatically in a series of parallel fourths chords. Meanwhile, the right hand
alternates between F6 and E-flat 6, giving it all more of a modal, unsettled feeling.
76
In the third verse, the men’s and women’s voices join together for the first time, and
Diemer establishes a C pedal over the tune in F major (raised a full step from the original key),
transposing the original tune up a whole step, possibly echoing the “transformation” of the two
lovers as they come together: The men’s and women’s voices sing in unison primarily until
measure 27, as if they can agree that “Faint hearts never win.” “Fan the flame of courage high!”
is set in contrary motion and parallel fourths, perhaps underscoring the challenges of working
and loving together. The piano accompaniment becomes “optional” at measure 29, perhaps
leaving the young man and woman on their own to work things out together (see Example 4.10).
77
Example 4.10 Unison voices until m. 27
Show and Tell, mm. 20 - 28
78
The parallel fourths also serve to blur any sense of tonal center. While the sopranos are singing a
clear outline of F major, the basses outline F minor. The “beaux” and “belles” struggle against
each other in opposite modes and contrary motion. Whereas the other verses descended in the
last two lines of the bass, this verse begins a bass-line descent earlier (F – E-flat – D in measures
27- 29) and establishes a D pedal in the last two lines, while the tune stabilizes in D major under
the text. Perhaps the stabilization of the key suggests a stabilization of the relationship, if they
can indeed stay “true” to one another.
However, the last note of the tune, instead of descending to a satisfying tonic D, ends on
the third, F-sharp (measure 33) and Diemer suddenly transitions into F-sharp major with the
ascending scale pattern from the opening figure now transferred to the keyboard accompaniment.
Again the bass line descends stepwise from F-sharp to A-sharp (measures 33 – 35), adding the
characteristic parallel fourths from the middle of measure 34 (see Example 4.11).
79
Example 4.11 F-sharp major, with initial melody figure in keyboard
Show and Tell, mm. 29 - 35
80
At measure 36, Diemer returns to E-flat major for the return to the overlapping first two verses.
At measure 37, the men’s voices sing their text with the original tune (“I am such a bashful
beau”) and the women’s voices join them with their own text and the same tune an octave higher
(“I am such a modest belle”) two beats later. The accompaniment is repeated from the opening
bars, with the E-flat pedal (measures 36 – 38) and the same ascending bass line (measures 40 –
42), ending with an extension of measure 10 for 3 bars (measures 42 – 44) with the quick
ascending scale figure in the right hand and the descending parallel fourths in the left hand.
Diemer then repeats the third and fourth verse before moving on to the coda (see Example 4.12).
81
Example 4.12 E-flat major, overlapping first two verses
Show and Tell, mm. 36 - 44
82
The coda extends the text of “tell me well” in the women’s voices, and “show me well” in the
men’s voices, and they continue to echo back forth for three measures before coming together on
measure 48 on a unison B. For the “love me” and “tell me” chords (measures 49 and 50),
Diemer chooses to pile up fifths, C, G, D, and F, B-flat, resolving onto a very satisfying D major
chord on measure 51. In measures 51 – 54, the accompaniment finishes the thought with the
upward scale figure of the beginning, but this time in D major, with a D pedal. It descends in
fourths on the penultimate measure, ending on a D major chord, with an E color tone, creating
yet another unsettled ending (see Example 4.13).
Example 4.13 Coda, unison B, resolving on D major chord
Show and Tell, mm. 48 - 54
83
The primarily homophonic setting makes the song fairly accessible for most choirs. Unison men
sing the first verse (“I am such a bashful beau”); unison women sing the second verse (“if you
love me”), and the two sections join forces in the last verse, agreeing “what is the good of
shyness, dear?” Diemer sets the whole song in a “spirited” tempo, and requests increasingly
louder dynamics for each verse, beginning mezzo forte for the first and second verse, and
progressing to forte and fortissimo for the final verse.
Diemer creates an innovative keyboard accompaniment that leaps around and does not
follow the melody, thereby further unsettling the singers and emphasizing the turbulent nature of
courting. Some choirs will need to practice the parts separately from the accompaniment since it
does not reinforce the melody. Also, the dotted rhythms could present some challenges.
However, the minimal part writing will make it easier to learn. In this author’s opinion, it is such
an entertaining composition, full of surprises and unusual twists and turns, it is well worth
learning and performing.
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#7: Bee, I’m Expecting You (1994)
A tongue-in cheek letter to a bee from a fly, Bee, I’m Expecting You sets an Emily
Dickinson poem. Emma Lou Diemer’s musical setting follows the form of the poem, a through-
composed letter from a fly to a bee.
Bee! I’m expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due –
The Frogs got Home last Week
Are settled, and at work –
Birds, mostly back –
The Clover warm and thick –
You’ll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me –
Yours, Fly.
A whimsical poem using alliteration (“better,” “be,” “Birds, mostly back”) personification
(“Yours, Fly”) and informal diction (“the Frogs got Home last Week),” it lends itself to a quirky
musical setting. Emma Lou Diemer chose a staccato melody, separated by rests, starting,
stopping and changing direction suddenly, like a fly or a bee, following her predilection for text-
painting and adding still more humor to the song.
The implied harmony of the voice melody (unison treble chorus) is mostly diatonic using
the notes of the C scale, significantly different from the accompaniment. In contrast, the piano
part employs cluster chords, “buzzes” with sixteenth note trill-like figures, and staccato repeating
ostinato bass figures. It does not always follow the melody, but adds texture and atmosphere.
Unpredictable, like the fly or bee, the meter alternates between 2/4 and 3/4 (see Example 4.14).
Example 4.14 Alternating meters: 2/4 and ¾
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Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 1 - 11
The harmony “uses polytonality (D and D-sharp)” which “adds a little pungency.”
3
Despite the
key signature indicating C major, the first chord cluster (A-sharp, B, D-flat, E-flat) avoids C, and
3
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
86
the second chord (in measure 6) includes D and D-sharp. As in many of her works, Emma Lou
Diemer avoids locating the song in a particular tonality, but rather the composition dances
around a central key, adding dissonant chords for harmonic interest.
Diemer also brings text-painting into the song through the harmony: “Towards the end, I
use B’s a lot (word painting “Be with me, be with me”).”
4
The contours of the melody paint a
picture, using conjunct and contrary motion, leaping up a minor third and down a minor third in
the first phrase, like a fly or a bee, flitting around. The rhythms also are quick, light, and steady,
like a bee or a fly. All rhythmic and harmonic aspects contribute to the unpredictability and
innovation of the music, including the asymmetrical length of the introduction, five measures.
The C pedal point in the right hand, (in the center of the wobbling dissonant chords) and the
repeating chord in the left hand (A-sharp, B natural) are the only consistent features (see
Example 4.15). In measures 6 and 7 of this same example, the texture and tonality change,
shifting to a sense of D major, but with D-sharp in the bass. Combining the held A with a D-
sharp and F-sharp in the bass creates the feeling of a diminished chord, possibly depicting the fly
feeling diminished without the bee.
The vocal melody begins with a declamatory “Bee!” and a short, eighth-note staccato
pronouncement, “I’m expecting you!” and both statements have a definitive quality. However,
that certainty is undermined by the varying harmonies. Whereas the melody sounds like it is in
A minor, the repeating D-sharp and F-sharp in the bass on beats one and two undercut any
determined key. After descending parallel fourth chords in the accompaniment, the melody
returns with a feel of D minor, as it descends the scale while singing “somebody you know.”
4
Ibid.
87
Diemer undermines the stability of these words with a B minor chord in the bass, diminishing
any certainty on the word “know” (see Example 4.15).
Example 4.15 D minor scale on “somebody you know” ends on B minor chord
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 12 - 15
88
In the next section Diemer creates a pedal point C in the melody (see Example 4.16) displaced by
octaves, repeated three times, all on C, “that you were due,” portraying the anticipation,
expectation, and impatience in waiting (like a child continually repeating “Are we there yet?” on
a family trip) (see Example 4.16).
Example 4.16 Repetitions of “That you were due”
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 16 - 22
Underneath these repetitions, the bass line descends (B to A to G under the first “You were due,”
then from A to A-flat under the second “You were due,” and descending again to F for the third
repetition, and to B-flat and A-flat for the final repetition. Perhaps the descending bass-line
indicates the loss of time and the continued feeling of impatience.
At the end of this verse, Diemer returns to the original wavering accompaniment pattern
via an ascending augmented arpeggio (see Example 4.17), and repeats the opening 5 bars of
varying meter, and the buzzing chord centered around a “B.”
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Example 4.17 Ascending augmented arpeggio
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 19 - 22
In setting the second stanza of the poem, Diemer returns to her original melody, reporting that
“the Frogs got Home last Week,” in a short eighth note pronouncement. The bass line begins
like the opening (compare measures 8 – 11 with measures 30 – 33, see Examples 4.18 and 4.19),
but changes at measure 32 into C-sharp and G-sharp, with C-sharp and G natural in the treble.
Example 4.18 Recapitulation of the opening
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 8 - 11
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Example 4.19 C-sharp and G-sharp in bass
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 30 - 33
Diemer repeats “settled and at work,” three times, indicating a steady, established routine, but the
ascending fifths in the bass line undercut that steady sense (see Example 4.20).
Example 4.20 Repetition of “settled and at work, with ascending fifths in bass
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 34 - 37
“Birds mostly back” (m. 38 – 40) has its own tune, beginning on a D and settling back onto the C
of “due,” (from measure 16, “That you were due,”) while the bass line descends in octaves (see
Example 4.21).
Example 4.21 Descending bass line in octaves
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 38 - 41
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Again Diemer employs repetition, repeating the phrase “Clover warm and thick”
(measures 41 – 45) with the same accompaniment, indicating a resting point in the song, perhaps
resting in the comfortable clover (see Example 4.22).
Example 4.22 Repetition of “clover warm and thick”
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm. 41 - 45
Next, the composer repeats the words “Birds, Clover Birds, Clover,” and “Bee!” (measures 46 –
50), creating a sense that all the birds have arrived and are anxiously awaiting the Bee. Diemer
inverts the tune on the second “birds” and ends “Bee” on a “B” chord, continuing her use of
repetition and alliteration (see Example 4.23).
Example 4.23 repetition of “Birds,” “Clover,” ending on B chord
Bee! I’m Expecting You, mm.46 – 50)
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Finally, Diemer returns to the introductory bars to begin the third stanza. Beginning with
the original tune, Diemer repeats “be with me” four times, setting the word “Bee” on an A and
ending each phrase on repeated “B’s” on the word “me,” emphasizing the ‘missing’ Bee. Diemer
concluded the song on an E minor 7 chord, showing that all is not resolved. Although “Yours,
Fly” sounds like a conclusive ending, the fly is still awaiting Bee’s reply.
Although Emma Lou Diemer repeated several phrases of the poem (“that you were due”
three times, “settled and at work” twice, and “be with me” four times), the number of repetitions
is different each iteration, as unpredictable as the bee’s arrival time. Other than those repetitions,
the music follows the text closely.
In learning this composition, some choirs might encounter some challenges. For
example, learning the changes in rhythm (measure 8: “bee” on the beat, and measure 30: “the
Frogs” off the beat), as well as learning the melody independently from the piano part could
prove difficult since the accompaniment aids the singers minimally. The work would lend itself
equally appropriately to a performance by a small ensemble as well as a large honor choir. The
conductor should encourage the singers to use a dry, crisp articulation for all the staccato and
rhythmic figures. The song could serve as a humorous interlude in a program.
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#8: Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! (1995)
A lively contemporary courting song, Hey Boys! Hi, Girls! depicts girls and boys singing
to each other and issuing warnings about the behavior of the opposite sex (“listen to me well,”
“boy is flighty as breezes,” “that girl has thorns like roses,” and “breaks one’s heart”).
Commissioned by Linda Kohl, the Director of the Belvidere High School Madrigal Singers in
New Jersey for their tenth anniversary, the text and song are playful, innocent, and humorous,
exploring the theme of romance and the risk of heartbreak. Emma Lou Diemer, setting another
poem by her sister, Dorothy Diemer Hendry, called it a “young person’s poem.”
5
Hey boys! Hi boys! Listen to me well!
That girl has thorns like roses, roses.
She weaves a love spell too beautiful to tell
And breaks one’s heart with her poses, poses.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Ring a warning bell!
Hey girls! Hi, girls! Listen to me well!
That boy is flighty as breezes, breezes.
He hums a love song too dulcet to be long
And breaks one’s heart as he pleases, pleases.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Ring a warning bell!
Hey, boys! Hi, girls! Listen to me well.
That girl with thorns like roses, roses,
Is weaving a spell as she poses, poses,
For the flighty boy like breezes, breezes,
Humming her a song that pleases, pleases.
Ding dong! Ding dong! Ring a happy bell!
Like most of her secular works, the song is optimistic, and light-hearted. She uses some word-
painting, (i.e., dissonant chords on “thorny”), although it seems to be somewhat unintentional (“I
probably was just contrasting, but that's fine if you want to think of it as thorny.”)
6
Diemer
5
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
6
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
94
continues to portray the particularly negative traits described in the text with dissonant chords,
outside of the prevailing harmonic palette.
In addition to the word painting, Diemer employs some of her trademark ambiguous
harmonies. She abruptly shifts key at the very start, beginning with a feeling of D minor, but
adds an F-sharp, indicating D major (see Example 4.24).
Example 4.24 Abrupt shift from D minor to D major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 5 - 8
In the third verse, the key keeps changing, perhaps indicating the instability of the relationship
between the boys and girls. She avoided establishing a key, using open fifths at the start with an
added ninth. In addition, she created a consonant/contrary motion in the melody, mirroring the
parts and harmonizing one line with another. Finally, she added signature ninth chords at the
opening and closing, adhering to her preference for its “vague sound.” She expressed a
preference for ninth chords because they are “unresolved,” and even though the text indicated a
happy resolution of the boys and girls’ relationship, her ninth chords undercut any settled
conclusion to the song.
Diemer continues to shift the key within and between each verse. The first verse, sung by
tenors and basses, begins in the ambiguous D minor/D major, which feels like G minor for
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“thorns” (Example 4.25) although there is no clear harmony in the bass, which descends in a C
minor scale (F, E-flat, D, C).
Example 4.25 No clear bass harmony, descending in C minor scale
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 13 - 16
In contrast, in measures 21 – 25 (Example 4.26) the tune feels like it is in E-flat, but the bass line
alternates between B-flat and A.
Example 4.26 Tune in E-flat, bass line alternates between B-flat and A
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 21 – 24
96
At the end of that first verse, (“Ding dong! Ding dong! Ring a warning bell!”), Diemer returned
to the original tune and accompaniment figure, as well as the original suggestion of D major in
the tune, with D minor in the accompaniment (see Example 4.27).
Example 4.27 D major in tune, D minor in accompaniment
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 25 – 32
97
The second verse, sung by sopranos and altos, is introduced by a piano interlude in B minor,
which continues into the accompaniment, while the tune shifts into E-flat (see Example 4.28).
Example 4.28 Piano interlude in B minor, tune shifts into E-flat
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 37 - 44
98
As in the first verse, Diemer employs jarring dissonant chords under the less desirable aspects of
the boys’ actions (such as “flighty”), this time using C-flat and D-flat minor chords (see Example
4.29).
Example 4.29 Dissonant chords under “flighty”
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 45 - 46
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Diemer shifts to B and C-sharp chords in the bass under the text “And breaks one’s heart as he
pleases” (see Example 4.30), creating a feeling of instability, and repeats “pleases” four times
over an ascending bass line (A, B, C-sharp, D-sharp, E, F-sharp), perhaps suggesting that “doing
as he pleases” is a habit well-entrenched that would be hard to change.
Example 4.30 B and C-sharp chords under “pleases”
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 55 - 62
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At the end of this verse, Diemer returns to the original E-flat tonal center (see Example 4.31) for
the final lines “Ding, Dong! Ring a warning bell!” although the bass alternates between E-flat
and B-flat minor, reinforcing the continuing instability of tonal center and character.
Example 4.31 Return to E-flat, bass alternating from E-flat to B-flat minor
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 62 - 66
The third verse, sung by all voices, is even more unstable harmonically than the previous two.
Diemer creates a similar piano interlude, except replacing the ascending arpeggios with
descending arpeggios. She also extends the second interlude by two measures (see Example
4.32).
Example 4.32 Extended piano interlude with ascending arpeggios
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 33 - 40
101
The tune appears to begin in C minor, but the chords in the treble (now on beats 2 and 3, rather
than 2 and 4) are dissonant, an F5 with a 9 and an E-flat 5 with a 9, perhaps indicating the
instability of a relationship that might arise between these two “flighty” people (see Example
4.33).
Example 4.33 C minor tune with dissonant chords in accompaniment
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 74 - 78
102
In measures 80 – 88, the tune descends every line, the second occurrence a whole step below the
first, and the third another half-step below the second, first appearing in A-flat, then in F major
(see Example 4.34).
Example 4.34 Tune descends every line, A-flat, then F major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 80 - 88
103
For the text “Humming her a song that pleases, pleases, pleases, pleases, pleases,” (and
extending the line for three more repetitions than it appears in the poem), Diemer sets each of the
last four repetitions higher (F-G, A-B-flat, C to D, D to F) up an F scale, with the tenor and
soprano singing unison at the octave, and alto and bass down a fifth and also singing unison at
the octave. Perhaps the boy and girl have joined forces and are ascending in excitement (see
Example 4.35).
Example 4.35 Each repetition of “pleases” set higher
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 89 - 98
104
The dynamics also build to a climax, mounting to fortissimo and leading into the final repetition
of this last verse of the poem.
One might expect a recapitulation of sorts at this point, returning perhaps to the original
key. Instead, Diemer continues her upward trend from the beginning of the work. Beginning the
tune with an atmosphere of D minor/major, she sets the second verse in the neighborhood of E
major, and the third verse with a feel of F major. In the last verse, Diemer sets the tune with a
sense of G minor (see Example 4.36).
Example 4.36 Last verse in a sense of G minor
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 98- 101
105
Then she alternates between E-flat and A major, each line set in one or the other (see Example
4.37).
Example 4.37 Alternating between E-flat and A major
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 105 - 112
106
In measures 117 – 119 (“pleases, pleases, pleases”), the tune ascends an F major scale in vocal
unison (men an octave below women) then splits into fourths (also in vocal unison), once again
portraying the feeling of building excitement (see Example 4.38).
Example 4.38 Tune ascends in F major scale, then splits into fourths
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 117 – 120
107
At the end, Diemer repeats “Ding Dong! Ring a happy Bell” six times (mm. 125 – 133),
elongating the last one, indicating a happy ending, or repeating “wedding?” bells, but concluding
on an outline of a G chord with no third, minimizing any sense of stability (see Example 4.39).
Example 4.39 Repeating “Ding Dong! Ring a happy bell,” ending on pseudo G chord
Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! mm. 125 – 135
108
As in many of her songs, Diemer repeats portions of the text, adding her own sense of drama and
emphasis. She repeats “poses” four times in measures 24 – 27, “pleases” four times in measures
58 – 61 and five times in measures 91 – 95, as well as “ding dong” six times and “ring a happy
bell” six times at the end. As she said she often “repeats words in order to string out something
musically.”
7
Further, repetition emphasizes particular words in the text. In this case, repeating
“poses” and “pleases” dramatizes the flirting of the boys and girls towards each other. The
repeating of “ding dong” and “ring a happy bell” perhaps portrays the cascading ringing of a bell
(like a wedding bell) and a possibly “happy” ending.
Diemer also built the dramatic tension of the work by speeding up the rhythmic setting of
“roses, roses” (eighth notes, in contrast to the preceding quarter notes of “Hey Boys, Hi Girls”),
and slowing down the rhythmic setting of “weaves her love spell” (quarter notes). In addition,
she changed the dynamics within each verse, varying each line, similarly in each of the first two
verses.
First verse:
mp: “Hey boys! Hi Boys! Listen to me well.”
mf: “That girl has thorns like roses roses.”
p: “She weaves a love spell too beautiful to tell
cresc.: “And breaks one’s heart with her poses”
f: “poses, poses, poses”
p: “Ding dong! Ding dong! Ring a warning bell!”
7
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
109
She sets the “love spell” quietly, and increases the crescendo under “And breaks one’s heart with
her poses,” with the climax of the phrase on “poses, poses, poses,” emphasizing the insincerity of
the girls. In setting “Ding dong! Ring a warning bell” quietly, she creates an ominous feel to the
line. In contrast, in the third verse, Diemer sets “Ding dong! Ring a happy bell” at the highest
dynamic in the composition, fortissimo, and repeats it six times, indicating a triumphant happy
ending. However, she diminishes that happiness with the ninth chord, lending an air of
uncertainty to the resolution.
Unlike many of Diemer’s choral compositions set in ternary form, this one is not exactly
ternary, although it has elements of the repetition and return of ternary form. She patterns the
form after that of the poetry: A, A, A,’A’ Coda. The first stanza (set to the opening theme, in D
major) addresses boys “Hey, boys!” and ends with “Ring a warning bell!” The second stanza
(set to the same theme, now in E major) addresses girls, “Hey, girls!” and ends with “Ring a
warning bell!” The third Stanza (set to a similar theme, but with varying keys) addresses both
girls and boys and ends with “Ring a happy Bell!” Diemer repeats the third stanza and closes
with a Coda (at measure 125), returning to the original D major that does lend an air of
resolution, although the final ninth chord undermines that sense of conclusion.
As in other works, Diemer employs ninth chords at the end, crisp articulation, (calling for
“Rhythmic and dynamic vitality” and “Ladies & gentlemen singing to each other),” and a clarity
of tone and diction (“All single notes are to be sung in unison).” A good example of Diemer’s
innovative compositional style, this work is again easily accessible to most ensembles. With a
limited vocal range, easy melody and harmonies, and mostly homophonic or overlapping lines,
110
most high school ensembles would have no difficulty learning the composition, and in this
author’s opinion, it could add humor and musical variety to any program.
#9: Come Said the Muse (2005)
A contemplative setting of a sophisticated poem, Come Said the Muse set the first three
stanzas of a Walt Whitman poem. Commissioned by the First Parish in Lexington, MA,
Unitarian Universalist, the text for the song was chosen by the commissioners. The poem
comprises only the first part of a four-part, 65-line poem called “Song of the Universal,” part of
Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855.
Come, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.
In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed Perfection.
By every life a share, or more or less,
None born but it is born – conceal’d or unconceal’d, the seed is waiting.
In the complete poem, Whitman examines all of American culture, including “Science” and
“History,” as well as the “Soul,” looking for the “Ideal” of “Health, peace, salvation universal,”
“a dream.” The first section contains the “seed” of the whole poem and the whole “dream.” In
choosing to set only the first section of the poem, Diemer could repeat the beginning lines after
setting the first seven lines. She uses the first three lines as a strophe, a repeating figure that
bound the song together. Employing some simple word painting, Diemer sets the text invoking
the Muse to a single voice, but added more voices for the text “sing me the universal.” At the end
111
of the song, she sets the word “waiting” over fifteen measures, also depicting the word over a
“waiting” coda in the keyboard accompaniment (see Example 4.40).
Example 4.40 Word-painting “waiting” set over 15 measures
Come Said the Muse, mm. 129 – 147
112
Noting the simple harmonies and rhythms, Diemer speculated in the interview that the
commissioners asked for a relatively simple arrangement. The harmonies include no key
changes, and there are few syncopated or complex rhythms. She varies the rhythm by
juxtaposing the accompaniment, which is in duple meter, against the voices, set in triple meter.
I was trying to make it a little less regular by making the voices being in 3 and then the
accompaniment in 2.
8
Diemer employs a considerable amount of repetition in the work, repeating the initial
ostinato in the keyboard, (a four-bar sequence) three times before it changes, and bringing it back
at measure 69, to introduce the return of the text “Come said the Muse.” In addition, she sets the
first vocal phrase for the women, and repeats it with the men. The altos first sing “Come said the
Muse, sing me a song no poet yet has chanted.” For the phrase “Sing me the universal, ” Diemer
adds another voice part, the sopranos. After the women finish, Diemer repeats the phrase, this
time with the basses, followed by the sopranos and tenors singing “Sing me the universal” (see
Example 4.41).
8
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
113
Example 4.41 Basses in unison, voices added for “Sing me the universal”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 25 - 40
Having set one voice part to invoke the Muse, and adding additional voice parts to sing the
“Universal,” Diemer repeats this phrase and its musical setting twice more with additional
voices, after the second stanza, emphasizing the word “Universal” (see Example 4.42).
Example 4.42 Repetition of initial phrase with all voices
Come Said the Muse, mm. 73 – 80
114
The melody of “Come said the Muse” becomes almost a ritornello for the work. It falls short of
a classic ritornello as it does not return at the conclusion of the composition. Diemer instead
leaves the listener “waiting” for fifteen bars, for the “seed of perfection.” The seed has not yet
appeared, and Diemer emphasizes the feeling of “waiting” by repeating the last phrase three
times (see Example 4.43).
Example 4.43 Repetition of “waiting”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 124 - 133
115
She designs a musical portrayal of the potential that lies in wait, but has not come to fruition yet.
Even the last chord is inconclusive, containing the seventh (F-sharp) of the tonic (G).
Diemer builds the dramatic tension in the work by creating thicker chords
in the accompaniment on each repetition. She also varies dynamics for dramatic effect, setting
“Nestles the seed of perfection” slower and softer than the rest of the text, creating a gentler
context for the “nestling.” Whereas the work begins softly, Diemer increases the volume to
mezzo-forte at measure 41, to set “In this broad earth of ours,” giving “broad earth” more weight
(see Example 4.44).
Example 4.44 Mezzo-forte setting of “this broad earth”
Come Said the Muse, mm. 41 – 48
116
She calms the dynamic to the original piano for the reiteration of “Come Said the Muse” at
measure 73, and repeats the original mezzo-piano at measure 93 for the repetition of the phrase.
The loudest mezzo forte dynamic in the song Diemer reserves for the peak of the phrase (“By
every life a share or more or less”). The “waiting” at the end fades into nothingness, as the
singers “close [their] mouth[s] for [a] hum.” This author would propose that perhaps our waiting
happens in silence in the end.
Unlike many of Diemer’s songs, Come Said the Muse is not set in Ternary Form. The
overall form is like a rondo, without the final statement of the rondo theme. If we call the initial
“Come said the Muse” melody, Theme A, and the second and third stanza Theme B, then the
form is ABABAB. The form, like the song and the words, feels open-ended, without a
resolution.
In terms of accessibility, Come Said the Muse is one of the easiest anthems in Diemer’s
oeuvre. Diemer features each voice part by itself (in setting the “come said the Muse” theme),
she employs limited divisi, she chooses slow tempi and easy rhythms, and she sets the vocal
parts with limited range. In the author’s opinion, many church choirs could learn the song with
little rehearsal and have an effective anthem for a service on potential or universal themes.
#10: Effervescence (2007)
Another playful song but with darker overtones, Effervescence sets a prose text by
Flannery O’Connor (1925 – 1964), a Southern poet. Dr. Jennifer Morgan Flory commissioned
the song for the Georgia College and State University Choirs. Emma Lou Diemer chose the text
because “Jennifer did a program on my music, and I went to Milledgeville, where Flannery
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O’Connor lived.” Diemer found it “a quirky sort of a poem,” and “hard to set because I think it’s
sort of tongue-in-cheek.” The delight of “effervescence” is undercut by the “damp air” and
“pollen” and the “faint trickle of rain drops down the nose,” the less delightful aspects of spring.
Oh, what is so effervescent as a day in the spring,
When the world is full of damp air,
When the pollen blows off each plant and each shrub
And thence into everyone’s hair?
Oh, the feel of it! Joyous Spring!
The sweet scent of onion in the grass,
The pungent fragrance at twilight,
The soft melody of voices gently purring.
The faint trickle of rain drops down the nose.
Dogwoods, green and white, lovely
With the rising sun shining through them . . .
The world is living, singing, laughing in the spring.
118
Whereas the text is through-composed prose, with hardly any rhyme or meter, Diemer’s musical
setting maintains the rhythm of the words, repeating the opening lines as a coda, creating her
typical ternary form. The accompaniment dances lightly up and down in arpeggios, alternating
between F major and F minor; it does not follow the melody, which outlines a monotone in the
syncopated staccato rhythm of the words (see Example 4.45).
Example 4.45 Accompaniment arpeggios, monotone syncopated melody
Effervescence, mm. 1 - 10
119
In terms of word painting, Diemer repeats the words “purring” and “rain” in a two-note falling
pattern (like a falling sigh), creating the repetitive sounds of “purring” (see Example 4.46) and
“rain” (see Example 4.47).
Example 4.46 Repetitive falling seconds for “purring”
Effervescence, mm. 51 - 54
120
Example 4.47 Repetitive falling seconds for “rain”
Effervescence, mm. 67 - 70
121
In more word painting, Diemer imitates the “faint trickle of rain down the nose” by separating
each word by rests, as if halting in mid-stream, as raindrops can, and setting “raindrops down the
nose” in a descending scale pattern, with each note also separated by rests (see Example 4.48).
Example 4.48 “Faint trickle” separated by rests
Effervescence, mm. 63 - 66
Diemer calls this section “sardonic” and “kind of dramatic, a little bit.”
9
Whereas the poem
begins with a happy thought, the more bothersome elements of spring intrude when the pollen
blows “into everyone’s hair,” and the “raindrops” trickle “down the nose”.
9
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
122
Harmonically, Diemer adds her characteristic ninth to each chord at the opening, the F
major chord in the first measure, and the F minor chord in the second measure, alternating
between the two in the sprightly arpeggiated introduction. As Diemer noted in the interview
about ninth chords: “I like that sound. It’s kind of a vague sound. It’s an unresolved chord,” and
they are “Impressionistic”, “diversions from tonal harmony being in key, like Debussy.”
10
The
ninth chords also avoid the tonic, another one of Diemer’s preferred compositional techniques.
In addition, she chooses an augmented chord for “laughing in the spring,” which undermines the
meaning of the words and makes them sound slightly ironic or sardonic (see Example 4.49).
Example 4.49 Augmented chord under “laughing in the spring”
Effervescence, mm. 98 - 101
10
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
123
Diemer also creates another character in the composition in the keyboard accompaniment.
Staccato arpeggios leap and bound over the keyboard, contrasting with the monotone voices.
Sometimes the accompaniment disappears altogether, as under the homophonic A-flat minor
setting of “The world is living, singing, laughing in the spring,” illustrating the world singing,
but diminishing that joyous sound with the minor key (see Example 4.50).
Example 4.50 Word painting “the world is singing” but in minor key
Effervescence, mm. 94 - 101
Diemer creates contrasting textures, and frees the voices from the accompaniment, depicting a
license for joy without limitations. Diemer slows the tempo to “Freely” in this section, and
reduces the dynamic to pianissimo, which seems somewhat counter-intuitive to the text. Perhaps
these words are more of a reflection than a celebration. Afterwards, Diemer returns to the
original textured piano accompaniment.
124
In typical ternary form, Diemer creates a recapitulation at measure 108, repeating the
opening text at the end, but adding the variation of a canon at measure 117 that she repeated
twice (see Example 4.51).
Example 4.51 Canon at recapitulation of opening text
Effervescence, mm. 116 – 120
125
Diemer also repeats the text “Oh the feel of it!” at measure 130, after the whole recapitulation of
the opening theme, and she repeats “Joyous spring!” three times, at a forte dynamic, creating a
climax on diatonic G to C chords (see Example 4.52).
Example 4.52 Repetition of “Joyous spring” at forte on tonal chords
Effervescence, mm. 132 – 137
126
The brief coda on the opening line “O, what is so effervescent as a day in the Spring?”
Diemer sets on a unison E-flat (a departure from the original monotone C tune), and closed on a
G9 chord, leaving a tone of unresolved irony intact (see Example 4.53).
Example 4.53 Coda, unison E-flat, ending on G9 chord
Effervescence, mm. 140 - 143
The whole composition is light and manageable for many ensembles, in this author’s
opinion. The text should be carefully articulated and perhaps printed in the program for
maximum enjoyment and understanding. The work requires an accomplished pianist as well as
enough basses and sopranos to handle the divisi in the last few pages (measure 130 – 149). The
conducting challenges include the mixed meter (changing from 6/8 to 4/4), the flowing tempo,
and the dynamic contrasts, from piano under the “rain” to the forte for the final “O the feel of it!”
127
A light-hearted composition with a great text, it deserves to be performed more. It could
provide a particularly humorous look at spring on a spring concert.
#11: Dolphins (2015)
A lighthearted, humorous romp, and one of Emma Lou Diemer’s most recent works,
Dolphins sets a poem by 7-year-old Zoe Johnson that won the Huntsville Literary Association
Contest for Young Writers in 2012.
Dolphins
Cheery and bright
They swim with delight
Splashing with fun
Under the sun.
They chatter and squeak
They’re smooth and sleek
They soar through the sea
Their spirits are free.
Commissioned for the Huntsville Master Chorale (in which Diemer’s nieces both sing) and their
conductor, Patricia Ramirez Hacker, Diemer found the poem “charming and fun,” appealing
especially to the composer because “we have lots of dolphins around here”
11
in Santa Barbara,
where the composer resides. Further, the optimism of the poem attracted Diemer “because [the
dolphins] sounded happy and there’s a little bit of word painting with little dolphins jumping in
the air.” Portraying the dolphins, she chooses leaping intervals at the beginning of the song in
the accompaniment, first an octave and then fifths, ending the two-bar introduction with a
splashy cluster chord including the notes A and A-flat, E-flat and F (see Example 4.54).
11
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
128
Example 4.54 Leaping intervals illustrating dolphins’ actions
Dolphins, mm. 1 - 5
Diemer confirmed the author’s suggestion that the melody actually bobs below the tonic (of A-
flat) and then leaps up above (from E-flat to C), almost as if the tonic is the surface of the water
and the dolphins are leaping around it.
12
The light, haiku-like poem, set in eight lines of couplets in two stanzas, creates an easy
binary form, which Diemer transforms into a ternary song by repeating the first stanza at the end.
Diemer illustrates with word painting the informal, onomatopoetic language (“chatter and
squeak,” see Example 4.55).
12
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
129
It talks about chatter; they chatter these dolphins and so you’ve got
the staccato notes and they’re answering back and forth . . . so it should
sound like that. And then [on] page 7 [for] “smooth and sleek” everything
becomes legato and diatonic.
13
Example 4.55 Staccato notes illustrating “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 26 - 27
13
Ibid.
130
She continues word painting the alliterative text, creating legato notes for “smooth and sleek”
and “soar through the sea,” with the melody “going up and down about three times”
14
(see
Example 4.56).
Example 4.56 Legato notes for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 33 - 35
In addition, Diemer uses word-painting for “their spirits are free,” using the staccato notes in the
voices, and “octaves in the piano”
15
(see Example 4.57).
Example 4.57 staccato notes for “spirits are free”
Dolphins, mm. 41 – 43
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
131
Dolphins is one of three children’s compositions, the last being The Apple Orchard.
Diemer felt that “it should be in every children choir’s repertoire.”
16
Gaining almost instant
popularity, Dolphins was selected in five choral reading sessions in 2015 alone:
Massachusetts ACDA Summer Conference
Rodney Eichenberger Choral Conductors Workshop
University of Michigan Summer Symposium
Kansas Choral Directors Association Reading Session
Missouri ACDA Summer Reading Session
In this author’s opinion, most children’s choirs would enjoy learning this delightful work. The
two parts echo one another at the beginning, like dolphins leaping and playing in turn and then
coming together in unison after four bars.
Emma Lou Diemer played with the harmonies as well as the dolphins, shifting into more
dissonant harmonies for the “chatter” section, (see Example 4.58).
16
Ibid.
132
Example 4.58 Dissonant harmonies for “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 19 - 26
133
She changes into a “smooth” C major with added G-sharps and F-sharps for the “smooth and
sleek” legato section (see Example 4.59).
Example 4.59 C major with added G-sharps and F-sharps for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 32 - 34
Diemer returns to the original tonic of A-flat for the final section (see Example 4.60).
Example 4.60 Original tonic of A-flat in final section
Dolphins, mm. 49
134
She also varies the rhythms to match the text, using syncopation for the leaping dolphins
(“cheery and bright”), and staccato eighth notes for the sprightly “chatter” (see Example 4.61).
Example 4.61 Staccato eighth notes for “chatter”
Dolphins, mm. 19 - 20
Diemer also creates an octave leap eighth note for “squeak” (see Example 4.62),
and staccato eighth notes for “spirits” (see Example 4.63).
Example 4.62 Staccato octave leap eighth note and fifth leap for “squeak”
Dolphins mm. 29 - 31
Example 4.63 Staccato eighth notes for “spirits”
135
Dolphins mm. 41 - 43
In contrast, Diemer sets “smooth and sleek” with legato quarter notes (see Example 4.64) and
half notes and quarters for the longer strokes of swimming (“soar through the sea”).
Example 4.64 Legato quarter notes for “smooth and sleek”
Dolphins, mm. 33 – 35
136
Similar to many of her works, Emma Lou Diemer repeats text and textures to weave a
coherent whole. The opening lines repeat in an echo “Cheery and bright” and “They swim with
delight”, and the whole first verse repeats immediately, imitating the dolphins who repeatedly
leap out of the water. “Chatter” repeats eight times, “smooth and sleek” repeats four times, and
“soar through the sea” repeats three times, while “their spirits are free” repeats six times. The
repetition of the words follows the repetitive actions of the dolphins, as they leap and soar
continuously. Finally, the whole first verse repeats at the end of the song to create the ternary
form and complete the work.
Once again, Diemer accompanies this work with a light-hearted keyboard part that adds
color, texture and syncopated rhythms to the song. At the premiere the conductor employed a
string quartet and percussion in addition to the original keyboard accompaniment, which Diemer
felt added atmosphere to the performance.
17
The piano part flows with several sixteenth note
runs that sound like dolphins swimming up to the surface (see Example 4.65).
Example 4.65 Flowing sixteenth note runs in accompaniment
Dolphins, mm. 46 - 48
17
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
137
The piano part also leaps down and up (see Example 4.54) sounding like the dolphins playing in
the water. The underlying current when the voices begin adds a syncopated rhythm, playful and
jazzy.
Further, Diemer varies the dynamics to create dramatic tension. She sets the “chatter”
and “spirits” quietly, contrasting with the sforzando for “squeak” and the forte for “they soar
through the sea” and “free.” The everyday actions, such as “cheery and bright” and “splashing
with fun” she sets mezzo forte, so that the extraordinary sounds like “squeak” and “soar through
the air” are highlighted with the contrast in dynamics.
Dolphins illustrates Diemer’s sense of humor beautifully, as she dances through the
syncopated rhythms, sets clashing chords on “splashing” and throughout the work, and creates
leaping figures that set her spirit free along with the dolphins. In this author’s opinion, many
children’s choirs could benefit from this work. Dolphins allows the conductor to differentiate
between the leaping fifths, sixths, and octaves, as well as distinguish between the staccato
“chatter” and the legato “smooth and sleek.” Creating the precise polyphony of the syncopated
“chatter” and “spirits” could present a challenge, but also a feeling of accomplishment when
learned. A conductor might add simple gestures for “splashing” and have the children “chatter”
as they face each other. Observing the dynamic contrasts will enhance the dramatic tension of
the work. Finally, the conductor will want to make a crisp gesture for the staccato sections and a
flowing gesture for the legato sections. A clear attention to detail will produce an effective
performance, but the process and performance can also be entertaining and educational.
138
Chapter 5:
Compositional Style and Conclusions
After the interview with the composer, the author analyzed the transcriptions and
discovered some recurring characteristics in all the works studied. Emma Lou Diemer chooses
works of established literary merit to set to music (these songs set texts by Walt Whitman, Emily
Dickinson, and Flannery O’Connor). The composer intentionally sets high quality literature,
noting, “There has to be something to work with in the way of language and the ideas too.”
1
Clearly the words inspire Diemer’s choral settings. Furthermore, when setting sacred texts,
Diemer attempts to remain gender neutral, referring to the Deity as “Lord, God, or Savior” but
avoiding the use of masculine pronouns, such as “he or him.” In addition, Emma Lou Diemer
chooses literature to set that has optimistic themes. She indicated that she is a “hopeful person,”
preferring to set the “optimistic, happy parts of the Bible.”
2
Another characteristic of many of Emma Lou Diemer’s choral works is her use of word-
painting. For example, in one of her most recent choral works, The Apple Orchard, she repeats
the words “shadowed” in several voices, creating a musical echo to illustrate the physical
shadows. In Dolphins, Emma Lou Diemer chooses a leaping melody, illustrating the dolphins
jumping into the air, and continues the undulating movement in the music while the dolphins
“soar through the sea.”
3
In Bee, I’m Expecting You, she employs the note B repeatedly, and
evokes the sound of the bee in the “buzzing” accompaniment. Many of her choral works use
similar text-painting techniques.
18
Interview, August 28, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.?)
19
Ibid.
20
Dolphins by Emma Lou Diemer, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Inc. 2014.
139
As for her harmonies, Emma Lou Diemer often shifts key abruptly, following the
example of her teacher Hindemith and influenced by Prokofiev. In her famous Three Madrigals,
she alternates between the keys of E-flat and G, and in her more recent Consider the Lilies, she
transitions from the key of C to the key of A with a no modulation. In Show and Tell, the key
wavers between E and E-flat, and as she noted, the shifts in key feel unsettled, and it is
“indicative of the indecision of these young people.”
4
Therefore, even her shifts in key can
support a kind of word painting of the text. She tends to avoid stating the tonic in clear terms;
instead she often “skirts the tonality,” as she does in Neighbor Take this Torch of Peace,
5
producing an unsettled feeling, in this case, echoing the elusive quality of seeking peace. She
also often begins and/or ends a composition with a ninth chord, creating a “vague sound,”
“impressionistic,” “unresolved chord.”
6
She avoids leading tones and the dominant seventh and
diminished seventh chords. More of an organic composer, Diemer follows the text and harmony
as they unfold naturally. She often thinks in modes, rather than diatonic scales, wanting to break
away from traditional harmony, as she does in Praise the Lord, O My Soul. In Effervescence,
Emma Lou Diemer illustrates irony by setting “laughing in the spring” to an augmented chord.
She thinks of herself as a “linear composer,”
I like for things to progress… and logically. Hindemith’s music is totally linear,
line after line. He would stand…at the blackboard and write one line and then
he’d write another underneath it and then another and going together they would
make sense. But it wasn’t a melody/harmony type of texture; it was line plus line
and whatever follows has to make sense in relation to what came before.
7
21
Interview, August 27, 2015 (see Appendix C, p.160).
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
140
Because she shies away from traditional harmonies, avoiding the tonic and more traditional keys
and chords, her music presents a challenge for any in-depth harmonic analysis. Many of her
chords, though traditional in their function, are unusual in the way they are voiced. She often
adds a “color tone” of a seventh or ninth to a triad, or omits the third, destroying the leading tone.
This technique gives the music a more modern sound while maintaining some more predictable
harmonic functions.
Rhythmically, Emma Lou Diemer also veers away from the more traditional legato,
homophonic choral writing. Having studied the irregular rhythms of Stravinsky, she is drawn to
syncopated and staccato rhythms, both in her composing for choruses as well as in her
accompaniments:
Something that I just love in choral music is to detach things so I try to write in lots of
staccatos and lots of accents to try to get people to be light and rhythmic rather than dull
and legato and sustained.”
8
She feels that the staccato and detached notes help make the music “come alive.” In Song of
Praise, Diemer employs an irregular rhythm that is compelling and urgent and effective. In
Psalm 100, she sets rhythmic singing with rests, and in Consider the Lilies, she creates rhythmic
chanting for “Where shall we eat? What shall we drink?” In Come Said the Muse, she sets the
accompaniment in a duple meter against the choral parts, which she sets in a triple meter. Like
her experiments with harmony, Emma Lou Diemer explores unusual rhythmic settings.
Further, Diemer creates ostinati in her piano accompaniments that add rhythmic interest
and contrast, as in Bee, I’m Expecting You, Show and Tell, Come, Said the Muse, and Neighbor
Take this Torch of Peace. The last song maintains a driving accompaniment throughout that
25
Ibid.
141
creates a sense of urgency, timeliness, and creating the sense of a battlefield, even in “waging
peace.”
In addition, Emma Lou Diemer employs numerous dynamic and tempi changes, creating
drama and tension in her choral works, building the volume to follow the meaning of the text.
Many of her works follow ternary form, both in text and harmony, giving each work a sense of
completion as it reiterates music and words from the beginning of the work. Partially due to this
repetition of material, Diemer’s works tend to be accessible to school, church, and amateur
choral groups, and memorable to a wide variety of audiences.
In examining eleven choral works by Emma Lou Diemer, this writer discovered the
variety of experimentation she brings to her compositional technique. Not content to rest on her
laurels, she continues to explore new ways to express text in a choral setting. By analyzing
closely her rhythms, harmonies, accompaniments, dynamics, and form, the author revealed the
depth and breadth of Diemer’s eclectic approach to composing choral works.
In conclusion, several of Emma Lou Diemer’s more recent choral works are full of
innovative compositional techniques, and as a consequence, worthy of closer study and
performance. The previous chapters provide an in-depth analysis of eleven of these works and a
deeper investigation of their compositional creativity, diversity, and excellence. The document
also serves as a guide for conductors preparing to study or perform the repertoire.
Through conversations with the composer as well as close analysis of the works, this
study provides evidence of Emma Lou Diemer’s effective and meaningful use of word painting,
choice of recognizably respected texts, innovative use of harmonic shifts and non-chordal color
tones, creative rhythmic textures and variations, both in her vocal writing and in her energetic
142
accompaniments, as well as her ability to create drama and tension in her works through
judicious variation of dynamics, tempi, and meter changes. Emma Lou Diemer often chooses to
repeat sections of text for emphasis, meaning, and drama, adding to the overall form. Whereas
she most frequently shapes a work in ternary form, she follows the form as it progresses
logically, depending on the text and atmosphere of the song.
Most importantly, Emma Lou Diemer is a master composer of choral works, approaching
each with passion, excellence, and creativity. Her eclectic approaches to composing lend
themselves to diverse repertoire that is accessible to school and church choirs and deserves a
wider audience.
143
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Analysis of Selected Works by Emma Lou Diemer, Donald Martin Jenni and
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DMA Diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1985.
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_________. “A Composer in the Schools.” Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching 1/3 (1990): 33-
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(1961): 2-4.
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and Westport: Greenwood Press, 1991).
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(1976): 13-15.
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and Personal Perspectives." DMA Diss., Ball State University, 1994.
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Press, 2001.
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New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991.
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An Analysis of Commissioned Choral Works and Personal Perspectives of Emma
Lou Diemer and Alice Parker." PhD. Diss., Georgia State University, 2010.
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145
Appendices
Appendix A: Summary of the Interviews
Emma Lou Diemer readily shared her thoughts, philosophies and stories with me. She
was very forthcoming and open, giving me glimpses into her character as well as her
composition style. When asked about her routine, she said she liked to get up “early” to practice,
either the piano or organ, and she defined early as 6 am. She said she liked to get to the church
before anyone else was there.
Whereas she is a serious composer, she also likes to have fun, and said “there is lots of
humor in music,” and the “dullest people have no sense of humor.” She also admitted to
growing up in a household with lots of puns. I felt a great affinity for her, especially when she
told me that she was the “baby of a family of four children, two boys, two girls,” as I grew up as
a baby of a family of four with two boys and two girls. We also shared some losses in our lives.
She lost her brother when he was 23, and my son died when he was 21. She mourns the more
recent loss of her sister, with whom she was very close. I lost my brother at about the same time.
I had noticed that she shies away from male pronouns, and she spoke about her belief that
God is more of a force than a person, and not necessarily gender-specific. She really is a
feminist, resisting seeing anyone in charge of everything. She said she would be willing to
consider some rewrites of text for some of her music so that it would be more accommodating to
Unitarian Universalists, who don’t necessarily believe in any God.
Emma Lou Diemer is very humble and self-deprecating, calling herself “lazy” at 88,
because she only works hard if she has a commission to compose for. Her partner, Marilyn,
however, gave some sarcastic remarks when we were talking about Diemer’s humility. Marilyn
146
said “I don’t think she’s that humble!” Diemer felt that as the youngest child in her family, she
got a bit spoiled. She was a withdrawn, shy child, but could be egotistical. I did not observe any
examples of ego in the five hours of interviews plus two lunch hours. When I asked her what
feeds her soul, what did she find she liked to do on vacation, she said, “music feeds my soul.” It
gives her a “mystical feeling,” especially not knowing from whence the ideas emanate.
She enjoyed singing in a huge choir at Tanglewood, when they performed Randall
Thompson’s “Alleluia.” She loved being surrounded by wonderful singers, buoyed up by the
sound all around her. She has played the organ at many churches: the First Presbyterian Church
in Santa Barbara, where she presided over her own commissioned works premiered during the
dedication of the 5-manual console and the dedication of the new chapel. She also enjoyed
playing in Washington, DC, in the Lutheran Church on Capital Hill, where they performed some
progressive compositions, and put together the “Service of Music and Poetry” and premiered
“Dance, Dance, My Heart.” In all her years of accompanying choirs, a choir director has never
criticized her, which is a rare accomplishment. She must be a wonderful collaborator.
147
Appendix B: Interview Questions
I. General Interview Questions
THANK YOU for taking the time to meet with me.
1. Who in your life would you be most comfortable talking to?
a. Can you imagine that I might be that person?
2. Can you tell me how a typical day unfolds for you?
3. Can you tell me a story about how a particular composition of music came into being?
4. What most often inspires what type of composition you compose?
Commissions? Poetry you find? Other influences?
Do you go through periods of composing one type of composition? (secular vs. sacred)
5. You seem to compose an equal number of sacred as secular compositions.
Do you have a preference? What most often guides your inspiration?
6. Would you discuss how you decide on a text to set to music
7. Once you’ve chosen a text, could you discuss how you begin setting it to music?
8. In what order might you decide the following?
a. Melody
b. Harmony
c. Form
d. Instrumentation
e. Tempo
9. Can you describe the process by which you decide on a melody?
148
10. Can you describe the process by which you decide on the harmony?
11. Can you comment on how you approach the structure of a work?
12. Would you comment on how much the Golden Mean features in your process of
composing?
13. Could you discuss your process of deciding on instrumentation?
14. How would you say the tempo takes shape as you’re composing?
15. Could you discuss how vocal technique affects your composing?
16. Do you have a favorite type of ensemble you like to write for (SATB, SSA, TTB,
children, etc.)?
17. Do you have a particular type of commissions that you prefer?
18. Do you have a sense of how often you compose currently?
19. Is there anything you would like to say to young composers?
20. Do you think your compositional style has changed over the years? If so, how?
21. Do you have a favorite of your choral works?
22. Do you have a favorite of other choral works?
23. How much of your composing comes from commissions?
Has that changed over the years?
24. Could you comment on the premieres of your work?
Did they meet your expectations?
25. Is there anything you like to convey to conductors about your music overall
26. Is there anything else you not been asked that you would like to talk about?
149
II. Recurring Questions
1. Origins of songs:
a. Commission story
i. Relationship to person commissioning work
ii. Parameters given
b. Choice of text
c. Choice Instruments
d. Form (often Ternary)
e. Harmony (keys or modes?)
f. Performance
2. What would you like to see/hear in another performance?
3. What is the difference between commission and non-commissioned works for you? Is
there any way in which you approach the composition process differently?
4. Can you talk about how your sister felt about you setting her poetry to music?
5. Can you talk about composing secular versus sacred works?
III. Follow-up Questions (8-28-15)
Again, THANK you for all your time and thoughtful answers.
1. Humor: You have a wonderfully wry sense of humor, despite having conquered many
challenges in your life. Could you comment on how you have held on to your sense of
humor?
2. You mostly compose accompaniment for choirs. Can you tell me your feelings about a
cappella choir?
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3. When you taught composition, what were some of the principles you liked to impress on
your students?
4. You said you like to avoid male pronouns in your Biblical texts.
Could say more about that?
5. You mentioned that you composed your Three Madrigals very quickly and easily. Are
there other works that you composed with similar ease?
6. Humility: For all your degrees and accomplishments, you are a very humble person.
Could you talk about what keeps you humble?
7. In between our work, we all seek time for spiritual renewal. Would you comment on
what feeds your soul?
8. Tell me a story about a composition that made you feel successful as a composer.
9. I went to see the First Presbyterian Church yesterday and the chapel. Can you tell me
more about your experience working with the choir director there?
I’d be happy to give you a transcript of our interview sessions, if you’d like to see it.
1. Would you be willing to answer further questions via email?
2. Would you be willing to meet with me again after a few months, if I find I have more
questions for you?
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IV. Questions on Specific Works
Sacred Works Questions
What Child is This?
1. Can you reconstruct the circumstances for which you composed the arrangement?
2. Did you have a particular ensemble in mind?
3. Do you think there is an ideal size ensemble for this work?
4. Could you discuss the harmonies you chose for this work?
Psalm 100
1. Could you discuss the commission from the UCC of Yankton, South Dakota?
2. Did they set up any parameters for the composition?
3. Can you reconstruct the selection of this text?
4. Which translation of the Bible did you select?
5. Can you comment on any changes you made in the text?
a. (“Enter the gates” instead of “Enter into the gates”)
b. Deleting “and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture”
c. Repeating “Make a joyful noise” and “All the lands.”
6. Could you comment on your decision to have the choir chant some of the text? (m. 51 –
63)
(“ Enter the Lord’s gates at m. 52)
7. Would you comment on the form?
( a palindrome (ABCBA))
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8. Can you comment on the significance of the forte followed by the subito piano at m. 36:
“It is the Lord who made us (forte), made us" (piano)?
9. In the chant section, you ask for a crescendo from mezzo piano to fortissimo. (The text is
“Enter the Lord’s gates with thanksgiving” to “the Lord’s faithfulness to all generations.”
Would you say this is the climax of the work? (The Golden Mean occurs at m. 56: all
chant “Give thanks to the Lord, bless the Lord’s name!”)
10. Could you discuss the instrumentation for this work? Did the commission specify the
accompanying instruments?
11. Can you reconstruct what size ensemble did the premiere involve? How large an
ensemble would you like to see perform this composition?
Bless the Lord, O My Soul
3. How did you decide which translation of the Bible to use for this work?
a. Some everyday language (“covers” instead of “coverest” and “stretches” instead
of “stretchest”)
b. Some archaic expressions like “thou art” and “thyself”
1. “walketh”
2. “maketh”
c. Which translation did you use?
4. Could you talk about how you decided how much of the text to set?
a. Bless the Lord, O My Soul uses only the first 5 lines
b. What influenced your choice to set those lines?
5. Could you talk about your choice of harmony for this work? (Mixolydian?)
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6. Can you reconstruct the order in which you set Bless the Lord, O My Soul?
Song of Praise
1. Virtuoso organ part written for self?
2. Could you discuss m. 19-21?
i. Echo of Three Madrigals?
ii. Conscious or unconscious?
3. Form: ABA (change of key when return to A)
i. A favorite form?
ii. Thinking in keys or modes?
4. Text: Paraphrase of Psalm 150: Why?
Consider the Lilies
1. Would you comment on the process of selecting the text?
2. Could you reconstruct the story of the commission?
What is your relationship with Dr. Speake in Illinois?
a. Did you know her beforehand?
b. Did she set particular parameters?
i. Tuneful?
ii. Diatonic harmonies?
iii. Some unison writing?
3. Please comment on the choice of instruments. (flute, cello, & organ)
4. Could you comment on the melody?
5. Could you comment on the harmony? (ninth chord at beginning and end)
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6. Please comment on the form. (Rondo form)
Thy Holy Wings
1. Can you reconstruct the story of the Commission:
a. Rev. Richard Collman and the St. Cecilia Trio
2. Did they set any parameters for:
i. Text
ii. Melody (Swedish folk tune)
iii. Instrumentation
1. Obligatos for flute and cello?
2. Composed for trio
iv. Setting (Quodlibet – 2 songs together)
v. Paraphrased by William Miller, Jaroslav Vajda?
vi. Key
vii. No key changes
viii. Range (very narrow for altos)
ix. Homophonic
x. All three verses
xi. Texture changes
xii. Form (Tri-part)
2. Can you comment on the premiere of the composition?
3. Can you discuss what kind of ensemble you would envision would best perform the
composition?
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4. Would it be helpful to ask sopranos for minimal vibrato in this composition?
5. This work really flows beautifully. Has it been popular with churches?
How Lovely Is Your Dwelling
First 3 verses of Psalm 84, SAB
Commissioned by Vic and Nancy Geiger
Trinity United Church of Christ, Jasper, Indiana
1. Could you reconstruct the choice of text?
a. Particularly the reason for omitting “place”?
b. Making the diction less formal
1. “Your” instead of “Thy”
2. “longs” instead of “longeth”
3. omits “Lord God Almighty”
2. Can you reconstruct the commission process?
3. Can you tell me about your compositional process?
a. Did they set any parameters? (SAB)
4. What can you tell me about the harmonies you chose?
5. Could you discuss the rhythmic structures of this composition, especially the ostinato in
the organ?
6. Would you talk about the dynamic changes?
7. Could you discuss your accompaniment choices? (organ & flute?)
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Secular Works Questions
I Know a Bird
Would you mind commenting on your collaboration with your sister Dorothy?
How did she feel about your setting her poems?
1. Could you reconstruct the origin of these songs?
Commission,
Request by sister,
Publisher requesting More Madrigals
2. Could you talk about your relationship with Sandra Willetts (conductor of University of
Alabama Chamber Choir, who made the recording)?
3. Would you comment on the harmony of this song?
4. Could you talk about the process of setting the bird calls?
5. Did the ensemble sing in sections or mixed? Do you have a preference?
6. Would you discuss the technical challenges of learning this song?
Show and Tell
1. Could you talk about the dramatic effect of this song?
a. Cute back and forthing between “beau” and “belle”
b. Lively, fits the dialogue
c. Mixed meter portrays the starts and stops of bashful lovers
2. Could you discuss the conjunct motion at m. 27?
a. (The text is “now together”)
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3. Could you comment on the repetition of “always” in m. 31 & 32?
a. Word-painting?
4. In the last verse, you set the boys’ verse and the girls’ verse simultaneously, but they are
somewhat out of sync. Could you discuss your intentions here?
5. Could you speak about the harmonies in this composition?
a. They seem very unsettled to me, like the feeling in the text.
Bee! I’m Expecting You!
1. What attracted you to the poem?
2. Did the commission (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) set any parameters for you?
3. The first chord in this work clusters around B. Could you talk about that?
4. The second chord, D major, is immediately followed by a D-sharp.
Could you discuss those harmonies?
5. Could you talk about the repetition in the song?
a. First 2 verses repeated
b. Last verse not repeated
c. Last verse repeats “Be with me” 4 times
6. What kind of ensemble do you think would be most effective in performing this work?
Hey Boys! Hi, Girls!
1. Could you reconstruct the story of the commission?
(Linda Kohl, Belvidere High School Madrigal Singers 10
th
Anniversary, New Jersey)
2. Would you comment on any parameters set by the commission?
3. Could you reconstruct the selection of the poem? (Text by Dorothy Diemer Hendry)
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4. Would you comment on the process of selecting the harmony?
5. Could you discuss the process of deciding on the number of repetitions at the end of the
song? (e.g. “Ding dong! 6 times at the end of the song)
6. Could you talk about the dynamics in this song? (“Ding dongs” sound ominous sung at
pp)
7. Would you discuss the premiere performance?
8. I imagine this can be a very entertaining song, when performed with the vitality you
suggest. Have you seen it performed as you would wish?
Come Said the Muse
1. Could you talk about the Selection of the Text?
a. Who chose the text? You or those who commissioned the work?
b. Could you talk about the selection of the particular lines? (10 lines out of 65)
i. Because first section contains “seed” of whole poem?
ii. Allow repetition of first 3 lines? A strophe?
2. Could you comment on your use of two against three:
a. triple time, yet the introduction in duplet half notes?
b. The tune establishes three against the accompanying half note ostinato drone.
3. Could you comment on your setting of “Sing Me the Universal”?
Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace
Written for the Waging Peace Through Singing project of U. of Oregon
Dorothy Diemer Hendry’s text (written in 2002)
1. Can you reconstruct the process of this commission?
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2. Could you discuss your sister’s involvement in this commission?
3. Can you describe the “Waging Peace Through Singing project”?
a. How did you become involved in the project?
b. How was your song received?
4. Could you comment on the repetition of, “We are waging peace” at the end of the song?
(F, mp, p -) a comment on our effectiveness at waging peace?
Declamation, a gentle statement, and then perhaps a hope?
5. Can you discuss the piano accompaniment?
6. Could you comment on the harmonies you chose?
a. Dissonant chords throughout
b. Ends on F9 chord
7. Did you have a particular size ensemble in mind for this composition?
8. Could you imagine it with organ and/or orchestra?
Effervescence
1. Can you reconstruct the process in which you chose this text?
2. Could you discuss your compositional process for this work?
3. Can you comment on the process of composing this work in comparison to completing a
commissioned work?
4. Could you discuss your process of illustrating words through music in this song?
a. m. 63: “The faint trickle of raindrops down the nose”
(separated staccato, unpredictable, syncopated off-beat entrances)
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b. m. 67: “Rain” repeated nine times monotonously, like continual rain back and
forth on same 2 chords (diminished chords)
c. m. 98: “laughing in the Spring”
augmented chords (Ironic?)
d. m. 103: returns to opening lighthearted theme
5. Could you discuss your choice of chords for “Oh, the feel of it! Joyous spring”?
(Page 6 and pages 18 & 19)
6. Could you comment on any performances you have heard?
7. Do you have any advice for a conductor who chooses to conduct this work?
Dolphins
1. Could you reconstruct the story of the commission?
a. How did you come to know Patricia Ramirez Hacker?
b. (Conductor of Huntsville Master Chorale) – commissioned composition?
c. Can you comment on how much your sister was involved?
2. Did you get to meet Zoe Johnson, the 7-year-old poet?
3. Can you describe the way in which you decided on the leaping intervals at the beginning?
4. Would you comment on the chord at the end of bar 2, with an A-flat and A natural.
5. Would you comment on the B-flat against the C in the melody on the word “bright”
(m. 3)?
6. Please discuss the octaves in the accompaniment in m. 19.
7. Can you comment on your choice of form? (a binary poem set as a ternary song)
8. Can you comment on the accompaniment? (feels playful, like the dolphins)
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9. Can you comment on any challenges the Master Chorale may have encountered in
learning the composition?
10. Can you reconstruct their performance?
11. Is there anything particular you would like to hear in another performance?
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Appendix C: Transcriptions of Interviews
Interview Part I, #1 (8/27/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
Nancy Noble Holland: Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.
Emma Lou Diemer: Thank you for coming Nancy.
NNH: I really appreciate it. I have a preliminary question: Who in your life would you be most
comfortable talking to? Can you think of someone in your life that you would be the most
comfortable talking to?
ELD: Oh, I don’t know. There are so many people, you know. Mostly family, I think. My sister
who is no longer with us, who died in 2006. But there’s nobody that you say everything to, is
there?
NNH: That’s so true. I just want you to imagine that I’m somebody who you feel really
comfortable with.
ELD: Oh yes I do.
NNH: In terms of talking to me.
ELD: Don’t worry.
NNH: Can you tell me how a typical day unfolds for you?
ELD: Oh it varies a lot.
NNH: Ok.
ELD: Sometimes I don’t do anything or accomplish anything and sometimes I do a lot. I work
several hours.
NNH: So would you get up and start working at what time, do you think?
ELD: I used to get up and practice when I was much younger. I would practice every morning.
But I haven’t done that for a long time.
NNH: And would you start at 9 or 10 o’clock?
ELD: I used to…when I practiced at church I’d go quite early, 6 or 7 and I got in that habit long
ago because I wanted to avoid the [church] office people so I wouldn’t bother them and they
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wouldn’t bother me. So I would do that and go very early. And I still do that when I practice. I
go over there 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning.
NNH: And how long would you stay?
ELD: Till 9:00 or something.
NNH: And you’d be practicing things for the service that Sunday?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: And then you’d come home and?
ELD: Well of course now we do so much email. I spend far too much time at the computer. I’m
so glad we didn’t have one when I was growing up. They didn’t exist in that form. And so I’d go
to the piano during the day, many times. So that’s how you develop improvising, composing and
giving yourself time. But I do some reading too. I’m not a scholar like you are and you talked
about Shakespeare. I couldn’t match you for that at all. But I’ve always loved poetry. My sister
was a poet and she got a Masters out of Columbia University, but she married and had five
children. And she was an English teacher for many years. But she also wrote poetry, some very
lovely things. Particularly when she was younger (18, 20), she wrote, I think, some of her best
poetry. And I’ve set a lot of it to music. So within the family, there was this interest in music and
poetry all the time.
NNH: Can you say more about your sister’s poetry and the collaboration you had with her in
terms of setting of the music?
ELD: Yes, her early poetry was more introspective and some of it was a little bit sad. But she
wrote some amusing things too. As she got older, kind of like me, she wrote things for special
occasions or for certain people. And that’s a bit different when you’re writing poetry
commemorating something or music for something
NNH: Rather than writing for yourself?
ELD: Yes, you’re not as free I don’t think. But she did all kinds of forms
NNH: And do you feel that’s true for you as well when you write for commission? Do you feel
more constrained than when you write for yourself?
ELD: Oh yes. Oh definitely. I think, my best music, if there’s any, was written for somebody that
didn’t commission it or for a colleague in a university or for myself.
NNH: Is there an example that you’re thinking of?
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ELD: Yes, I wrote a piano concerto for one of the pianists at UCSB [University of California at
Santa Barbara] and she played it with the symphony and recorded it. But I knew her technique so
it’s a difficult composition.
NNH: That’s wonderful. Can you tell me another story about how a particular composition of
music came into being?
ELD: Well everybody talks about the madrigals. I was in Arlington, Virginia at the time, and
when I wrote them it was about 1960 or something, which was a long time ago. And I was asked
by one of the choral teachers to write some madrigals. So eventually, a few months later I sat
down, one afternoon, and wrote these. I would look through anthologies, for particularly short
poems. I would have difficulty writing a long philosophical, dense-type of poetry. I’m not good
setting that to music. It’s not necessary for one thing. So I would look for short poems that had
certain moods and I found those Shakespeare texts and they just came very easily,
spontaneously. And it wasn’t until maybe the next year that I realized that they had caught on.
And they’re still being sung after what, 60 years? Something like that.
NNH: We are going to perform them this year at Pasadena City College, with the Chamber
Singers.
ELD: I still like them and they are on YouTube, several recordings and I wonder why do people
like them? And you can answer that better than I can.
NNH: Well I think I said in my interview introduction they’re pithy, the word painting is lovely
when you talk about “one foot on shore” and you keep changing keys, and there’s a sequence, so
you don’t have any feeling of being solid land. And those crunchy chords in the middle
composition that just give you the sense of the poignancy and the “loved in vain.” There’s
wonderful word painting. I think that it gets the spirit of the poems beautifully. And as you say
very quickly, very easily, they’re accessible, they’re fun.
ELD: Yes, and musically there’s a lot of repetition and also they’re related. All three of them
seem to be related and that was not planned. I really hate planning things. They go back and forth
between G major and E-flat, all the time.
NNH: And that just happened?
ELD: Yes, it just happened. The middle one starts in C but that’s…it ends in G but it’s C minor
so it’s very related to G.
NNH: Would you say that you’re more attracted to diatonic harmonies than to modal or to atonal
or do you try to do a variety of harmonies?
ELD: Yes, I’ve written some things that you might call dissonance but I don’t particularly like to
do that. I like more consonance. However, I like to change key a lot. If you notice in the first
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madrigal it changes key in the third measure or something. It starts in G and then immediately
goes to B. And that doesn’t seem to throw people but a lot of choral music stays in the same
mode all time. Which just drives me crazy. I want a key change. I want something to change.
And the madrigals go back and forth, all the time between Eb and G.
NNH: It’s wonderful.
ELD: But the main thing are the texts. I think if they were not Shakespeare, they wouldn’t be
sung a lot, really.
NNH: And you were saying you looked through anthologies to find texts. How often would you
say you look for poetry or you look at poetry with the idea of setting it to music?
ELD: Usually only when I’m asked to do something. Although one year I thought, I need to
write some more choral music. I’d been writing mostly instrumental. So I just looked in my own
books, you know I really wanted to find something and I had a volume of Oscar Wilde. So I
found three of his poems and set them to music. Sometimes if you really want to write something
you haven’t been asked but you need to write something. You’re almost desperate to find some
poetry that you like. But there again, I don’t think many people have performed those Oscar
Wilde compositions.
NNH: And do you have lot of collections of poetry of your own?
ELD: Not too much, no.
NNH: Do you go the library?
ELD: I usually go to the library.
NNH: Once you’ve chosen a text can you discuss how you begin setting it to music?
ELD: Well, I sit down at the piano usually and look at the text and see what mood does it put me
in or what rhythm does it suggest? You talked about word painting, and then the form becomes
evident. If there are several verses, I like to come back to something that’s been done before. I
like to do that. So very often it’s an ABA type of structure that comes about.
NNH: Yes I’ve noticed that. You’re very attracted to the ternary form. Tell me about ternary
form. What does that do for you?
ELD: Yes, it gives you a sense of completing and also liking something enough to repeat it. I
don’t always do that but I really like to hear something come back, in a story or a play or a
movie. It’s a great hear some references occur more than once.
NNH: Yes, satisfying to the ear.
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ELD: Yes, that’s right.
NNH: I agree. So you were talking about all the different elements of composing. Do you think
about them in any particular order like melody, harmony, form, instrumentation? Is there an
order in which you think about something?
ELD: Yes, I think when setting something to music, like poetry, I think of the melody, the
melodic line probably all the way through, but the harmonies are very important too. And
sometimes counterpoint, imitation. But generally the melodic line is the most important.
NNH: And then you said the form emerges as you’re writing?
ELD: Yes it does.
NNH: What about the instrumentation? At what point do you choose what instruments to
accompany?
ELD: Well it depends on who it’s for. But a lot of things I’ve done with piano, being a pianist.
And the piano fills in more interest, it gives you more harmonic variety or difficulty, texture,
background and also development of the ideas too and so it’s very important. I think it’s just as
important as voice parts.
NNH: And how would you say you choose between the piano and organ?
ELD: Yes, I’ve written some things with organ and I don’t know. That’s a hard question
because anything you write for organ you can also play on the piano and vice versa too, actually.
But if you want something more sustained…so sometimes if I’m writing a choral thing that is
going to be quieter, more sustained sounds, I’ll even go to the synthesizer and put on strings.
NNH: Do you have a synthesizer here?
ELD: Yes, I do. A Clavinova with a string sound, but that’s really nice. You can do that on the
organ too. Just so that you hear the sound. I’m not very good at writing away from an instrument.
I did some of that when I was teaching at the university and those compositions became more
dissonant and probably more inventive because, if you just depend on your own keyboard skill,
you are limiting yourself a bit. I mean, you fall into certain habits, which can be good or bad.
NNH: And what about tempo? When do you decide what the tempo is?
ELD: Well it’s funny when you write something it becomes faster because you know it. You
know all the notes. So your tempos become faster, and then when you hear something done
slowly, you don’t like it. However, there’s one recording of the madrigals, the first one on
YouTube that’s too fast.
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NNH: How interesting.
ELD: But I don’t like it too slow. So much depends on the director really and how the director
feels.
NNH: But you’re very clear about what you want in terms of tempo.
ELD: Yes but sometimes it’s not really accurate. I mean a metronome marking is sometimes just
an approximation.
NNH: Would you say then that there’s more rubato than appears on the page?
ELD: Oh yes, lots more, depending on the harmonies. Later on, I can show you an example in
the Apple Orchard.
NNH: Oh great. Would you like to look at that right now?
ELD: No, not really.
NNH: Ok
ELD: I was playing it this morning, and I thought well “what is it with this composition?” and
then I thought, you just don’t write everything that could be there. It’s always nice to hear a
conductor bring out things that you didn’t think were there or maybe were there in the beginning
but you haven’t been able to put it down.
NNH: And are there other instances when you’ve gone to rehearsals with conductors and heard
things that you didn’t want there or that you would like changed and you’ve had some impact on
that?
ELD: Yes that’s true. And sometimes directors are happy to have that and sometimes…I’m not
overly critically. Although…I used to not ever say anything. I was just happy they were doing it.
I know that when I was at Yale, working on my masters, I wrote probably some of my first
choral music and settings of some woman poets, Sara Teasdale and a couple of others. But when
the chorus practiced them, sang them, I hid away someplace. I hid up in a room. I wasn’t even
there.
NNH: What were you afraid of?
ELD: I don’t know. I was very shy and I still am kind of. And then sometimes I’ve gone and had
something performed and there was no notice that the composer was there. That’s happened to
me several times. You kind of want to be known, you know, as the person who wrote the music.
But, you know, that’s typical. How often do you know who wrote the music to a popular song?
We don’t always know that.
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NNH: We don’t.
NNH: How does it make you feel when they ignore the fact that you’re there?
ELD: Kind of left out. I mean, “Hey guys I wrote that.” Because then they can say “Oh this is
the composer,” as kind of an afterthought, and introduce you. “Oh by the way she wrote this.”
NNH: What would you prefer?
ELD: To be ignored or…
NNH: How would you…instead of being ignored what would you prefer?
ELD: Well for them to ask me how was it? Do you have any suggestions? And now in my
advanced years I do…usually have something to do with the diction, even the words, because in
a lot of choral music, you don’t hear the words, it’s just the sound. I don’t know if that’s true of a
lot of contemporary pop music or not. The kids seem to listen, in rap, to the words, and I don’t
because my hearing isn’t that great for one thing, but I listen more to the music. And I could
probably sing you all the hymns in the hymnbook, but I couldn’t tell you what all the words are.
I don’t relate to the words in the same way I do to the music.
NNH: And so what suggestions about the words would you make to the conductor?
ELD: To bring out certain words, like in the Apple Orchard, there’s one place where the word is
“shadowed.” And when I came to that particular place in the text, it says “shadowed by bushes”
I think “inside my orchard.” [The composition] is about an orchard in different seasons of the
year and by the way the text is by a 10-year old; I think she was about 10 at that time. Anyway,
toward the end [the text is]…”bird’s nest between strong branches, lush grass shadowed by
bushes.” I thought, “I don’t want to deal with bushes; I don’t like the name the word “bushes” for
various reasons (some political), but “shadowed” is a nice word, so I repeated that in the various
voices. First in the soprano and then the alto and the tenor had it.
NNH: Oh, I see: “bushes” is said once, but “shadowed” is said three times.
ELD: Yes. I got rid of “bushes.”
NNH: Beautiful. And it has such beautiful vowels.
ELD: Yes, shadowed is a nice word. And so that was one thing I would have probably said to the
director be sure you bring out “shadowed.” Little things like that. Kind of word painting that
you were talking about.
NNH: And “shadowed” kind of implies echoes, so you have the various voices echo each other.
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ELD: Yes, and in writing choral music there’s a lot of repetition of words.
NNH: Yes I’ve noticed that.
ELD: Yes a lot. Otherwise, it would go by too quickly. You wouldn’t have anything there, if you
didn’t repeat [“Hallelujah” in ] the Hallelujah Chorus.
NNH: How do you settle on a melodic theme? I know that you’re listening to it on the piano.
ELD: There are various classical structures of melody and I know that when I was teaching I’d
have the students write a melody. You know, just for an assignment. And it would have to have
an interesting beginning for one thing, and then develop the motifs within itself, maybe have a
little climatic advancement of pitch, and maybe not.
NNH: How long do you develop a motif before you let it go?
ELD: Sometimes I learned that I had to develop it. Maybe the first idea I had with a motif was
that I needed to do something with it, like any composer does. Most popular songs that you think
of from the 40’s and 50’s, that’s all they do. They develop a motif. And there’s not much
contrast. If you have too much contrast, pretty soon it falls apart. But that’s when a bridge comes
in a popular song [and provides] a contrast.
NNH: And you always have that in yours as well. How does the harmony evolve?
ELD: The harmony is very inspiring to me. Just developing chords and chord textures and the
feeling of the harmonies going from one to another those I think are very exciting.
NNH: I’ve noticed that you often begin and end a composition on a ninth chord.
ELD: A ninth chord?
NNH: Yes. Can you talk to me about your relationship with a ninth chord?
ELD: Yes, in impressionist music, that’s where you had the diversions from tonal harmony being
in key. With Debussy and composers of that ilk, they built on ninth chords, eleventh chords and
before that, seventh [chords], adding to the basic triad, and I like that sound. It’s kind of a vague
sound. It’s an unresolved chord.
NNH: You often end on [a ninth chord].
ELD: Yes I guess so.
NNH: I mean there are sometimes when you add…
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ELD: Well that’s a sort of thing that a lot composers do know; they keep adding notes to the
basic chord in choral music, all the time. I think maybe Lauridsen does that.
NNH: He does. He loves playing with chords.
ELD: Yes, and that’s been around a long time, that you add extra notes partly to let people know
that you know it would be commonplace to have a simple chord. Sometimes you go to the
extreme. You add too many muddying harmonies, and pretty soon it sounds like mush all the
time. Then you have to have a clear sound like an open 5
th
or an open 4
th
, open 7
th
.
Interview Part I, #2 (8/27/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
ELD: I like changes in harmony too. I’m sort of a linear composer. I like for things to progress…
and logically.
NNH: Can you say more about that? Like an example?
ELD: Well, I went to Yale, you know, and I went when Hindemith was there and his music is
totally linear, line after line. He would stand at the blackboard and write one line and then he’d
write another underneath it, and then another, and going together they would make sense. But it
wasn’t a melody/harmony type of texture; it was line plus line, and whatever follows has to make
sense in relation to what came before. When I compose, I write something and then I’ll play it
again, and I’ll think “oh, what should follow that?” and then I’ll play that, and I keep going back
to the beginning rather than saying “ok I have an A, B, C, D, E, F. It has to be A-A1, B-B1
something like that.
NNH: And would A and B sometimes harmonize together?
ELD: Yes, they might.
NNH: Excellent. Do you ever consider the Golden Mean in your composing process?
ELD: No I don’t I think so, though I guess it might be there. I don’t know.
NNH: I’ve noticed a couple of places where the climax is right on the Golden Mean.
ELD: Oh, really?
NNH: Yes. And it’s fascinating how composers don’t necessarily do it on purpose.
ELD: That’s right. There a lot of things that composers do depending on what they’ve heard
before. I have a classical sense because we played a lot of classical music.
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NNH: Right.
ELD: So one automatically writes in sonata form, because that’s all you’ve heard, you know:
first theme, development, recap. So it’s a natural kind of structure. So actually it’s not analytical,
but simply remembering what you’ve heard and liked. Although, they say the human brain is
structured. I don’t know; have you ever thought about that? That we actually are capable of
having structure already embedded in our genes. I don’t know much about that, and I don’t
worry about it. And the Golden Mean: I never worry about it either. I know some composers did
that. I think Bartok, or others consciously [incorporated it into their works].
NNH: Yes.
ELD: Yes. But it’s nothing that I would invent. The fact that I use it, it’d be simply something
that I had heard
NNH: Sometimes it just happens.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Could you discuss how vocal production and vocal challenges affect your composing?
ELD: Oh yes. I think sometimes I’ve written too high pitches for the basses for instances. I have
to be really careful with sopranos. I try not to go too high. I like low alto parts. And tenors, they
are always nice inner voices. But when I was writing for the schools, I wrote some for middle
school, and some of those were unchanged boys voices and they told me be aware of that. So I
tried to be aware of that in writing.
NNH: Did they give you particular parameters of what their kids’ voices could do?
ELD: Kind of. It was more just listening to them.
NNH: Oh, you went and listened to the choir? So that you could get a sense?
ELD: Oh yes. Yes, I think that’s the most important thing that a composer can do is listen to
what groups sound like. I’ve always liked writing for women’s chorus because I sang in one in
high school, and I think there are more women’s choruses, actually, than anything else probably
in the schools. Well there are mixed choruses too but there is not very often a boy’s chorus, I
don’t think.
NNH: They are more unusual.
ELD: Yes. Right. And so yes you think about those. I think about how they sound. How does the
second alto sound with the tenor and the bass. Terribly important.
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NNH: So when you’re asked to do a commission, is the first thing you do is to go listen to the
choir?
ELD: Yes. If I’m there, yes I do that. Or they send me a tape maybe. But very often I’ve written
things when I’d never heard [the choir] and I never heard them do my composition. That’s
happened several times. I’ve done a commission and written it and sent it to them, then never
heard anything. That’s only a couple of times that’s happened. So I immediately think well they
didn’t like it, you know?
NNH: Hard to know.
ELD: Yes. Just write another one.
NNH: So would you say women’s chorus is your favorite ensemble to compose for?
ELD: No, not really. It’s just that I’ve had more people ask me for something for women’s
chorus
NNH: Do you have a favorite?
ELD: Yes. My favorite is chorus and orchestra but that would be mixed chorus and orchestra and
you can throw in organ too.
NNH: Sure. Do you have a particular type of commission that you prefer?
ELD: I always like to get something that’s not choral. An instrumental commission. I mean as
you can see I’ve written a whole lot of commission choral things. So it’s so nice to be asked to
write a string quartet or a trio or some [ensemble], and I’ve written lots and lots of organ music
and piano music. But chorally, yes [my favorite] would be mixed chorus and orchestra. Yes.
NNH: How often do you compose currently?
ELD: Not very often right now, and I should. I’m kind of lazy. I should. I’ve written organ music
recently for a publisher, and through the years, I’ve written lots of organ music to play in church
and also concert compositions. And so I could just spend all my time writing organ music for a
publisher or two. I could do that.
NNH: Are you working on commissions right now?
ELD: Yes I’ve just [completed one] for Huntsville.
NNH: The Apple Orchard
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ELD: Yes. I did something last year for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble and went to hear it.
And I set “Do You Know the Land” by Goethe. Do you know it? And I went round and round on
that and wondering about permission to use that text and online there’s a website that has
translations and permission information and I can give you the name of the woman that’s in
charge of that and she has a bunch of my texts, and people can look up a text that a composer has
used or a text by some poet. But anyway, but I think I got permission but I’m not sure.
NNH: You worked at it.
ELD: Yes. Well it’s very interesting in Emily Dickinson too, because there were editions of her
writing after she wrote it but if you go back to the original or something that was not fooled
around with by editors, it’s public domain…you know 70 years after the death of the poet.
Recently I set Sara Teasdale poem called “Peace” and she died in 1933. But I checked with this
website person I’m talking about and she said “Yes, that’s public domain.” But with the
composition for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble and the text and translation of the Goethe
poem, I’m still not sure. And also one year I wrote something from the “Little Prince” and very
familiar and I tried a long time to find out where should I get permission. I went to a publisher in
France and I never did get a clear answer. So I’ve never done anything with that.
NNH: Oh it was composed but never published?
ELD: Yes, it was performed, but not published.
NNH: Is there anything you’d like to say to young composers today?
ELD: Well one thing is to write things for your friends. If you know a friend that plays the guitar
or the trumpet…I mean I started out writing songs for my siblings, you know, for my brothers
and my sister. Then later, on it was for a friend that I knew played, and I mentioned the piano
concerto. You know…just on through your life. If you know somebody, particularly a person
that’s good.a good singer or a good player.
NNH: Now did you ask them before you composed things for them?
ELD: Yes, or maybe they ask you. It’s very nice if they ask you: “ Write me something”.
NNH: That’s lovely.
ELD: And then you can hear it. And then you get to hear it.
NNH: Do you think your style of composing has changed over the years?
ELD: Has it changed? Oh yes it changes all the time. There was period when everyone that’s in
the classical field, contemporary classical field, not popular, because popular never follows
progressive line you know. It’s always usually very conservative unless you get into jazz or
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something but there was a period when serial music was the only thing that you should write.
Really atonal matrix-type music and then that changed. In the sixties that began to change, and
you had a more romantic use of harmony, tonality actually came back, and minimalism came,
which is very tonal. And now we have just a mix of everything; you can do anything you want.
NNH: So you’re talking about the history of composing. In terms of your composing, you feel
like you’ve followed that trend? That you started out with serialism and got more tonal?
ELD: Oh no I didn’t. I’ve written some serial things, but for me. I’m just talking about academic
influences, because when you get into the real world, it’s different and so…academically…I
probably started very tonally and then when I went to school and studied composition, you know
Yale and places, I developed more style, knew more composers, got interested in different ways
of writing. You can become too ivory-tower-ish when you are an academic, and I never wanted
to do that. I wanted to write music that people might actually like and communicate with and
want to hear again you know? But I’ve written some of the other type too. I’ve written serial
compositions. But I try to make them musical in the sense that there’s something there that
people can recognize and relate to. You know some rhythm or…but we had a student once at
UCSB that wrote a lot of abstruse, complicated music, and he never heard it and he never cared
about hearing it; he just liked to write it. And that’s okay too, if he needed to do that.
NNH: But that’s not you?
ELD: No. You kind of want people to like what you’ve done.
NNH: And you like to hear it?
ELD: Yes. I like to hear it.
NNH: How much of your composing comes from commissions would you say?
ELD: A big part of it probably. The ones that haven’t have been written for a colleague or
written for myself, particularly some of the big organ compositions that I’ve written, but not
really recently
NNH: So the majority has come from commissions?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: And has that changed over the years at all?
ELD: Yes. I’m lazy. I wait till somebody asks me to write something. I’ve been writing music
for 80 years, and after a while you don’t get asked so much. There was a period a few years ago
when I was getting too many requests and I thought “I don’t want to write anymore music.”
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NNH: How interesting.
ELD: Unless it’s my own. One thing that I’ve gotten interested in is writing intermediate piano
music or contemporary or really contemporary music. I did that when I was in college too. I
thought we need more piano literature for young players that isn’t in C major, and 4/4 time so I
wrote a bunch of things.
NNH: And has that been published?
ELD: Those particular compositions were not. Because I had a long time getting into the piano
field, and I wanted to write piano music, on different levels. Several years ago, I did hook up
with a couple of publishers and have done [some teaching books for piano]. I don’t think people
buy them much because they’re too contemporary.
NNH: Well I would love to look at them. I’m always interested in more piano music. That would
be great.
ELD: I can show you those, and some of those were at the request of the publisher. In the
beginning, it was my own initiative to try write different things, and then find a publisher. It’s
always tricky to get anything published when you’re first starting out.
NNH: Oh yes. And now you don’t have as much trouble?
ELD: No, not anymore, but there’s lots of limits to that. I’ve written a lot of orchestra music, but
then again, when you look at my whole [opus] the [works] that are done are choral and organ
more than anything else and some piano.
NNH: The works that are performed more frequently?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Could you comment on some of the premieres of your works and whether they met your
expectations?
ELD: Well I can remember very well when the little madrigals were done in Arlington
[Virginia]. I played the piano part. It was a high school chorus. I forget whether it was several
high school choruses. They were quite good, and I played the piano, and in those days and
maybe in most schools, the audience claps as soon as the music stops. It doesn’t matter if it’s a
cycle or a symphony, they clap as soon as the music stops. So I remember so well in the first
madrigal, it kind of ends up in the air it doesn’t resolve. The piano goes up and it doesn’t resolve
to G; it just ends vaguely, and they didn’t know whether it was finished or not, so they didn’t
clap. They did clap after the second one and the third one. But that was the premier of those little
things, and I remember that.
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NNH: And were you pleased with the way they went?
ELD: Yes, they did a good job. I always had a problem playing the piano part. There’s a
glissando and then octaves, so I’ve had trouble with that, and I wonder if anyone else has? Yes,
you’re saying yes.
NNH: Absolutely.
ELD: Some other premieres have been pretty bad. They did a band composition of mine in the
same Arlington schools and it didn’t sound very good, and I remember there was some kind of
cherry bomb that went off during one of the movements. And it seems to me in quiet
movements,people always cough a lot. As soon as the music is quiet they begin coughing, so I
remember that happening. And I’ve heard some pretty bad premieres of my piano music. I
wrote a piano sonata for someone not too many years ago, and she just didn’t get it; she didn’t
understand how I was writing. It was a very rhythmic composition and she didn’t really like it.
Since then, people have done a good job with it. I remember the first time I heard an orchestra
composition was back in the 50’s. The Seattle Symphony [performed], and I had never heard
anything I had done for orchestra, and it was really kind of fascinating, a revelation.
NNH: What was the revelation?
ELD: Just the sound of the orchestra, and I thought “oh that’s my music”! You really have to
hear a medium a number of times. You have to hear a lot of choruses, you have to hear a lot of
orchestra sounds, band sounds, string quartet sound, until it becomes second nature you know to
hear it or to write for it.
NNH: Is there anything you’d like to convey to conductor’s about your music overall?
ELD: Oh, conductors are so different. Some of them are very attuned to your particular style, and
they understand it and they bring something to it that maybe I wouldn’t have thought of, so you
try to kind of tell them how to do that if you’re there. I don’t know… I think if you have to say,
“Okay, you should bring out the alto part; it is important here, make sure to bring that out,” or
like I was talking about the words.
NNH: The words seem very important to you.
ELD: Yes. They are important. They hold the importance for the whole [work] if you’re using a
text.
NNH: Is there anything else that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to talk about? We’re going
to talk about the individual compositions of music, but overall, just in general?
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ELD: Just the fact of composing, like I said, more often I will sit down at the keyboard, although
the last few years, I’ve been using the computer. Sitting at the computer is not necessarily good,
but I do that and then I can hear it right away.
NNH: And is there a particular program that you use?
ELD: Yes, I use Finale and I used to have it hooked up to my Clavinova so that when I played
my Clavinova and improvised, I could see what I was doing. It would notate it on the computer,
so you’d be seeing an improvisation, which is something that you don’t see very often. But I
really prefer sitting at the keyboard.
NNH: To the computer?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: And when you sit at the computer, you said you do a lot of email. Do you sometimes go
from the email to the composing?
ELD: Oh yes. These little red lights go off or you have a little banner saying CNN or alert or
something like that and that’s distracting.
Interview Part I, #3 (8/27/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
NNH: We’re going to start with What Child Is This and I wonder if you can reconstruct the
circumstances for which you composed this arrangement?
ELD: I can’t remember if I wrote it for anybody in particular.
NNH: Oh so maybe you just wrote it for yourself?
ELD: I think so. Either that or for a publisher. I can’t remember whether it says that on the list
anyplace or not, you know in the list of my choral works.
NNH: Let’s look. I’ll see if I can find it.
ELD: I think it’s near the beginning….it’s just a very simple arrangement of the tune. I haven’t
done a whole lot of choral works that were based on a tune.
NNH: No that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to ask you what the circumstances were.
ELD: Yes. I’ve written many of course for organ, hymns and chorales.
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NNH: And this would be after you already moved to Santa Barbara, in 1989? Do you think it
might have been used at the church?
ELD: Yes. I may have. I remember that the choir did it at First Presbyterian, so I guess I wrote it
at that time.
NNH: Yes. It just says the Sacred Music Press 1990, traditional text by William Dicks.
ELD: Yes. It’s just one of those really simple arrangement of a familiar tune, and I suppose some
people have done it.
NNH: I think it’s really lovely.
ELD: You have done it?
NNH: I have not done it but I’m intending to do it this Christmas. I ordered it for my church
choir because I think they will enjoy it.
ELD: And it can be done with piano or with organ
NNH: You didn’t have a particular ensemble in mind then?
ELD: No, I didn’t. Just a work that wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort to rehearse.
NNH: Do you think that there’s an ideal size of the ensemble that would do this?
ELD: No, you could have a quartet do it.
NNH: Yes that’s lovely. Could you discuss the harmonies that you chose for this work?
ELD: We were talking about 7
th
chords and there are some 7
th
chords, but it’s basically very E
minor. It doesn’t really depart very much from the harmonies of the melody as it would be in the
hymnbook, but there’s a little bit of figuration in the accompaniment in the piano part, some
added notes and of course some broken chords in the left hand and a few little changes of
harmony with that F natural that comes in that third measure. But basically it’s a very traditional.
It’s a little bit modal where it’s in E minor but when a C-sharp comes in, which it does
occasionally, it gives a feeling a little bit of Dorian mode. But basically it’s very tonal.
NNH: Great. Is there anything else you’d like to say about it?
ELD: It’s in unison for the first part, and then it goes into four-part harmony, and then the men
have the tune. You always try to give the men something to do, you know, give them the melody
sometimes, so they have the melody. Then again it becomes four-part harmony, and then on the
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last couple of pages it has a little bit of two-part harmony, but basically it’s four part. At the end
it goes into unison. So in other words there’s some contrast in texture in this little composition.
NNH: Yes absolutely. Can you say something about starting at the beginning in unison?
ELD: It’s just nice to hear all the voices in unison and I also like to put the melody in different
voices too, not so much in this one but in some things I’ve written.
NNH: That’s great. Well thank you.
NNH: The next one is How Lovely is Your Dwelling.
ELD: Yes. I think she’s taken this one out of print of course.
NNH: Oh is that right?
ELD: Yes, I think so.
NNH: That’s a shame.
ELD: Yes, that’s what I thought.
NNH: Can you reconstruct the commission? It was by Vick and Nancy Geiger in Jasper,
Indiana?
ELD: Well, I’m not sure. These were people that I didn’t know. I do get commissions from
people that only know some of my music, so I don’t know them.
NNH: And did they give you any particular parameters in terms of text or anything?
ELD: They must have asked me to use this text I think. It may have been for a
commission…well the notes say it’s appropriate for a dedication of a new church building but I
don’t think that was the case in this but that would be one purpose
NNH: Do you have a particular reason, do you remember, for leaving out the word “place?”
How Lovely is Your Dwelling…Place?
ELD: Well, the text printed there does not have “place”, so I must have gotten one of the
versions of the Bible that didn’t have it
NNH: And I wonder, do you remember what translation you would have used?
ELD: No I don’t remember and I would have to look it up and that’s so easy to do. You just
write “How Lovely Is Your Dwelling” and you’ll find it
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NNH: Well there’s several translations of it, which is why I asked.
ELD: So apparently I found one that didn’t have “place” in it
NNH: And the diction is less formal than some of the other translations you use “Your” instead
of “Thy” and “longs” instead of “longeth”
ELD: Yes, sometimes I don’t like to use the “Thee’s” and “Thou’s.”
NNH: So that’s a personal choice? It’s not necessarily from the translation?
ELD: That’s right. And then I always have trouble with “He” and “Him.” I try to avoid that in
later works. It doesn’t happen to come up here. It just talks about the Lord, so you don’t have any
gender identification.
NNH: And I notice it’s written in SAB do you think that was part of the commission?
ELD: Must have been.
NNH: Yes. What can you tell me about the harmonies you chose?
ELD: Well, as you can I see I’ve got more interesting chords in the organ part with some added
notes. You know we were talking about added notes. The harmony is rather rich, I think, in the
accompaniment, and of course it has a rhythm to it, a little syncopated rhythm.
NNH: Yes, could you talk a little bit about the rhythmic structure and the ostinato in the organ?
ELD: Yes. Apparently when I sat down at the piano and looked at the text, this idea came to me.
I don’t know why. So yes, as you said, it’s a rhythmic ostinato. I found when I first started
writing choral music that there wasn’t anyone writing much with rhythm.
NNH: Yes.
ELD: It was all sustained and legato all the time, and a lot of choral music is that way now too.
So I really tried to add some rhythm in the accompaniment and sometimes in the voices. This is
an example of that, trying to make it more interesting for myself you know.
NNH: Yes, it’s a wonderful ostinato. And can you talk about the dynamic changes?
ELD: Well let’s see it starts softly, and…there isn’t a whole lot of change.
NNH: There’s terraced dynamics piano in measure 13, there’s a piano in 16, forte in 21, and
forte on “God” on measure 25. And then there’s the middle section, which is quieter.
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ELD: Yes, right.
NNH: Then you crescendo to the forte at measure 38. It seems like, except for the choir in the
middle section, it crescendos through the first section and decrescendos through the last section.
ELD: Yes that sounds good. You’re very observant. Yes, when it changes key, it gets louder. It
goes to B-flat, then it goes back to G-major and ends rather softly. There's that little bit of a
change, when you have that little recitative type writing before it changes key. “Even the
sparrow finds a home.” When "how lovely" comes back in G, there's a little bit of imitation
there.
NNH: What measure is that?
ELD: About 52, on page 8. The women start and then the men come in. And then the flute. So
you've got a bit of counterpoint and then also on the last page, or on the next page, there is some
imitation. The three different parts. They must have asked for a flute.
NNH: I was wondering about whether that was part of the commission as well?
ELD: Yes. They must have asked for that.
NNH: Okay.
ELD: I think it's a nice little composition.
NNH: It's a beautiful composition. Yes, it's lovely.
All right, Psalm 100.
ELD: Oh, yes. Well, I did write this for our church. Our choir director at First Presbyterian, or at
least she was the director when I was there, she is at another church now. She and I went there at
the same time. She was from Yankton, SD.
NNH: Oh, okay.
ELD: So that was the connection there…to write something for the church there. I did go to
Sioux Falls, I think it was, Lutheran Church and they did a program of my music and they did
this with brass. It's a funny little composition. A rhythm that goes all the way through. Lots of
rhythmic singing with rests. I've gone through periods where I used more rests in writing and
written rhythmic figures rather than totally legato sustained writing.
NNH: Yes. I really enjoy that. Do you remember if the commission set up any parameters for the
composition?
ELD: No. I think it probably was just a joyful kind of anthem. And they had the drum.
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NNH: Do you know if they chose the text? Or did you choose the text?
ELD: I must have chosen it, I think, from Psalm 100. I've written a lot of praise anthems and this
is an example of that. It pretty much uses the same rhythm all the way through doesn't it?
Changes keys some.
NNH: Could you comment on your decision to have the choir chant some of the text? That's
measures 51 through 63, "Enter the Lord's gates".
ELD: I don't know if that's effective. Do you think?
NNH: I have no idea. I have not heard the composition performed.
ELD: Probably just a whim or thinking we should have some choral speaking some place. I don't
think it's really necessary or maybe even effective.
NNH: It's not something you've done elsewhere. This is unusual.
ELD: No. No, I haven't done it too much. It's kind of dumb really. I mean why. If I were writing
a really avant-garde composition, I could see it, but it's so traditional harmonically.
NNH: The form seems to be in the shape of a palindrome. It's A, B, C, B, A.
ELD: Okay, I'll have to take your word on that.
NNH: Can you comment on that?
ELD: That's nice. To have something that comes back. Yes. That's right. When I do come back
to notes written out in measure 68, the thirds, sopranos and altos singing in thirds, you always
think of that famous aria from ..What is that?
NNH: Lakme?
ELD: Yes, Lakme. So that is kind of a break from .
NNH: Oh, that's great.
ELD: Then the men also are in thirds. It seems to me it was nice. They did a good job on it.
NNH: So they did it with the organ and the brass?
ELD: Yes.
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NNH: At measure 36, you have a forte followed by a subito piano. "It is the Lord who made us,
made us".
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Can you comment on that?
ELD: That's a cappella, and they're pianissimo, just to contrast. It doesn't have any deep meaning
I don't think.
NNH: Okay, that's what I was asking. In the chant section, which is measure 51, you ask for a
crescendo from mezzo piano to fortissimo. The text is "Enter the Lord's gate with thanksgiving to
the Lord's faithfulness to all generations."
ELD: Well, crescendos for composers are always a little bit arbitrary. It's a device to build up.
It's really a romantic thing. You mentioned Baroque dynamics, it doesn't have anything to do
with that. It's more like a romantic concerto. A little more intense.
NNH: You may not know this because you said you don't look at the Golden Mean as you're
composing but this is the Golden Mean of the composition.
ELD: Oh, really?
NNH: It really feels like measure 56 where it says "Give thanks to the Lord, bless the Lord's
name" is the climax of the composition and it is at the Golden Mean.
ELD: Oh, that's interesting. I think that probably comes . There is a point when you're writing
that you think okay, something really intense has to happen about now. Then you can end it any
way you want. You can come back to softly again. It's like a composer seems to have to have a
climactic point. Doesn't have to. That doesn't occur in Bach necessarily. It's a constant intensity
in a composer like Bach, but in romantic composers you've got this build up of intensity
NNH: Yes, the arch.
ELD: Yes, right.
NNH: Did you want to say something more about that?
ELD: No, I don't think so.
NNH: Do you remember if the commission specified the accompanying instruments?
ELD: It must have. Yes, I think it did.
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NNH: Can you reconstruct what size ensemble the premiere involved?
ELD: I think I played the organ, and then they had the drum and then the trumpet. I think that
was all.
NNH: Yes. What about the size of the chorus?
ELD: I think it was pretty good. Maybe thirty or forty or so. At least forty probably.
NNH: It seems to me you would have to have a large ensemble to balance the instrumentation.
ELD: Yes, maybe. The trumpet part is pretty light, and the drum. But, I remember it was a good
size choir.
NNH: Is there a size ensemble that you think would be ideal for this composition?
ELD: No, I don't think so. I think it would be nice with just a few voices. As you say, it is SAB.
The men do divide so you do have to have four parts. But, when you have good voices
sometimes it only takes one man on tenor, one man on bass.
NNH: Yes. Okay, excellent. Thank you. The next composition is “Bless the Lord O My Soul.”
ELD: Yes, that was written for the church here wasn't it? Yes, First Presbyterian [Church of
Santa Barbara].
NNH: The dedication of the new chapel in February 1999.
ELD: Yes, we have that lovely new chapel and there is a digital organ in it. A Johannes organ.
The people that gave the chapel, they gave it in memory of their daughter who had died in her
twenties I think. It's called the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. They have the Twenty-third Psalm,
some of it, stenciled into the door. It's quite nice. I love to go in there and practice. It's not big,
about 80 people. Both of those people [who donated the chapel], they both died this year which
is kind of sad. The Bartletts, they were way up in there in years but they gave $1,000,000 for this
chapel. They used some stained glass from the old building, the old church.
NNH: Oh, that's lovely. Did they commission the composition?
ELD: No, I don't think I was paid anything. As organist, I wrote several things for the choir, for
the church. And they did them. Julie was very good about doing anything I wrote.
NNH: Can you say more about your collaboration with Julie Newfeld?
ELD: Newfeld. Yes, we worked together for about, let's see from 1984, for about 16 years. Then
I was really tired of playing every Sunday, and Easter was coming, which I always dread. I
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mean, it is great but, it's so loud and busy and stressful. So, I quit before Easter that year and then
she had to get somebody else. But, it's just a big celebratory anthem.
NNH: Can you reconstruct, did you choose the text?
ELD: I probably did.
NNH: Do you remember how you decided on which translation to use? It uses some everyday
language and whether you changed this or it was part of the translation: “covers” instead of
“coverest” and “stretches” instead of “stretchest.”
ELD: Yes, sometimes I change it myself. I think I used revised versions sometimes but there are
so many of them.
NNH: I know. I was trying to find the version and it was very hard to pin it down. It also uses
some archaic expressions like “thou art” and “thyself “and “walketh” and “maketh.”
ELD: That's right. I must have used one. I could look and see. I'm just really not sure.
Sometimes, I'll go up and look up and find it marked, which book I used it from.
Interview Part I, #4 (8/27/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
NNH: Could you talk about how you decided how much of the text to set? This is the first five
lines of a 35-line Psalm.
ELD: Yes. I suppose I don’t know what the rest of it is, but I like to use the optimistic, happy
parts of the Bible. I have a very simplistic, literary sense because whenever I have set something
from the Old Testament, I avoid the more violent parts of the Scripture.
NNH: Well that makes sense. [The Psalm] goes on to say “thou coverest with the deepest of
garments. The waters stood above the mountains, but at Thy rebuke, they fled the voice of Thy
thunder. They hastened away.” That’s the next couple of lines, so you stopped when [the mood]
got dark.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Could you talk about your choice of harmony for this work?
ELD: Well it’s pretty basic isn’t it? It’s very tonal…extremely tonal I think I was more interested
in the rhythm, but the harmony is very triadic. I don’t see much dissonance in any place. I
played the organ part, I guess but it’s nothing but I-III-V chords as far as I can see. So it’s very
conservative harmonically.
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NNH: Tell me a bit more about the rhythm.
ELD: Well, of course you have a sort of syncopated rhythm. Something that I just love in choral
music is to detach things, so I try to write in lots of staccatos and lots of accents to try to get
people to be light and rhythmic, rather than dull and legato and sustained.
NNH: I believe this is the one where you actually notate that the congregation could echo the
choir.
ELD: Yes. I can‘t remember whether we did that. I don’t think we did that, but it would have
been nice.
NNH: It’s a lovely idea. And there’s enough of a repetition that the congregation could catch on.
ELD: Yes that’s right. They could rehearse it a little bit. But as you can see it’s syncopated;
there’s accents on the off-beat which is a little tricky on the organ but there are ways to make the
organ more rhythmic by having more staccato before the accent, you know, have a little break
there. It’s possible, and depending on the registration too. And then the choir needs to know how
to sing rhythmically. And they did a good job of that.
NNH: How big was the choir?
ELD: I think it was 30 at that time. So it’s basically a very tonal, rhythmic composition and
hardly nobody ever did it after that.
NNH: You’re not aware of any other performances?
ELD: No. Composers really aren’t very often.
NNH: They don’t let you know when they perform?
ELD: No. Sometimes if people knew you in the old days. Once in while, I’ll hear from
somebody in Missouri, and they’ll say “Oh, our church did something of yours,” and sometimes
even high schools. But most people don’t. They’ll say, “Oh yes, we did something of Mary Lou
Diemer’s or Betty Lou Diemer or Dimer” or something or “I can’t remember her name” or “I
can’t remember the name of the anthem.”
NNH: They have some vague memory. How does it make you feel when somebody notifies you
that they’ve performed one of your compositions.
ELD: Oh, that’s fine. That’s great.
NNH: Okay. We’ll go on to “Song of Praise”
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ELD: Yes, this is one that I could not remember. Oh yes, I also did it for the same church, [First
Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, same choir and Julie [Newfeld].
NNH: For the dedication of the new organ console, and you said it was a five-manual console?
ELD: Yes, it’s a Johannes built in Holland, I think, but the digital organ in the chapel is the same
company. And we have a rather small antiphonal [organ] in the back, and on the old console,
which was four manuals, I had to play both that and one of the other divisions on the same
manual. So I thought it would be nice to have a separate manual for the antiphonal, so that’s
what we had. It makes it a hard console for some organists to play, [because] they have to reach
way up to the top, but it can be done. I can do it and I’m [only] five feet.
NNH: And you can reach all the manuals?
ELD: Yes I can. You have to brace yourself.
NNH: So you wrote the organ part for yourself, and you would have played it at the premiere?
ELD: Yes it has a very common, almost Latin rhythm 3-3-2, pretty much all the way through. I
think it’s a bit monotonous because it repeats an awful lot; it repeats the same motif. You can
get away with that if you don’t overdo it, but I think maybe in this, I did. But we had fun with it;
they enjoyed singing it.
NNH: Will you look at measures 19-21? I see that [passage] as an echo of the Three Madrigals.
ELD: Oh yes?
NNH: Do you think that was conscious or unconscious?
ELD: You mean right up there? Well you know we only have 12 notes to work with and…you’re
going to repeat…you try not to make it a verbatim repeat.
NNH: Right, it’s not a verbatim repeat it’s just a little flavor of [Three Madrigals]..
ELD: Yes, it starts sort of in a G, though I don’t use a key signature; I put in the F-sharp because
it moves around. It goes to Bb, and then it goes to F, so it doesn’t stay in G. The middle section
does return to G, but that uses an F natural. And it uses quite a few rests in that middle section,
and then again the key changes. It starts in a kind of a G then it goes to an A briefly and then
back to G.
NNH: What measure are you on?
ELD: Back to G on page 8…very briefly. And on page 7, at that forte, it went to A, but didn’t
stay very long; [it] goes back to G, and then it goes on page 9 to C, and this is your climactic
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point and the organ gets to really open up there. And then it goes to A at the bottom and I do use
a key signature there, and that’s a climactic point. And it stays [loud] through the rest of it
doesn’t it? Yes, again it’s a rhythmic composition, very tonal, and it uses that 3-3-2 rhythm
almost all the time. It takes a nice big organ sound.
NNH: Yes, it’s wonderful. So would you say you’re thinking in keys, not modes?
ELD: Well, yes, I guess actually modes in a sense that I don’t use the leading tone that goes up a
half step to the tonic. I kind of avoid that, although when you look at this, there are quite a few F-
sharps, but I put something else there so it doesn’t sound like it. The one chord I try to avoid is
the V7 chord like in the key of G that would D-F-sharp-A-C…I try to avoid that.
NNH: Right.
ELD: I also try to avoid diminished 7
th
chords.
NNH: Is there a particular reason?
ELD: Well, they were so commonly used in traditional harmony. So that’s why you see in the
very beginning that A added. This is what composers do all the time; they add another note,
usually a M2 apart to the basic harmony and that happens. And then in measure 4 you have a 7
th
chord. So there’s lots of 7
th
chords, but I don’t really use any dissonance. There’s not much
dissonance in this.
NNH: It’s pretty straight-forward. Great, thank you.
All right, “Consider the Lilies” this is much more recent, 2006?
ELD: Yes..
NNH: Would you comment on the process of selecting the text?
ELD: They did that. They wanted this text, the chancel choir. This is on the occasion of their
director’s retirement. Northbrook, Illinois.
NNH: And did you know the person, Dr. Speak?
ELD: No I didn’t.
NNH: So they just contacted out of the blue?
ELD: Yes, they did something of mine. I don’t remember what. It’s kind of nice they have a lily
on the cover. I hadn’t really noticed that before
NNH: Yes, it’s very lovely.
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ELD: So I thought, “ This is another anthem that should really catch on; people should really like
it.” And that’s true of almost of everything I write, and then it doesn’t really. Some people do it.
NNH: But it hasn’t caught on like the Three Madrigals did.
ELD: Not really, no. I’ve heard people say “Oh this is gorgeous!”Some man played it, and he
said he just had tears coming down when he played. And actually where my niece plays the
organ in Huntsville, AL, they did it recently. She probably twisted the arm of that director. I
think it’s a lovely anthem.
NNH: It is a lovely anthem. I think it’s exquisite. Did they set any other parameters except the
text?
ELD: No just the text. But the text lends itself to a very lyrical. You wouldn’t really want to have
a dissonant thing.
NNH: No.
ELD: Use of harmony. Again, it’s tonal with a few added notes like that D added to the A chord
in the first measure. And then in the 4
th
measure there’s an F natural. But the big change is on the
word “feel.” The F natural is a very warm harmonic sound. And the women begin and then the
men come in with the same melody by themselves, and then the four parts. It’s all in A major so
far, and then it modulates on page 5. I always find transitions very interesting to write and I’ve
heard so many awkward ones. I try to not make transitions awkward; they have to sound natural.
So on the bottom of page 4, you have that transition from the key of A gradually to a kind of a C.
You don’t have any signature on page 5, and it’s done mostly in those four measures through
imitation of rhythm, the eighth notes.
NNH: Almost a sequence?
ELD: Yes, a kind of sequence. But I always try to make transitions sound smooth. Sometimes
you don’t have to always modulate; you don’t have to transition; you can just go from one to the
other.
NNH: Right
ELD: And Prokofiev does that. He’ll start off in one key and then he’s in another one and
fortunately there was no messy modulation.
NNH: Makes it very smooth. And you write it in a Rondo form.
ELD: Oh, okay.
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NNH: It keeps repeating the original tune in the form AABACADA. It keeps coming back to the
original tune with a 9
th
chord at the beginning and the end.
ELD: Yes, right and when it comes back to A, the texture changes. You’ve got the alto and the
bass right? So you have a different timbral sound when it returns, and then that melody is
repeated by the soprano and tenor. It’s a very common use of the voices, you know, pairing the
lower voices, men and women, and then pairing the higher voices tenor and soprano. It changes
the timbre.
NNH: Right.
Once again the dynamics start very quietly and end very quietly and it gets up to mezzo forte at
“What shall we eat? What shall we drink?”
ELD: Yes, and at that point, “What shall we eat?” “What shall we drink?” to me those words are
very rhythmic and kind of chanting. So it’s not really expressive; it’s kind of litany that they’re
saying, so I thought, well, that will be a sequence and have that rhythm to it. But as far as any
other word painting I don’t know.
NNH: The tempi follow the contours of the text. There’s a ritard at measure 41 at the end of the
phrase, and then there’s ritard at measure 60.
ELD: So it kind of depends on the conductor to do that sensitively, but the harmony in the
accompaniment is very important.
NNH: Did you get to go to the premiere?
ELD: No, I didn’t.
NNH: Did they send you a recording?
ELD: I don’t think they did. There is one on YouTube that some choir did. It’s not a very good
recording. Like a lot of the things on YouTube, the sound is not terribly good. Whoever it was on
YouTube did it, so that’s three that I know about.
NNH: So, Three Madrigals, this one, and what’s the other one?
ELD: That are done a lot? Bee! I’m Expecting You!
NNH: Which is also on YouTube. Great.
All right, Thy Holy Wings.
ELD: Yes, this was done for…
NNH: The Saint Cecilia Trio
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ELD: Yes, that’s again a South Dakota connection, because Julie was a good friend of Richard
Colman, and I did that for him and his trio.
NNH: Yes, cello, flute and keyboard.
NNH: So they would have asked for the instrumentation. Can you talk about the melody there?
There are two melodies one is a Swedish folk tune. Was that something they asked you to set?
ELD: Yes I think so. So it’s really an arrangement of that.
NNH: And what about the text?
ELD: The text is from Psalm 25.
NNH: You don’t know whether they chose that or you chose that?
ELD: It’s from Caroline Sandell-Berg, so I guess they sent it to me.
NNH: You think they sent the text?
ELD: Yes. It’s very simple
NNH: There are no key changes in this.
ELD: No that’s right. That’s right, it stays in a single key. It has a little bit of change in texture
here and there from four-part writing. There’s one section where the men are by themselves and
then the women by themselves, and then the men again
NNH: And there’s a lovely interlude for the cello and flute
ELD: That’s right. It’s kind of Baroque style interlude.
NNH: Can you say more about that?
ELD: Yes, I don’t know why I did that. I guess I just felt it should be a little bit contrapuntal,
particularly for those instruments. aAnd then it returns to the beginning with the pizzicato in the
cello. It’s a very sweet melody.
NNH: I think it’s really lovely. Did you get any feedback from the premiere? You didn’t go to
the premiere?
ELD: No I didn’t go. Once I was playing up in Minneapolis for something and Reverend
Coleman came with his trio and they played it for me when we had intermission, and it sounded
really nice, but that’s the only time I heard it. I think there may be one on YouTube, but I’m not
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sure, and then also publishers sometimes put out recordings. I think there’s [a recording] of this
composition; recordings for things they publish.
NNH: Is there a particular kind of ensemble that you think would be ideal for this composition?
NNH: In terms of the choir, the size of the choir.
ELD: Well, there again, it doesn’t have to be a big choir.
NNH: Ok. Do you think it would helpful to ask sopranos for minimal vibrato in this
composition?
ELD: Yes, I think that in any composition you should have minimal vibrato, unless it’s some
kind of effect you know.
NNH: So has this been popular with other churches?
ELD: I would say moderately.
NNH: So it has been picked up?
ELD: It has been picked up some, yes. It should be because it’s so easy
NNH: Yes, exactly. This one and Consider the Lilies very very accessible
ELD: Yes, and as you can see it’s a publisher that I don’t publish very much with. I think it’s just
those two things. In their concert section, they have a couple of my organ works that are a little
more difficult but they sell maybe one copy a year. You’d be amazed how little is sold
particularly now, but you never know. I’ve written so many things that I think are going to
catch on because I think they are accessible and they are attractive and they’re not too hard, but I
don’t know the answer.
NNH: Yes. There probably is no one formula.
ELD: Yes, I don’t know. Sometimes it takes somebody [to promote them]. I think in the case of
the madrigals, who is the great choral director, Charles?
NNH: Charles Hirt.
ELD: I think it he must have….
NNH: He took it to ACDA;
ELD: Yes, and that does it;
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NNH: And then all these choir directors heard it and it took off.
ELD: If they like it, yes. That helps a lot. But if you don’t have anybody doing that, [it doesnt
sell]. There’s so much choral music that is fodder for the publishers. They put it out and then
they take it away if nobody buys it
NNH: I think you’re right. I think it takes someone playing it, singing it at a huge conference like
ACDA. That makes sense. I think we’ll stop there for today.
ELD: Okay.
Interview Part II, #1 (8/28/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
ELD: I have something to show you.
NNH: Yes, and tell me about the copies that the publishers send you.
ELD: Well, they send you several copies, and I’m kind of lazy; I don’t send them out to people.
So they stay up there, which is kind of silly. I’m not much of a promoter. Once in awhile I say
“oh I should do something” but I don’t.
NNH: But your focus is composing?
ELD: Yes, that’s what I like to do.
NNH: Yes.
ELD: But some composers are much, much better promoters of their own music.
NNH: We all have our strengths.
ELD: Yes. But I did take this off of the web, the website where you can find translations.
NNH: Oh excellent! The lieder net archive.
ELD: Yes that’s Emily Ezust I think that’s her name. I’ve corresponded with her.
NNH: Excellent! Thank you.
ELD: She’s very helpful. I’ve pulled up the listing of mine.
NNH: Oh great!
ELD: And she has lots and lots [of translations]. So you can see all the poets.
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NNH: And she has the translations on her website?
ELD: Yes, and all the list of poets.
NNH: Oh that’s wonderful! That’s really helpful.
ELD: It doesn’t include Biblical sources.
NNH: It doesn’t?
ELD: No
NNH: Oh but that’s great. Excellent.
ELD: Yes, it’s a good reference site for poetry. And she’s very nice to answer questions about
poems, early public domain that sort of thing.
NNH: So you can ask her which poems are public domain and which ones are available to set?
So she’s a wonderful resource.
ELD: Yes she is.
NNH: Excellent! Well thank you for that. I wanted to thank you again for all of your time and
your thoughtful answers and I have a few follow up questions from things you said yesterday,
things that I observed so I thought we’d start there today.
ELD: All right.
NNH: My first one is about humor. We haven’t talked about humor yet. You have a wonderful
wry sense of humor, having conquered many challenges in your life. Could you comment on
how you’ve held onto your sense of humor
ELD: Oh I don’t know. I think we all should have a sense of humor. I think the dullest people are
the ones who have no sense of [humor]. But we don’t always understand each other’s senses of
humor do we? And I grew up in a family that liked a certain kind humor including puns which
some people hate. I don’t use them in my music, but there’s always been humor in music. We
don’t realize it and people go to a concert and are absolutely straight-faced, and it’s like being in
church or something: you don’t smile, you don’t laugh. And you know Haydn and Beethoven
and even Bach, I think they all had good senses of humor. And there’s a sarcastic humor that
you have in Shostakovich for instance, all the time making a way of expressing your disdain or
your contempt for things that are going on. I think there’s a lot of that in Shostakovich, and some
in Prokofiev. Those are my favorite composers, the Russians. But I don’t know about my sense
of humor. I’ve set funny things, like the limericks, and tried to use word painting in those. I
don’t know. Where do you hear humor in my music?
195
NNH: Oh there are several places in “Show and Tell” and “Hey Boys, Hey Girls” where you
create abrupt changes in key or you undercut some of the seriousness of the text with some
crunchy chords. I think we will see when we talk about the music more. But I see I lot of humor
in the Three Madrigals. The text is funny to begin with the men who are “deceivers ever.”
ELD: Oh yes.
NNH: And you create sequences and keep people off balance. There’s lots of humor in your
composing.
ELD: Good! Because one type of music I don’t like is really depressing angst. I know that I
came from a family that did well, and we didn’t have any serious problems in a personal way, or
in business or anything else. So I never grew up some place where I might really feel depressed,
like if I had grown up in Nazi Germany, for instance, maybe I would have written an
expressionistic, depressing type of music or maybe reacted to it in some way. But I basically like
happy, optimistic music or sad… I also like sad, melancholy music.
NNH: And there’s a lot of poignancy in your music.
ELD: Oh yes. And that can be very painful to write, you know to set poetry like that.
NNH: But would you say you’re mostly an optimistic person?
ELD: Yes, I think so, I’m a hopeful person.
NNH: That’s wonderful, thank you. You mostly compose accompaniment for choirs, can you tell
me your feelings about the sound of an a cappella choir?
ELD: Oh I like acapella. I have sometimes in the past gone to concerts of a cappella music,
particularly early music like Palestrina and so on and have become terribly, terribly bored with
[the sameness of the sound]. If there was just one little percussion sound or something other than
the choral sound that was good. I’ve gotten so that I like a cappella music and a lot of it is very
imaginative that’s being written now, particularly if rhythm is used or clusters or effects. But just
the choral sound constantly without any instrumental color, it becomes, at least for me, kind of
monotonous you know?
NNH: So the instruments provide variety and….
ELD: Color and rhythm, contrast more musical interest too, but that’s partly because I’m a
keyboard person.
NNH: Yes, we’re attracted to those instruments that we feel comfortable with.
ELD: Yes right.
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NNH: When you taught composition, what were some of the principles you liked to impress on
your students?
ELD: I would usually start a class writing a melody for an instrument, usually clarinet, oboe or
violin and make sense of it, a melody that makes sense in structure, in development, and
direction and expressiveness, to see if they could do that. Then they didn’t have to worry about
anything except the melodic line. Another assignment that really works quite well is theme and
variations; they would write a theme, and then they have different kinds of textures and settings
of that theme and learn to put it someplace other than in the top. You know, they learn to have it
in the bass and then the middle voice and so on. In terms of style, I tried to direct them away
[from their comfort zone]. If they are totally tonal and 4/4 person, [I would] direct them away
from that into different types of scales that they can make up, like modes, and different kinds of
meter, irregular meter, and textures too, so it’s not just the pop song type of texture which a lot of
students relate to.
NNH: Sure, and it’s a good place to start, but it’s nice to do lots of variation.
ELD: Yes, they need to know how to do counterpoint for instance. They need to use different
voices, and imitation, so [I would] try to make them progress in style, but not say they have to
write in a certain style.
NNH: Just experiment in lots of different styles.
ELD: Yes. Right.
NNH: You said you like to avoid male pronouns in your Biblical texts, can you say more about
that?
ELD: Oh well, I think it goes together with our whole society. I don’t think of God as “he;” I
don’t think of God as she, either, but as a force, and I don’t like to see the debate. For instance,
there were sixteen men and in the other group there were seven, and there was one woman or
something like that. And I really resist seeing so many men in charge of everything. I admire
men terrifically and my father and my brothers and a lot of different friends, but I think that
women are getting a little bit better in bringing their talents out and their abilities, but they have a
real struggle.
NNH: They do for sure.
ELD: And I would like to support them whenever possible, and that relates to music too. Emily
Dickinson says that “there is a morn by men unseen” and when I set that to music, I took out the
“men,” so I have “there’s a morn unseen,” which is probably something she might have said. I
don’t know what she would have done in this day and age; she might not have written that in the
19
th
century. She came from a period where it was natural that the men were running everything.
197
And in Scripture it’s very difficult sometimes because you have resort to always saying Lord or
God rather than he or him, but I’ve written a lot of texts, especially back when I was writing for
the school, that used he and him because that was okay. And then we became more PC about
things, after Civil Rights, and people were very conscious of race and gender so things began to
change. You have all these translations, new settings, new versions of Scripture.
NNH: Along those lines, I have a question. I love some of your music, but the text would not
work for the Unitarian Universalist Church, which allows lots of different beliefs but doesn’t
necessarily believe in God, and there are people in the church who are atheists. Would you be
willing to revise or have someone else revise some texts to move away from the specific
references to God in some of your songs?
ELD: Oh yes I think so, that wouldn’t bother me at all because some of the best, nicest poetry
does not mention God. It can have spiritual qualities without actually expressing any kind of
religion or cult or pedantic. I think we all resist dogma and a lot of people don’t believe in the
Trinity.
NNH: Right the Unitarians don’t.
ELD: No of course not!
NNH: There are not many references to Christ in the Scripture that you use.
ELD: No. I grew up in a Christian church; it was Disciples of Christ, which was a non-liturgical
church. However, my parents taught Sunday school and my mother directed the Christian
education. I didn’t hear them talk much about Jesus. My grandmother did; she read her Bible
every night. They were good people, they were really Christians in the sense of being good to
people. They were tolerant, and they helped people and so on. But as far as proselytizing, they
didn’t do that. But I grew up in the church; I played the organ. I wouldn’t have probably gone to
church, if I hadn’t played the organ and gotten paid for it
NNH: And you played the organ from a very early age
ELD: Yes, I did, from about 13. And I was paid a $1 a Sunday back in Missouri to play the
organ in my church, and my mother wanted me to do that. She wanted me to be an organist in
the church and my grandmother had played a little organ in the church where she was. So
religion is always there, but I like other religions too other than Christianity, like Buddhism and
Judaism; they are all very similar and related.
NNH: They all share many tenets.
ELD: Yes, but to be a so called Christian and not act like a Christian, I think that’s terrible and
that’s done all the time. We have so many televangelists and people who are intolerant and they
are filled with hatred for certain types of people.
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NNH: Yes, the first tenet of the Unitarian Church is we believe in the worth and dignity of every
human being, and I feel that it’s an important principle.
ELD: Yes. And another thing that I’ve liked when I’ve gone to the Unitarian Church here is they
use of all kinds of literature and poetry. I love it when they get away from the Scriptures, the
Scriptures are beautiful. I’ve played in a Christian Science Church for a number of years here
and they have Mary Baker Eddy, and then they have the Scriptural interpretations or maybe it’s
the opposite, but I always look forward to the actual Scriptures, because they are so beautiful you
know the Psalms and so on. And I like when people in my church quote poetry or philosophers,
they get away from the dogma which a lot of people don’t really believe in or understand. They
just accept it because they were taught that.
NNH: Do you have a copy of the Unitarian hymnal?
ELD: Umm, I think I do.
NNH: Because in the back of it has readings from Native Americans, and T.S. Eliot and
Emerson, lots of the poets, and also readings from Buddhism and Hindu, lots of different texts
there that might be useful that you might find…speak to you.
ELD: Yes, I’ll look into that.
NNH: That’s my little proselytizing.
ELD: No but that’s good. Have you always been in that church?
NNH: No I haven’t. You were talking about the Presbyterians. I was saying that I grew up
Presbyterian.
ELD: Yes, and I grew up also in a non-liturgical church, Disciples of Christ which is a Christian
church. My father was Methodist but he became Disciples of Christ when he married my mother
so the church was always there, but they were not really fundamentalists in any sense nor would
they be that way now if they were still living. The fundamentalists go the opposite way; they are
conservative and backward and have music that is very mediocre and commonplace. I like it, I
like some; in fact I’ve wanted to set some of their hymns and I’ve played them in church.
NNH: Some of the hymns from?
ELD: From the praise service. We have a praise service at church, and I like some of them like
“As the Deer,” “Shine Jesus Shine.” I just love that one; it’s happy, a real happy one. So they
have some great hymns and some of them have gotten into hymnals too, but then you contrast
that to Bach chorales, and there’s a bit of a difference.
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NNH: Just a bit. That’s great. Speaking of your parents. How did they feel when you said you
wanted to become a composer?
ELD: Oh, that was fine. Daddy, my father, was an educator and he wanted all of us to be
teachers, and of course I ended up doing that as a matter of economics and also learning. You
learn so much when you teach. And my siblings were all teachers, so he wanted us to do that but
he was also very interested in composing, and liked what I did, and my mother did too and she
was so happy that I went on, got my doctorate and all that.
NNH: Were they able to come to some of your premieres and graduations?
ELD: Yes, they did. Graduations, and my mother heard some premieres, some orchestra things,
yes she did.
NNH: How did they react?
ELD: Well, my father, you know how parents are, he heard a recording of an orchestra
composition I had done, this was about 1955, and he died in 1956, but he thought it was great
music. You know how parents are!
NNH: Well that’s great.
ELD: He thought I was already a great composer.
NNH: Oh that’s wonderful, is that what he said?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: And that’s something you can carry with you all your life.
ELD: That’s right. My mother…she liked it when I wrote or when I played difficult things she
liked Chopin, big things. She would say, “Play me the Ballades.” She actually was disappointed
when I started getting some choral things published, little religious things, H.W. Grey, and she
wasn’t too happy about that. She felt like I was going backwards a little bit; she wanted me to
think big. Isn’t that interesting?
NNH: That is interesting.
ELD: She had this little girl that she wanted not to settle for something less than she thought I
should.
NNH: Well now once you said that when you were near 80, you wanted to be like Verdi and
compose an opera. Are you in the middle of composing an opera?
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ELD: No, I have a problem with multi media. I’m more like Brahms. He didn’t mess with much
other than the music. Because I think it’s a distraction. I love to hear film music, but you’re not
always conscious of it. And I like opera, but I like musical comedy too. I would like to have done
something like that. But no I don’t worry about that. I’ve done cantatas and I’ve done a lot of
things that use voices and instruments and soloists and electronics, and I like it when somebody
dances to the music. That’s exciting when somebody doesn’t have much, but they take a
composition of yours and dance to it; they choreograph it and that’s sort of exciting. I think
there’s a big relationship between dance and music, you know, the rhythm and the gestures and
the spatial aspect of it.
NNH: I think that’s why I like conducting.
ELD: What?
NNH: I like conducting because it’s moving to music and it’s interpreting music in a physical
way.
ELD: That’s right. You’re expressing it if you’re good, and I’m sure you are. You’re not a time
beater.
NNH: Well I try. I try to follow Don Brinegar. He’s a genius in conducting. You mentioned you
composed your Three Madrigals very quickly and easily. Are there similar works that you
composed with similar ease?
ELD: Oh yes. Probably the other thing is a toccata that I wrote for piano. In fact I have a copy of
it in this book.
NNH: Oh great.
ELD: I wrote it for a senior recital for student here, a Japanese student who was about my height,
and I was working a lot in the electronic medium, and so I did, for the first time actually, this
was in 1979, got beyond the keyboard and played on the strings. I did some strumming and used
notation that was a bit different: wavy lines for continuation for a figure. But it has a lot of tonal
aspects too
NNH: What does this figure mean?
ELD: You are dampening the strings, dampening the strings either where the tuning pins or
beyond.
NNH: And do you have a glossary of what these symbols mean?
ELD: I don’t think that one does but it’s pretty much explanatory about it. And there’s some
places where you go back and forth.
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NNH: Oh, I see, (reads) “gradually place-flat of left hand lightly on strings.”
ELD: Yes, and I’ve heard a lot of prepared piano and serial music, where you have a plink here
and a plunk there and some other kind of plunk, and I did not want to write that kind of music. I
wanted something that was continual…
NNH: Sound.
ELD: But changing gradually, which can also happen in electronic music
NNH: A little like Philip Glass?
ELD: A bit like that.
NNH: You were a contemporary of his at the Ford Foundation and Project, right?
ELD: Actually not really because that was a mistake someplace along there. He was Paul Glass.
NNH: Oh, it was Paul Glass, not Philip Glass
ELD: But yes, I like minimalistic music, but this is not minimal really. It does have repeated
figures, but it has Classical elements too.
NNH: Right, and it also has chords and changing contrasts.
ELD: And also glissandos on the strings and that sort of thing, but this composition came very
easily and it’s very interesting that this composition and the madrigals are the ones you see on
YouTube. There are a lot of recordings on YouTube of the toccata.
NNH: Oh really?
ELD: Yes. There’s even a young man; I think he’s about twelve or eleven.
NNH: Playing it?
ELD: And several women and several men and so that…when something comes easily it’s going
to sound more spontaneous, because you’ve found something immediately almost that you liked
you haven’t labored over it. I mean you’re still careful about what you’re writing but it doesn’t
become a chore; it’s fun.
NNH: It’s fun to do.
ELD: Yes.
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NNH: Is there anything else that you’re reminded of ?
ELD: Oh yes there are a lot of them. Like I said, I improvise until I find something that I like,
that I think is worth putting down, so I never put down something that I don’t like. If I do it’s
kind of a waste of time.
Interview Part II, #2 (8/28/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
NNH: You have a lot of humility for all your degrees and accomplishments; you are a very
humble person. Could you talk about what keeps you humble?
ELD: I think the accomplishments of other people, and I think our friend Marilyn came in; I
think she’s going to say something
Marilyn: I heard Nancy say something about humility.
NNH: And she’s laughing.
Marilyn: I’m smiling.
ELD: She doesn’t think I’m humble I think she’s trying to say.
Marilyn: I think you’re too humble, or at least faux humble, faking it.
ELD: Oh, faux humble that’s a good thing.
NNH: It’s nice to have you in the room really, keeps us honest.
ELD: Everybody should be a combination of ego and humility. You know that you’re good in
some ways but you know you are not omnipotent. What people do we know that are like that,
that are total egos? I can’t stand egotistical people, nor can I stand false humility either. There’s
kind of a strange little dichotomy there how are you going to act, however you should have
confidence in yourself and I’ve always pretty much had that
NNH: It sounds like your parents helped in that regard. They gave you a lot of confidence.
ELD: Oh yes they did. My mother…I’m sure had to put up with her child being spoiled, so there
was always that “you need to be nice,” [that her mother would say]. She used to say “pretty
voice” if I was getting whiney. You know how children are, and she would say “pretty voice” if
she wanted me to be nice to people because I really wasn’t sometimes, I think. I would go hide.
NNH: But you said you were very shy growing up.
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ELD: Yes. I was shy but you know how children that are shy or withdrawn or don’t talk,
sometimes are very egotistical children? They really think that other people are kind of funny,
and they don’t measure up to them. Do you know what I mean?
NNH: Yes.
ELD: And so I was somewhat that way maybe too.
NNH: Now how do you think you were spoiled? You had siblings.
ELD: Well I was the youngest of four.
NNH: So was I.
ELD: Were you?
NNH: Yes.
ELD: And my brothers were eight years older and my sister was ten years older, so you know I
was the youngest kid, and I probably talked baby talk until I was six or seven or more and then
of course, they discovered I could play, that I had musical talent.
NNH: And they fostered that?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Would you talk a little bit about your siblings?
ELD: Oh yes. As I said I have twin brothers who were just wonderful boys and they knew so
much. They were musicians, both of them; cornett and cello were their instruments, and they
were also very talented in making things and repairing cars. They were sort of Renaissance guys
really and one of them, the one who survived until he was forty-three, was a school principal.
And the other one was a fighter pilot in the Second World War and he died at twenty-three, and
that was a tremendous influence on me because he was beginning to compose music. He was
becoming a composer. Then my sister is always a big inspiration to me, her poetry, and just her
demeanor. She was a very smart person, but very tactful. She liked peace, and she liked getting
on with people and yet she was tough. She was a steel magnolia type and when she moved to
Alabama with her husband, she had to get along with all kinds of people, you know racial
problems and so on and was able to do very well. She became department chair of the English
department and kept writing, teaching, and consulting.
NNH: It sounds like you were very close to her until she died.
ELD: Oh yes, very close.
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NNH: And how did she feel about your setting her poetry to music?
ELD: I think she must have liked it I think. We did a lot of collaborating through the years and
some of her early poetry, I think I mentioned, when she was eighteen, nineteen or twenty, I set a
number of those for vocal, solo voice with quite elaborate piano accompaniments and those were
different from some of the later ones which were a little simpler and many of them were things
that she’d written for somebody or for an occasion. We wrote some hymns. I set some of her
hymns to music.
NNH: Do you remember things that she would say about your music?
ELD: Oh she was always Dorothy. You’d have to know her; she would encourage you every step
of the way and was not really critical of anything I did.
NNH: That’s marvelous!
ELD: But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t somewhat objective. But I think she mainly was a person
who wanted to encourage people and not tear them down.
NNH: Did you show her works in progress as you were working on setting her poetry?
ELD: Yes I did, and then she heard some of the things that I had done. I’d send her tapes.
NNH: And was she at some of the premieres?
ELD: Yes, she was as a matter of fact.
NNH: And did they acknowledge the two of you together then?
ELD: Yes, I wrote a set of songs called Seven Somewhat Silly Songs and I don’t think any of her
poetry was in that, but I had some limericks and I had some Emily Dickinson, (“I’m nobody,
who are you?” and some Ogden Nash. I’ve set to music things that were funny, and she had a
good sense of humor. Well you saw her limericks.
NNH: Yes those were adorable.
ELD: But her poetry, some of her very late poetry, when she was you know,at the end of her life.
She had multiple myeloma, which is a form of cancer. She had that for about three years and she
wrote two or three really excellent poems at that time that were a little bit bitter, but she had
never really used bitterness much in her earlier poetry. Some of it was sad, melancholy and some
of it was lots of fun, romantic poetry but she also had five children and a whole bunch of
grandchildren and she taught full time. She had a huge garden. She had about 400 roses at one
time. She was a rosarian. She did so many things that she said once if she had actually taken off a
year and just written poetry that maybe she would have gotten someplace. She did write a novel
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that we published about family history, like a lot of people do and I think it had some awfully
good chapters in it. But there are many people who are multi talented and you know writers are
very self–centered people, and so are composers and if you develop talent in one direction, you
follow one track. I’m sort of a one track person; it’s always been writing music. I’ve had more
time and I haven’t had a family and so that’s made a difference.
NNH: And I understand that not having a family was a choice that you made purposefully?
ELD: Oh yes.
NNH: You wanted to devote yourself to composing
ELD: Yes that’s right.
NNH: Do you want to say anything more about that?
ELD: I’m always interested particularly women writers, are they married? Do they have
children? And very often they have, they are married, particularly contemporary women but
some were not. Jane Austen didn’t marry. Emily Dickinson did not marry. And I admire women
like that too. I think women that have a career and children and still have both, you know, it’s
just amazing. And it’s possible; people have done that. And some composers have done that I
think Ruth Crawford, I think maybe Amy Beach had children and I have lots of nieces and
nephews you know I’ve got lots of those. I have great nieces and great nephews.
NNH: And you keep in touch with them?
ELD: Oh yes
NNH: All right, thank you. In between our work we all seek spiritual renewal. Would you
comment on what feeds your soul what is it that you do that renews and makes you whole?
ELD: Well, of course, obviously music does. You know there’s all this trend toward mindfulness
and all that and that’s all we do writing music; we’re mindful of the sounds and what we’re
creating and that is an extremely spiritual experience because when you’re writing music
sometimes it comes from someplace and you don’t know where of course it comes from: what
I’ve heard and what I’ve played and what I’ve done before. But it also has a mystical feeling to
it, particularly when things, ideas come and you don’t know where they came from. And
particularly when it’s very expressive and meaningful or at least you think it is. Sometimes
you’re deluded into thinking something is good when it’s not because there’s a certain ecstasy
about writing something or there should be because I’m not a paper composer and I don’t have
little systems of writing, little matrixes
NNH: So you work at the piano and then do you go to the computer?
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ELD: Yes.
NNH: And then put it on the computer?
ELD: Yes most of the time
NNH: And how long, does it vary the amount of time you spend at the piano before you go to the
computer?
ELD: I usually just write it out in pencil
NNH: Oh you do write it out?
ELD: I used to, sometimes I don’t do that anymore. Or I just write it at the computer which I
think a lot of composers do. But I’m better off if I work at the keyboard, at the piano or organ.
NNH: So there’s nowhere that you go, to the beach or to the mountains? There’s nothing that
you feel drawn to besides composing music?
ELD: Oh yes of course.
NNH: Okay, that was my question. When you take a break from music, are there other things
that that feed your soul?
ELD: I’m not a person who goes and sits by the ocean and writes music, nor was Debussy when
he wrote “La Mer.” Maybe he just remembered what it was like to see the ocean. But I used to
drive out from UCSB (University of California at Santa Barbara) after teaching and here were
the mountains on one side and the Pacific ocean on the other, and I would think “Oh no, this is
too much, too much!” because when I was growing up in Missouri we didn’t have any
mountains, we didn’t have any ocean, but we had beautiful sunsets and we had rain and
thunderstorms and snow, and I still wrote music because there’s beauty every place.
NNH: That’s beautiful
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Can you talk about what’s making you tear up?
ELD: Well one thing is that I have multifocal lenses and they make my eyes tear up.
NNH: But was there some emotion as well.
ELD: No, I was just thinking that sometimes, and this is real egotistical, I’ve written something
that I thought was so beautiful, I couldn’t really stand to listen to it. That sounds strange but if
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you’re writing something, and I wonder if this happens with many composers, or poets or writers
do they actually cry when they write because it’s so beautiful? Have you ever thought about
that?
NNH: It certainly happens to me when I’m writing in my journal and something is very close to
my heart.
ELD: Yes, and then sometimes it’s very good .
NNH. Yes
ELD: Sometimes not. Sometimes you’re too emotional.
NNH: It’s hard to tell, but I always feel as a conductor if I move my audience to tears, I’ve done
my job well.
ELD: Yes, you’re right, yes. And you want to do that you want to share something, but it’s so
funny because composers. . . I like to talk about Milton Babbit (who wrote a lot of totally serial
music) that didn’t speak to me at all, electronic music too, and he would be in tears sometimes
hearing something of his electronic music because it meant so much to him.
NNH: Did you see that?
ELD: I saw it once, yes.
NNH: It wasn’t moving anybody else?
ELD: I don’t think so no. But it was his stuff.
NNH: Oh that’s interesting. So different things move different people.
ELD: Yes, oh yes and I don’t relate to it all. I don’t keep up with all the popular things and you
talked about opera and so on. There are so many other things that are popular now, like videos.
So you don’t necessarily have a nice melody, a nice song; you have all of these Michael Jackson
and Taylor Swift and people doing theatrical things, dancing and that to me is fine, it’s good, but
it’s not writing melodies and harmonies. Some of the popular music is, you know, not very
imaginative. I’m afraid I’m old fashioned in the sense that the things I remember were songs
maybe from the 1960’s and much earlier like Cole Porter. We’ve had some composers that have
done that…Leonard Bernstein wrote some beautiful songs in West Side Story. But he was a real
composer and he wrote other things too and he had a classical background and so on and was a
fine pianist.
NNH: Great conductor
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ELD: But as far as spiritual, oh yes people have a connection. The music is a connector to all
kinds of worlds out there you know. Or it should be.
NNH: Absolutely. That’s beautiful.
ELD: You know they’ve been talking recently about whether music is really necessary for
people? Do people, are babies born with a like or a need for music? I don’t know what you think,
but there have been discussions about that lately, and of course that music study improves the
mind, at least music that is rather complicated and well done, well written.
NNH: It uses both parts of the brain. It just engages so much intellect. And I think that’s one of
the things that you enjoy about music, not only the spiritual connection but the intellectual rigor
of the process of composing.
ELD: Oh yes, particularly writing contrapuntal music. I’ve written a lot of fugues, but if you
become too academic and dry you’ve lost it. There’s nothing there anymore. In a composer like
Bach there is always expression there’s…
NNH: We’ll wait for the plane to go over
ELD: Yes. In Bach there’s not one line that isn’t musical and expressive. Some of his
contemporaries wrote just notes. You know, there’s just notes and then there’s expression and so
you try to emulate that.
NNH: Yes, I have a quote here let’s see if I can find it.
ELD: And total inventiveness you know, his themes.
NNH: Are you familiar with Frank Ticheli? The composer Frank Ticheli?
ELD: Yes I’ve heard the name.
NNH: He lives in Pasadena and actually goes to Neighborhood Church and I’m a friend of his
and he’s coached my choirs on his compositions. He said “the greatest works say something
profound in plain and universal ways. In the compositional process, the mind and the heart
should keep each other in check. Greatness has a chance when neither force takes over.”
ELD: Say that last sentence.
NNH: “Greatness has a chance when neither force takes over.” In other words you have to have
the mind and the heart to make beautiful music.
ELD: That’s right. And that’s certainly true, and some composers go overboard with the heart.
Like I think about Rachmaninoff, for instance, or perhaps Tchaikovsky, and yet they wrote some
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gorgeous music. There’s has to be that combination of mind and heart and then something else
too
NNH: What else is there?
ELD: Soul, probably the soul.
NNH: And how would you define soul?
ELD: There again it’s that mystical ingredient that you can’t identify or understand.
NNH: Well we’ll come back to that.
ELD: Oh okay.
NNH: You keep thinking about soul. I love that, that’s great. Can you tell me a story about a
composition that made you feel successful as a composer?
ELD: When I wrote it I thought it was successful?
NNH: Well what was it that about something that made you feel successful as a composer?
ELD: Well of course if you hear it performed and people sit through it and they clap. You can
always tell when people like something. I was asked a few years ago to write a thirty-minute
piano trio by an organist, Joan Dickson. I’ve written lots of music for her, commissions and
Psalms settings. Anyway she wanted a trio that would take up half of a program. So it turned out
to be about twenty-eight minutes and I wrote most of it at the computer, not all of it, but some of
it, and I would keep timing to see how long it was so far. And kept thinking things because I
don’t have any trouble thinking of new ideas, new sections and it was all in one movement. And
then it was done and Marilyn Frostburg at the college there and people listened through the
whole thing and clapped. They liked it and I thought “Okay, that was a successful composition.”
It’s long. It’s easy to write a short composition like The Madrigals and feel people don’t have to
use a whole lot of effort in liking it.
NNH: But they listened all the way through
ELD: Yes, and those are successful too. So it’s particularly hard to write a long composition and
feel that it’s successful. I get bored in some long compositions like in a Mahler movement.
NNH: I do too. Well he keeps developing, developing, developing and it very rarely resolves. He
keeps you unsettled for a long time.
ELD: Yes, that’s right. And some of it is not very imaginative. I always feel in Brahms, he’s like
Bach; he’s always on target in expression, his harmonies, everything. But some composers
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become very boring; they’re not very inventive. With some of the major composers, you can tell
when they’ve run out of real inspiration. They don’t have anything really to say, but they keep
writing.
NNH: So you said in this work that you were working on that was thirty minutes, you kept
timing it, so does that mean normally when you’re composing you’re not timing the
composition?
ELD: No.
NNH: You’re not conscious of how long it’s going to be?
ELD: No. But in writing a long composition I have to be conscious of not being too long. And
one type of writing, I mean, there’s kind of a jazzy section, there’s a more lyrical section, there’s
a return to the opening motif sometimes or development of those, so you’re always looking back
to see “What have I done and then what can I say next that’s going to blend in, but it’s going to
be a nice contrast?” You’re always thinking about the whole structure.
NNH: That’s great, that’s wonderful.
ELD: I think writers do that sometimes too. I’ve heard that writers sometimes they don’t know
what’s going to happen next. Is that true?
NNH: I’ve heard that as well. That the characters take them in and take them on a ride; they just
follow. And do you feel like that happens in music as well?
ELD: Oh definitely. And sometimes the ideas you created are not very interesting, but you try to
make them interesting. You try to write a motif for instance, that has some sort of a kernel, you
know, some kind of interest melodically or rhythmically something like that.
NNH: I went to see the First Presbyterian Church yesterday and it’s beautiful.
ELD: You should go into the big church. Did you?
NNH: I went into the big sanctuary.
ELD: You saw the organ?
NNH: The organ is gorgeous.
ELD: Yes!
NNH: I’d love to be able to hear it someday. So I’ll have to keep in touch with you. You’ll have
to tell me when you’re going to be playing.
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ELD: Oh yes. You should just go tomorrow. Well, you won’t be here.
NNH: No, I have to play for church tomorrow.
ELD: You’re going to play? Do you play?
NNH: I play piano at the church.
ELD: Do you direct from the piano then?
NNH: Sometimes, I also have an accompanist. I think it’s much more effective when I’m not at
the piano.
ELD: And you prefer just to conduct?
NNH: I prefer to conduct, but I’m always happy to play. Can you tell me more about your
experience working with the choir director at First Presbyterian?
ELD: Oh you know, I’ve been organist for a number of choir directors, not only in church, but in
schools too, and it’s a very interesting experience. The one I worked with at First Presbyterian,
Julie, we got along very well, and she was fun in rehearsal. She would come up with funny
things and she had a pretty good voice, and she could sing high and low with a very good sense
of pitch. She didn’t always count with me sitting at the piano. I could hear somebody that needed
some help, tenors were not on the right pitch, I could hear that and brought it out, but she usually
caught things.
NNH: And when you say you brought it out did you bring it out by playing it more loudly?
ELD: By playing it more loudly; “Guys this is our note.”
NNH: You didn’t say anything? You did it subtly.
ELD: So we got along just fine. She never balled me out. She could be…you know with an
amateur choir you really can’t browbeat them, and she learned very quickly that she couldn’t do
that. If they made mistakes, they made mistakes. She was very thorough. In fact, I’d like to start
at the beginning of the composition, and she would start someplace in the middle sometimes and
worked on something, and then we’d go back to the beginning. Also she related to the text; we
talked about text. She would say, “Go back to the ‘Jesus said this’” or something and I wouldn’t
know where what the heck Jesus was saying there.
NNH: You needed a measure number.
ELD: Yes I needed to know the page, and I would relate to the music more than the text. But she
was more of a Bible person than I was, but everything was fine.
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NNH: That’s great.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Sounds like a great collaboration.
ELD: Yes, we did and I had some other directors. I had another very good one in Washington at
a Lutheran church in D.C. on Capitol Hill. It was a great church. Right across from the Supreme
Court and the Folger Library, and we did a lot of progressive things and I wrote some
progressive things for them.
NNH: Do you have a favorite composition from that era?
ELD: There’s only one that came out of [that time]. I did a service in music and poetry and used
a lot of poetry and a couple of hymns and settings of different things, but there was one that was
published, “Dance, Dance My Heart.”
NNH: I love that composition.
ELD: That was from that service.
NNH: Oh that’s interesting.
ELD: Which is certainly not a Biblical text at all.
NNH: Right
ELD: But I’ve worked with some directors I didn’t particularly like.
NNH: We don’t have to talk about those. Unless you want to talk about what you learned from
the directors you didn’t like.
ELD: Well, you know how a conductor can pick on people and sometimes they pick on the
singers and sometimes they pick on the organist. I wasn’t criticized in that way. I never had that
kind of trouble but I didn’t appreciate it when it happened to singers, you know. So I escaped.
NNH: You prefer the choir directors who are encouraging.
ELD: Yes, right, nice guys.
NNH: I fully believe that yelling people doesn’t improve their singing.
ELD: No.
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NNH: And I sang for Robert Shaw at the end of his life and he said “I could yell at you, but it
wouldn’t do any good and my doctors would be mad at me.” I think he learned that toward the
end of his life that it didn’t help.
ELD: Did he actually…was he tough…mean sometimes?
NNH: He wasn’t mean when I sang under him. He was very clear. He was very precise. And we
went over and over and over the rhythms.
ELD: But in earlier times you think he was more…
NNH: I’ve heard stories. There are many choir directors that believe in being a tyrant.
ELD: And orchestra conductors too, but I guess some of them have been real tyrants.
NNH: Yes I’ve heard that too.
ELD: You don’t see that on television.
NNH: Well, you don’t see the rehearsals. I mean you as an organist got to witness a lot of choir
directors running rehearsals. Now, when people have commissioned you to compose works, do
some of them offer to have you come to the rehearsal as well?
ELD: Oh, yes if I’m there. They do sometimes.
NNH: And do you find that helpful, interesting? How do you find that?
ELD: Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine. I didn’t used to say very much, but I’ve gotten to where I say a little
bit more about the text or about something that should be different.
Interview Part II, #3 (8/28/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
NNH: Okay we were talking about Bee, I’m Expecting You!
ELD: Yes. Bee I’m Expecting You has more imaginative piano accompaniment.
NNH: Than the other two that were published separately?
ELD: That’s right, they took them out of print, and they were all by Emily Dickinson, the two
poems by Emily Dickinson they took out. I suppose a time will come which is kind of nostalgic.
She had a lot of sadness in her poetry that you pick up and there’s so much she did and very even
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metered. And then the other one The Birds Begun at Four O’clock and I thought that was so neat,
that poem.
NNH: And your setting of it is very crisp and light and rhythmic.
ELD: Yes, lots of staccato notes. That’s what I said yesterday: choral music if it’s just legato [is
not as interesting]. Somebody did that. I went up to Fairbanks, Alaska and showed this to them,
those two settings, those two poems, and they were doing them legato. She didn’t understand
them at all. I mean vocal technique is so important, and contrast, articulations, and it makes
music come alive if you detach.
NNH: Absolutely.
ELD: And accent where it’s necessary. I mean I like legato too, but it becomes very monotonous
after a while.
NNH: Yes The Birds Begun at Four O’clock reminds me of I Know A Bird.
ELD: Oh yes.
NNH: Which is the one I was going to talk about next.
ELD: Okay yes.
NNH: And it has that crispness and it’s like the birds chirping early in the morning. And I think
you captured that in both songs.
ELD: Yes that’s a poem that my sister wrote too, and it was to set more madrigals. See, they
always want to have hits, like the madrigals, and that has never happened again
NNH: Can you reconstruct the origins of these songs? Was there a publisher that asked for more
madrigals?
ELD: I think I might have suggested that because I thought the three madrigals did so well, and I
also did a set called Madrigals Three and those were on Elizabethan poetry.
NNH: Yes I’ve sung those.
ELD: You know that? They haven’t done as well because they are a bit more difficult, so I
thought, Okay, more madrigals, we’ll do that.” So I set three of her poems and this was in the
early days of this particular publisher that’s based in Santa Barbara and doing quite well. She’s
published a lot of things, but not particularly with my music. But anyway “I know a bird that
sings all night, mad with love” and so on. It’s a very light type of thing and then in the middle
you have some kind of bird-like sounds.
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NNH: Yes I was wondering how you went about setting the bird calls?
ELD: Yes, actually they’re mostly thirds and some seconds and repetitions of “chip chip.”
NNH: And it’s layered you start with one call and then you take a couple of others, and then they
add to the first one, and it really ends up sounding like a bunch of birds.
ELD: Yes, right. And “churly churly” comes in and “coo coo.” It’s very bird-like.
NNH: It’s very bird-like. Do you remember how your sister reacted to this song?
ELD: I’m not sure if she ever heard it or not. I probably played it for her, but I don’t think she
ever heard it sung.
NNH: It says the recording was done by the University of Alabama Chamber Choir.
ELD: That’s right, I think it is on YouTube, maybe.
NNH: And did you know Sandra Willups?
ELD: No I didn’t.
NNH: So she just picked it up and recorded it?
ELD: She found it someplace yes. That’s good.
NNH: You haven’t actually talked to her about the recording?
ELD: No I haven’t. And the other two I thought were nice. I guess people like I know a Bird”
because it’s more rhythmic and it has kind of repetition of the rhythm and it’s kind of happy.
NNH: It’s very happy. It’s very cute. Do you have any idea of the technical challenges learning
this song?
ELD: I suppose there are some. Are you going to tell me that?
NNH: Well, I think that when you leap up like that, many vocalists will have the tendency to
accent that top note and so you have to think about that.
ELD: You have to suppress that little.
NNH: And then just the rhythm of the bird calls in the middle would be challenging for some
choirs to learn.
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ELD: That’s right yes.
NNH: Do you think about the technical challenges [as you compose]?
ELD: Oh yes I do, but being a keyboard person, I don’t worry about it as much as if I was a
singer. I know that singers can leap about some and particularly in serial music they do it all the
time.
NNH: Right.
ELD: And I’m basically a diatonic composer. I don’t do a whole lot of chromaticism; I don’t like
it. But leaping that’s interesting, why did I do that I wonder?
NNH: Well that’s a good question.
ELD: I guess it was just a motif that came. It probably was a keyboard motif and I thought well
they can sing that too.
NNH: I like it, that’s great. I notice that the accompaniment,particularly on the second page, has
some trills in it. Were you thinking of the bird figures?
ELD: And the little grace notes.
NNH: There’s some word painting even in the accompaniment.
ELD: That’s right.
NNH: And the ending stops abruptly. We’re singing along “I know a bird” and then it’s “all
night.”
ELD: Yes, with just the sopranos. Yes, they kind of fade out, I guess they got tired and . . .
NNH: The birds just stopped.
ELD: You don’t hear them anymore…right. They change key there too at the end.
NNH: Is that a Neoclassical ending would you say?
ELD: For me it’s different.
NNH: It is a different kind of ending than you had in other songs.
ELD: And the Bee song also.
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NNH: Yes it’s like Bee.
ELD: It’s like that and follows the feeling of her poetry, but here I don’t know if it’s just a
technique to fade out and thin out because I’ve written a lot of choral music that has a big
ending. You do that for the audience; you build it up. You were talking about the Golden Mean,
you know, and you build up the ending and composers do that all the time.
NNH: Right. Broadway Show-stopper endings.
ELD: So people will give you a standing ovation.
NNH: I find the ending humorous. You’re going along and everybody singing and then all of the
sudden they’re not.
ELD: Yes it’s a little whimsical
NNH: Yes I think that’s a really good word for it. Let’s go on to “Show and Tell”
ELD: This probably you can say something about the text and it’s probably to cutesie for young
people. They don’t quite understand it. But you would have to understand my sister to know
that she would find that “I’m such a bashful beau, I must wait for you to show” the boy talking
and then she’d write “I’m such a modest belle.” It’s a very innocent kind of poem that maybe
wouldn’t appeal to young people. I don’t know.
NNH: Well it appeals to me, I have to say.
ELD: Oh good.
NNH: There’s a very cute back and forth between the beau and the belle, and they have the same
tune but there’s this unpredictable rhythm shift at the top of page 4 in the accompaniment. The
beau has said “I’m such a bashful beau” and then the accompaniment has that syncopation which
seems very dramatic to me.
ELD: Yes, it’s sort of a contrast to it. Yes that’s right
NNH: And it feels almost like it’s stumbling
ELD: Oh, okay.
NNH: Like he’s falling all over his feet. Falling all over his words too to get to her.
ELD: Yes, and I had thought that this could be acted out, too.
NNH: I wondered about that.
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ELD: Yes I don’t know if we said anything about that, but the boys on one side and the girls on
the other.
NNH: That’s what I was thinking.
ELD: They could sing to each other.
NNH: They could sing to each other and then sing together and then when they actually sing the
last verse you set the boys verse and girls verse simultaneously but their somewhat out of sync.
ELD: Yes and the ending they are….well you’ve got the imitation at the end.
NNH: They have imitation but they also…let’s see if I can find the place…it’s where they first
come together and they’re going back and forth. So the boys start “I’m such a bashful” and then
she says “I’m such a modest belle” but their rhythms aren’t quite the same and they don’t line
up. Is there a meaning in that?
ELD: Oh They’re still arguing back and forth.
NNH: Not quite in sync
ELD: But it’s an actual canon for a brief time yes that’s the great thing about choral singing is to
have some kind of imitation, happens all the time in choral music. But the piano adds a lot of
color .
NNH: Could you speak a little about the harmonies in this composition?
ELD: The harmonies?
NNH: They seem very unsettled to me, like the feeling and the text.
ELD: It starts it very tonally; it’s got that E-flat and then at the bottom of the page it goes to E.
NNH: That seems unsettled to me and maybe the bashful beau and the modest belle are feeling
unsettled feeling unsure of themselves.
ELD: Yes, that could be.
NNH: And that’s reflected in the accompaniment.
ELD: Yes, see you have good interpretation.
NNH: I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
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ELD: Yes, and then it goes back to Eb.
NNH: And my feeling is that the mixed meter portrays the starts and stops of the bashful lovers
as well.
ELD: Probably yes. And then that middle part it changes to ¾ there and changes tonality and
pretty much stays there, but it goes back to E-flat.
NNH: Right, the key changes are very abrupt. It goes from E-flat to E back to E-flat.
ELD: Yes, so that is indicative of the indecision of these young people.
NNH: Yes, that's great. Well, thank you. All right, let’s look at "Bee!" I'm interested in what
attracted you to the poem in the first place.
ELD: Yes, this was a commission. This was Indiana University of Pennsylvania and I went there
as a guest composer. They used to have a, maybe still do, a guest composer every time they have
their festival.
ELD: So, I was there. This was several years ago; this was published in 1994.
I think I may have selected the poetry.
NNH: In Elise Spark's dissertation you talk about visiting Amherst and visiting Emily
Dickinson's house and garden and being attracted to her poem.
ELD: Yes, that was interesting. Yes, that was later I guess. That was '80-something.
NNH: She came in, or her dissertation was published in 2010. So that was just five years ago.
ELD: Yes, and I think we had taken a trip to the east coast.
NNH: Oh, so that was after you wrote this composition.
ELD: Yes, that was later. So, we got to actually stand in a room where she wrote her poetry. I
don't know whether you can do that anymore.
NNH: I've done it as well.
ELD: Oh, have you done it too?
NNH: Yes
ELD: It's nice to do that isn't it?
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NNH: It really is, yes.
ELD: Yes, we also went, I can't remember where, to Edith Wharton's house, The Mount. We
went there too but it was being renovated so it was not open. Writers have always fascinated me.
NNH: Have you been to Louisa May Alcott's house in Concord?
ELD: No, I haven't been there. Have you been there?
NNH: Yes, it's the same kind of feeling of, you know, this is where it all happened.
ELD: Kind of old fashioned, well, it would be old fashioned.
NNH: Absolutely, yes.
ELD: And then her garden, Emily Dickinson's garden, I guess she spent a lot of time in her
garden and she baked a lot of bread. I mean, she wasn't just up in her room all the time really.
NNH: That's good to know.
ELD: I read that she walked around town with her dog, and you grow up with the idea that she
was a recluse, really, who never got out but I don't think that was true.
NNH: So this is a garden poem?
ELD: Yes, oh yes.
NNH: Are you attracted to it as well? Did you visit Emily Dickinson's home with your sister or
with Marilyn?
ELD: No, Marilyn and I. Yes.
NNH: But, your sister was a gardener?
ELD: Yes, that's right.
NNH: So, that may have had some influence on this as well.
ELD: Bee! I'm Expecting You! I just thought Emma, take the bee, which I did in the
accompaniment. The accompaniment is the interesting part. In the voice part is totally, well,
there is one B-flat, but other than that it's totally diatonic in using the notes of the C scale. It is
not in C by any means but it's totally different from the accompaniment and uses a lot of rests. I
was going through a rest period. There are rests in it. It's just a great poem to set to music.
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NNH: It is. It's lovely.
ELD: And it ends very abruptly.
NNH: Yes it does. It's very neoclassical.
ELD: Yes, you'll hear that on YouTube. There are several recordings, and on one recording, they
do it twice. And, you know how they have comments on YouTube? "Why do they do it twice?"
You know?
NNH: Oh, interesting. Well, you actually say you can do it twice.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: In the instructions.
ELD: That's right, because people never know it's ended.
NNH: Right, it's so short. So, if you do it twice you'll know it's ended. Right at the very
beginning, I know you’re imitating the bee here in the B motif, but I also notice it centers around
the actual note B. Is that on purpose or did that just happen?
ELD: Oh, I think I did that someplace else, too. Let's see, where I have "Be with me". Yes, "Be
with me, be with me.” Towards the end I use B’s a lot. I don't think I did that.
NNH: On purpose?
ELD: No, I don't think so.
NNH: It certainly fits.
ELD: Interesting, yes.
NNH: There's one more I thing. The second chord in D major is followed by a D-sharp.
ELD: Where?
NNH: So, you have a D major chord right here and you have a D-sharp in the accompaniment.
It's in measure 6.
ELD: So, you've got kind of a polytonality. You're using two keys at once, which is just a
contemporary device.
NNH: Okay.
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ELD: Adds a little pungency. Yes, you picked up on that. Stravinsky did it all the time.
NNH: Did you study a lot of Stravinsky when you were in school?
ELD: Well, I loved his orchestra compositions.
NNH: So, did you study them closely to see what was going on?
ELD: Yes. I was very interested in his rhythms especially because they are very unique. They're
not regular. You know?
ELD: In the Arlington schools. This was way back in Washington Lee High School, which is an
interesting high school. It's where Shirley Maclaine went and she sang in the chorus. The choral
director, when I was there, was also the supervisor of music, so she was quite an authoritative
person, a real strong person. Her name was Florence Booker. She had not a very good voice,
very tremulous. She had a big vibrato, but she had a hundred-voice choir and they did
beautifully, and they were well known all over the area. Anyway, we were just talking about
whether a person needed to be a singer to conduct.
NNH: To be a conductor.
ELD: I guess you don't really have to be an operatic singer.
NNH: There's an example.
ELD: You certainly can if you have to. As you say, you have to listen to what they are doing.
NNH: So you can.
ELD: Do you follow along with the words? Do you speak the words when you're conducting?
NNH: It depends on the language. I often will pronounce a phrase-by-phrase if it's Latin or
French or German so that the singers will learn how to pronounce the language.
ELD: Oh yes.
NNH: If it's a poem, like, a short Emily Dickinson poem I might read it or I might have a student
read it out loud.
ELD: Oh, that's good.
NNH: To get a sense of the whole. You were talking about Julie Newfeld at the Presbyterian
Church would start sometimes in the middle of the song. I like to have the singers sing the whole
song first.
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ELD: I think that's a good idea.
NNH: Just to have a sense of what the whole is.
ELD: Oh, yes.
NNH: Then go back and start working on it. Don will sometimes have us sing it through twice.
ELD: At the very beginning?
NNH: At the very beginning. You know, "I'll give you another chance" he'll say. "Let's just try
that again.”
ELD: That's good. Yes, I remember, I went to Tanglewood two summers to study composition.
This was a long time ago, but there were people there like Bernstein and Lukas Foss and Aaron
Copeland. People like that. But, at the beginning of Tanglewood the whole student body, several
hundred, sang Randall Thompson's "Alleluia.” So, you've got all these wonderful singers all
around you singing that traditional choral work which is one of the most famous, I suppose. I
think we would just sing it. I can't remember if we worked on it.
NNH: And you were singing as well?
ELD: Yes, we all sang. Everybody sang. I sing alto. I always remember that experience because
mostly I'm playing the piano or the organ.
NNH: How did that experience make you feel?
ELD: It was nice because you are surrounded by good singers. You think you can actually sing
and I don't have much of a voice, but I always know what the pitch is. That's very frustrating.
NNH: You know what the pitch is, but you might not be able to produce it.
ELD: Well, in church or any place you know how great it is to hear somebody that sings well
and sometimes they're dominating the whole congregation or whatever. I thought, oh, wouldn't
that be great if I had a lovely voice and everybody could hear me because I know what the notes
are.
NNH: But, it's fun to sing in a whole huge group.
ELD: Yes, that's right.
NNH: And feel that sound around you.
ELD: And you think you're good.
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NNH: Well, Don has shown me that it doesn't matter what your voice is. It has as a certain
quality. It has a certain timbre. If you get a lot of voices together, those timbres fuse so that you
hear all the harmonies and that has a magic of its own.
ELD: Yes, that's right. I think you have to be careful you don't have too much vibrato.
NNH: If there's not a lot of vibrato, then the harmonies can come out.
ELD: And, it's different if you have, you know the Metropolitan Chorus? You used to see them,
they were all operatic singers, so they didn't really blend very well. I think that's changed a lot
over the years. That if you have a lot of Renee Flemings, it must be a little bit difficult to get
them to blend.
NNH: Yes, sometimes it's easier for the smaller voices to blend well. All right, shall we go back
to the music?
ELD: Okay.
NNH: Do you have any thoughts about what kind of ensemble would be best for singing Bee!?
ELD: Well, the children. And that's what you have on YouTube is children singing it.
NNH: Children singing it.
ELD: Big groups of kids on some of those and they really sing out.
NNH: That's great.
ELD: It would be interesting to see how they were conducted, but the ones I've heard, that's
really the only place. Well, when it was premiered, there was a small group of children. I don't
remember much about that. I think it was. But, on YouTube they have larger groups and it
sounds good.
NNH: That's great. Let's just mention the other Dickinson poems that you gave me yesterday, the
two poems by Emily Dickinson. I Suppose the Time will Come is very wistful and poignant. Can
you talk a little bit about the harmonies that you chose to portray that?
ELD: It's just terribly, terribly tonal and sort of wistful and some of the 7th chords we talked
about with the added notes, and it changes key fairly soon. At the bottom of the first page it goes
into sort of a B, B minor and stays there until the bottom of the next page. It goes back to D.
I think this is just a repeat. It goes back and it has the same modulation. So, it's not very
imaginative. Then, it ends on G again so it's just G, B, G, B, G.
NNH: But it's those added notes that you feel bring out the poignancy.
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ELD: Yes, little added notes.
NNH: And then, on The Birds begun at Four o'clock, I think we talked a little about this, it's
light and fun and crisp.
ELD: Crisp, yes, crisp. Detached.
NNH: And the effect that you were aiming at.
ELD: Yes, and there are lots of fourths in the accompaniment. It has, in the middle section and
the voices too, have fourth sounds. Well, they have four-part chords.
NNH: How would you characterize fourths? What do you think is conveyed by the fourths?
ELD: It's a nice hollow sound but, I see I filled in the chords. It's very interesting, for instance,
with a composer like Bach, that's all you have. You never had a chord that didn't have the third in
it. It's always the third in counterpoint. Composers started using thirds, fourths and seconds and
fifths towards the end of the last century, or the century before the last century.
NNH: The nineteenth century, yes.
ELD: So, there's some of that. Then, also there are a lot of rests too, which seemed to be
important when I wrote that. Then, there's a little middle section that goes to 5/8. Kind of a
recitative type of feeling at the bottom of page eleven. So, I was really using a lot of rests in this
and then it comes back in the end to A again.
NNH: Well, and of course when birds sing, there' silence in between when they sing.
ELD: Yes, that's right. Yes, that's true. There again, it just ends up in the air. So, the set doesn't
really have a climactic ending.
NNH: What's the order of the set?
ELD: Well, I Suppose the Time will Come and then Bee! and then it was supposed to be The
Birds.
NNH: So, Bee! was in the middle?
ELD: Yes. So, they took out Bee! and published it separately and then the others.
NNH: Which has been successful for you.
ELD: Yes, that has. Yes. Very much because of the poet I think.
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NNH: Well, but the other two are also by Emily Dickinson.
ELD: That's true. So maybe the music had something to do with it.
NNH: It might have had something to do with it.
All right, for Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls!, the commission was by Linda Cole of Belvidere High School
Madrigal Singers. Is this someone you know? Was it a commission out of the blue?
ELD: No, and I don't have any recollection of that really. Isn't that funny?
NNH: Okay, all right. So, you don't remember what parameters they might have set?
ELD: No, I don't. I don't think I ever heard them do it or I never heard much about it.
Maybe they didn't like it either.
NNH: So, you probably chose the poem by your sister to set.
ELD: They commissioned this, so I used a poem of my sister and there again it's kind of a
young person's poem.
NNH: It's similar to Show and Tell.
ELD: Yes, it's an innocent sort of poem. Hey, Boys! Hi, Girls! is probably something that would
appeal to young people really. Maybe. Did you have any reaction to this?
NNH: Oh, I thought it was cute. I can imagine this being very effective just like Show and Tell,
where you have the boys and the girls singing back and forth to each other.
ELD: Yes, you'd think so.
NNH: I would think that could be very effective.
ELD: I think probably my sister wrote it for this reason. She probably had written it for the
commission.
NNH: Oh, you think?
ELD: I think so.
NNH: In the harmonies at measure 11 there's a very thorny chord for "thorny" and there's a
different thorny chord for "flighty" at measure 45. Let's look at measure 11 first.
ELD: Yes. I don't think I was word-painting. I probably was just contrasting but that's fine if you
want to. . .
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NNH: Think of it as thorny?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: And at measure 45?
ELD: 45? "Boy is flighty" . Yes, I don't know. It doesn't really do much there on 45.
NNH: No
ELD: Yes, maybe it was probably more of "Boy is flighty as breezes, breezes". Yes, that might
be.
NNH: You've talked about repetition in the past, at the end of this song you have "ding dong"
sung six times and I wondered what your thinking was.
ELD: I don't know. Just, "ring a happy bell". Just probably musically, like we talked about, you
repeat words in order to string out something musically. Otherwise, you have too brief of a work.
NNH: Do you remember the premiere of this? Did you see the premiere?
ELD: I don't think I ever heard it.
NNH: Oh, you've never heard it?
ELD: I never heard it, no.
NNH: Oh. I imagine it can be very entertaining when performed with the vitality that you
suggest.
ELD: I think so.
NNH: So, you've never seen it performed?
ELD: No, I never. I don't know what happens. This is the publisher, the local publisher, and I
don't know if it was ever put out or not. I got some stuff there.
NNH: Oh? Don't worry about it.
NNH: All right, Come, Said the Muse. This was commissioned for the Lexington UU Church on
the retirement of Lee Ridgeway.
ELD: Oh, your church right. I mean your denomination.
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NNH: It's my faith. It is my denomination, absolutely. I know the Lexington church, it's a lovely
church. Do you know Lee Ridgeway?
ELD: Do you? Have you been there?
NNH: I have.
ELD: No, I had never been there and I didn't know the person.
NNH: So this was a commission out of the blue?
ELD: That's right.
NNH: Do you remember if you chose the text or if they chose the text?
ELD: I think they probably did.
NNH: It's a very UU text.
ELD: Yes, Walt Whitman.
NNH: Do you think they may have chosen the particular lines because the poem itself is sixty-
five lines long and you set only ten of the lines.
ELD: I don't know whether they sent it to me, or if I looked it up, frankly. So, I just set part of it.
I wouldn't have wanted to set the whole thing.
NNH: Sixty-five lines is too long.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: It seems to me, and you can correct me if I'm off base here, that the first section of the
poem contains the seed of the poem. I mean I've looked at the whole poem and I think that the
words you set have the seed of the whole poem.
ELD: Yes, and it's all, it definitely blends into your church, your faith.
NNH: Oh yes, absolutely. The text really works.
ELD: Sing me the universal.
NNH: Well, that's the Universalist side of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
ELD: Yes, sort of all encompassing mankind type of thing. It's a very uncomplicated setting.
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NNH: It is. I'm very intrigued at the very beginning that you put it in the 3/4 meter but then you
have duplet half notes countering that. Can you say something about that?
ELD: Yes, I was trying to make it a little less regular by making the voices being in three, and
then the accompaniment in two. Yes.
NNH: Then, when you set "sing me the universal," you have all the voices singing. I think you
start out with a couple voices and then you have all of the voices singing.
ELD: Yes, it starts with the alto, which is kind of different.
NNH: Yes it is. Altos would like that.
ELD: Oh yes. Then the sopranos join a little bit and then the men come in. It must have been a
very easy thing to sing. It's not very hard.
NNH: I would think. Did you get any feedback from them?
ELD: I don't remember. It's been so long ago.
NNH: This was 2005, so it's ten years ago.
ELD: Oh, well that's when it was published but when did I write it?
NNH: Oh, I see.
ELD: Well, maybe it was . I don't know, at my age I can't even remember how old I am. It's kind
of annoying. It doesn't really do much tonally does it?
NNH: No, it's interesting.
ELD: They must have found it rather monotonous because actually it stays a lot in G all the time
and then it does have a C-sharp later on. It goes kind of to a D but not very much. I was kind of
playing more with the rhythm that you picked up.
NNH: The two against three. It's a very Brahmsian kind of technique.
ELD: Like a lot of things I've written, the accompaniment is probably more interesting then the
voice parts. Don't you think?
NNH: I don't know. I like the tune. You might not call it catchy but it's lyrical.
ELD: Yes. Do you think you might do it in your church?
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NNH: I might, yes. I think that's a real possibility.
ELD: Because there's so much choral music that is like this. It doesn't do a lot of changing, it's
very melodic and it doesn't present many difficulties, you know, tonally for the singers.
NNH: Yes.
ELD: And it goes back and forth between the voices. They're not all singing all the time. You
know?
NNH: I wondered if the Lexington church had asked you to keep it very simple.
ELD: I think probably they did, yes.
NNH: Because it's not characteristic of all of your choral writing.
ELD: No. I don't know. You never know what frame of mind you're in when you write
something.
NNH: Well, how do you feel? Do you want to take a break? We have how many compositions
left? We have three compositions. We can wait until after lunch to do this.
ELD: Okay, let's do that.
Interview Part II, #4 (8/27/15)
Emma Lou Diemer
NNH: Neighbor, Take This Torch of Peace was written for the Waging Peace Through Singing
Project of University of Oregon. Can you reconstruct the process of this commission?
ELD: I think it was more entering a kind of a contest to write compositions having to do with
waging peace, and so Dorothy, my sister wrote this poem, the words; then I set it to music.
That’s how it came about, and then they performed it up there at the University of Oregon and
it’s kind of a message composition. It’s about trying to wage peace instead of waging war.
NNH: Do you think she was writing this in response to 9/11? The poem was written in 2002.
ELD: Well, she might have been somewhat, because she wrote another poem about 9/11. I never
set that to music, but oh, yes, I’m sure she had it very much in mind, and she was a very peaceful
person; didn’t like anything about warfare.
NNH: And you must have written this toward the end of your sister’s life. Was she aware that
you composed it?
ELD: Yes actually this was 2002.
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NNH: She wrote the poem in 2002, but the composition was published in 2006 I believe
ELD: Okay, that’s right. Well this was before she was… I’m not sure if it had come out yet or
not. I don’t remember whether it had or not. So she probably didn’t ever hear it, hear it sung.
NNH: That’s what I’m wondering?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Can you say more about the Waging Peace Through Singing Project, did you know much
about it?
ELD: No, I know that they had a whole bunch of works that they performed. I’d have to look it
up again just to see if anything continued with that, past that period.
NNH: And did you go the premiere?
ELD: No, I didn’t.
NNH: So you don’t know how it was received?
ELD: No and I think they were some prizes. I don’t think this one won one of the top prizes, but
I believe they did perform it and it had some performances. I think it may be on YouTube too,
Somebody may find it, have done it, It has kind of a driving accompaniment, kind of urgent,
syncopated that goes all the way through pretty much.
ELD: But I don’t think the Kjos music company did any editing much on this one. They did on a
couple of other things. I’ve hardly ever had publishers do any editing, on what I write. I know
that writers work with editors all the time, but I’ve never had much interference or help or
whatever you want to call it. So yes, this is basically an urgent sort of composition and the
accompaniment pretty much carries that with the syncopations and the ostinatos and so on.
NNH: And what about the harmonies?
ELD: Yes, well they’re not right on tonally; they kind of skirt the tonality. You were talking
about modal writing. Like the very first chord is of course related to E-flat because it’s going to
have three flats in it but doesn’t have an E-flat chord. In fact it doesn’t have an E-flat chord at all
ever. In the seventh measure it goes to kind of a D-flat, and then it changes at the bottom of the
page to C, more a C type. It’s an avoidance of the tonic chord and Brahms does that too. He
often starts a work on something related to a tonic, but it’s not the tonic, it’s an avoidance of that.
NNH: The changing harmonies give a very unsettled feeling.
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ELD: Yes that’s true. I hadn’t thought about it but that’s true, it does and that’s very important.
The voice parts are very easy and sometimes in unison or two-part and it does change the key a
little bit on page five it does change from there and then it comes back to that beginning
NNH: At the end of the song “we are waging peace” is repeated and it’s first forte and then
mezzo piano and then piano
ELD: Yes just to soften it down at the end.
NNH: Is that a comment on our effectiveness at waging peace?
ELD: No, I don’t think so. It could be a kind of metaphor for being kind of exhausted from
trying to accomplish something that seems almost impossible. I’ve never thought of that, but that
might be. We are tired of trying and actually it’s not until the end that you get some type of
resolution to an actual tonality it ends on F.
NNH: But it’s an F9 chord.
ELD: Yes, it doesn’t have any third in it.
NNH: Right.
ELD: But until that everything is up in the air
NNH: So it’s resolved in the end?
ELD: Yes at the very end.
NNH: So this is something that I thought of the forte could be like a declamation. The mezzo
piano a sort of a gentle statement and then maybe the piano is a hope?
ELD: Yes that could be a way to look at it.
NNH: Possibly.
ELD: Yes. It’s kind of a pleading sort of thing. Talks about angels watching over us at night so
the words are very nice.
NNH: I do like the words; I like the poem.
ELD: Yes
NNH: And could you imagine this with organ or with orchestra?
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ELD: It could be with orchestra, either one. It could be with organ. You know most things you
can do with organ. You just put the pedal down where the left hand is.
NNH: Anything else you’d like to say about this composition?
ELD: No I don’t think so. It’s a nice idea.
NNH: Yes it really is. I really like the idea of waging peace through singing.
The next song is Effervescence.
ELD: Yes so this was a commission from Jennifer Flory, and she’s still at that school, Georgia
College and State University. Now it has a different name.
NNH: Do you know Jennifer?
ELD: Yes I do. She did a program on my music, and I went there. It’s at Milledgeville and that’s
where Flannery O’Connor lived.
NNH: Oh I see, that’s the connection with Flannery O’Connor.
ELD: I didn’t go out to where she lived out in the country with her peacocks, but I did go to the
cemetery where she was buried, and this is a kind of a quirky sort of a poem. I tried to find
something by her.
NNH: So you chose the text?
ELD: Yes I did, and I couldn’t find any poetry really and it’s kind of an odd sort of text. It was
kind of hard to set because I think it’s sort of tongue-in-cheek you know. She was a rather
strange writer. You’ve probably read things by her.
NNH: Yes I have.
ELD: So I had a little trouble because when I write about Spring it’s usually in a very happy way
so I tried to be happy in the beginning of this, but she’s talking about it in a rather, sarcastic way
maybe, and the “faint trickle of raindrops down the nose,” things like that.
NNH: Yes. You do some wonderful word painting in this: the separated staccato, unpredictable,
syncopated off-beat entrances. I’m thinking about measure 63, where that “faint trickle of
raindrops down the nose” comes in and it sounds like rain.
ELD: But it doesn’t have that springtime happiness about it.
NNH: Where do you see this sardonic tone coming out?
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ELD: “Voices gently purring” let’s see, “the soft melody” that’s all right. It’s mainly probably in
the raindrops.
NNH: “The faint trickle of raindrops down the nose”
ELD: Uh huh and “dogwoods green and white” I guess it’s not too…I guess it seemed to me she
wasn’t really genuine in what she was writing. “The world is living, singing, laughing in the
spring” so I guess it’s… “what is so effervescent as this day in the spring,” but I tried to make it
sound as though it were happy.
NNH: That’s good.
ELD: Kind of dramatic, little bit, But that’s another one I think they did some editing on, and I
can’t remember what it was but they did some changing.
NNH: At measure 67 you repeat “rain” over and over, nine times almost like monotonous,
continuing rain back and forth between the two, the two same chords. And at measure 98 you
have an augmented chord? That “laughing in the spring.” Is that where you’re bringing out the
irony?
ELD: A little bit, right. That’s a good thought.
NNH: But at measure 103, it seems to return to an open and light-hearted mood.
ELD: Yes, kind of throwing it off, as spring is happy. I mean just the word “effervescent” not a
word we usually use.
NNH: No.
ELD: In relation to spring or happiness.
NNH: Yes but the song comes and goes very quickly. It’s bubbly.
ELD: Yes that’s true.
NNH: And illusive. On page six and also on pages 18-19 you have a chord for “oh the feel of it,
joyous spring” where you’ve stacked fifths. You have the fifth from F and the fifth from B-flat.
ELD: Yes, it’s sort of an open sound, but it doesn’t have the root. The piano has the root, the B-
flat and that chord is repeated a lot. I can’t remember in writing this that I was especially inspired
either by the words or by the music. Maybe that’s why I don’t think anybody much does it.
NNH: But it’s kind of fun.
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ELD: Yes it could be fun. And the “rain, rain, rain” that sounded to me like she was kind of
really complaining.
NNH: Yes it does sound like that.
ELD: She was not too happy about that. I just felt the whole poem, or excerpt from her writings
was tongue-in-cheek. I just felt like that.
NNH: Okay.
ELD: And that’s hard to write. It’s hard to set to music.
NNH: Yes it’s hard to get that tone. All right, let’s go on to Dolphins.
ELD: Yes that’s a very recent one, and I guess, as you can see, it was the choice of some poetry
that won in the Huntsville Literary Association Contest for Young Writers, and this little person
Zoey Johnson was…let’s see how old was she when she…
NNH: Seven.
ELD: Seven when she wrote this.
NNH: Yes. Did you get to meet her?
ELD: Yes I did. And also that Apple Orchard composition. I got to read that…that was also a
winner
NNH: Oh, I see. Great.
ELD: That little girl was a few years older. I think she was about ten or something and I went up
and I said “Do you have an apple orchard?” and she said “No I don’t have any,” but I thought
that was a beautiful poem.
NNH: Yes it’s lovely.
ELD: For several reasons.
NNH: Particularly for a young writer.
ELD: Yes. Now this little girl that wrote Dolphins I think she may have been homeschooled
because they always listed the teacher, and her mother was her teacher. So I wonder if maybe
she was homeschooled, but she was certainly one of the youngest to win and of course the poem
is very charming and fun and we have lots of dolphins around here.
NNH: So did you know Patricia Ramirez Hacker? Did she contact you?
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ELD: I had met her and I go to Huntsville, Alabama.
NNH: To visit your sister.
ELD: Yes sometimes twice or three times a year, but at least once always.
NNH: And you still have nieces who live, there so you still go.
ELD: And this Master Chorale, that Patricia conducts, two of my nieces are in that.
NNH: Oh, I see.
ELD: Yes, so I had an inside track on that.
NNH: That’s great.
ELD: And I set those two and another one I think. Yes there was another one that I haven’t set to
music yet and that was by a little boy.
NNH: Oh fun. Can you describe the way in which you decided on the leaping intervals at the
beginning in the accompaniment?
ELD: Well, I think just because they sounded happy and there’s a little bit of word painting with
little dolphins jumping in the air
NNH: Well, the melody actually bobs below the tonic and then leaps up above. It’s almost as if
the tonic is the surface of the water and the dolphins are leaping around it.
ELD: Oh that’s a good thought.
NNH: It may not have been intentional, but that’s the way I see it.
ELD: Kind of leaping over it
NNH: Yes leaping over the tonic.
ELD: Yes that’s good.
NNH: At measure 3 you have a B-flat against the C in the melody on the word “bright.” B-flat is
in the accompaniment and the C is in the tune .
ELD: The Bb there in the accompaniment?
NNH: Yes exactly. Can you talk about that at all?
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ELD: Well I was just trying to get an interesting chord there and on the very first beat there’s a
B-flat.
NNH: Yes.
ELD: Actually I worked some with the Santa Barbara Music Publishing person, Barbara Harlow
on this. Originally this is for four part; it’s for SATB.
ELD: Yes that’s what they did.
NNH: And you’ve published that?
ELD: With instruments, but Barbara Harlow thought this would be a good children’s anthem and
just make it two-part so she had that suggestion which I think was a good one. Then I had
originally kind of doubled the voice part in the piano and she thought it would be better for the
piano to be more independent
NNH: I see
ELD: So you can see that it is
NNH: Yes it’s very independent.
ELD: But it has more syncopation you know
NNH: So did they also publish the SATB version?
ELD: No she wanted this.
NNH: But you have an SATB version of this somewhere?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: That would be nice. At measure 19 you have octaves in the accompaniment.
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Can you talk about that?
ELD: Well that’s just a pianistic way of filling out the lines and just to make it more interesting
for the pianist
NNH: And this is actually a binary poem. It just has the two stanzas but you set it as a ternary
poem. Part of your repetition, bringing it back to the beginning.
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ELD: Oh, that’s true and it has word painting all the way through if you want to talk about the
word painting.
NNH: Would you like to talk about the word painting? Please do.
ELD: Well of course the chatter, it talks about chatter. They chatter these dolphins, and so
you’ve got the staccato notes and they’re answering back and forth two parts so it should sound
like that and then they come to page seven, and you’ve got “smooth and sleek” and everything
becomes legato.
NNH: Yes I noticed that
ELD And it’s diatonic, and then at the bottom, you have them “soaring through the sea” so
you’ve got it going up and down and about three times, and then the spirits are kind of like the
chatter, same type of thing, “their spirits are free”, so that got the staccato notes in the octaves in
the piano.
NNH: Sounds like you had a lot of fun writing this.
ELD: Yes, that was fun and some people like this the best of the three things I set.
NNH: So you have this one, The Apple Orchard and what was the third one?
ELD: It was about weather and it had to do with stormy weather and that Huntsville has all kinds
of weather cold and windy, I guess, sunny and so on, but it mentioned Huntsville and that’s a
little tricky to have Huntsville in. . .
NNH: In the text
ELD: Yes it says “Huntsville has it all” It had all the weather and I haven’t figured out yet what
to do with that. I think the music would be kind of fun to do. It has very active accompaniment,
lots of sixteenth notes. It’s stormy, but I think it would be hard to put another city in that
particular setting, particular rhythm.
NNH: So it might not be applicable to other people, other places.
ELD: So far I haven’t done anything with that other one.
NNH: Yes.
ELD: And this one, it’s just come out, and I don’t know whether it will just disappear or it will
catch on someplace or what. It seemed to me it should be in every children choir’s repertoire.
NNH: I would think they would be happy to have that.
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ELD: I noticed from, I think it was, on their publisher’s website, that it was used in at least four
reading sessions, so it would be really nice if it actually caught on.
NNH: At ACDA or another conference?
ELD: I forget some regional conference.
NNH: Oh a regional conference
ELD: I think there were different regional reading sessions.
NNH: Oh excellent. Oh that’s good.
ELD: You can look up the publisher and then look up this under my name, look under Dolphins
and find out.
NNH: And find out where it’s been done at reading sessions?
ELD: Yes.
NNH: Oh great.
ELD: And it’s not as adventurous as Bee, I’m expecting you! harmonically. It’s a little bit more
tonal. And this woman’s series; publishers seem to have different series.
NNH: Oh, I see.
ELD: And she, Barbara Harlow, she chose it for her particular series. Like in Colla Voce there’s
a Dale Warland Series and I have a composition in that. So I don’t know; we’ll see. It may just
sink in the ocean like the dolphins.
NNH: The dolphins don’t sink though.
ELD: No.
NNH: They rise above.
ELD: They do.
NNH: Did you get to hear the premiere?
ELD: Oh yes I went there. That was just last year.
NNH: And how did you like the performance?
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ELD: It was lovely. They used instruments and a nice big chorus.
NNH: What instruments did they use?
ELD: They had some percussion and she wanted to use the same instrumentation as another
work they were doing.
NNH: Because she had hired the musicians
ELD: Yes. So it was almost a string quartet, percussion and piano.
NNH: How nice.
ELD: But publishers don’t always do that, so it’s just for piano.
NNH: Well it’s easier to sell that way presumably.
ELD: Right.
NNH: Well, I think that finishes all the music that I’ve been looking at. You once said,
“Downright 100% pop is impossible for me to write. It offers nothing of value either
intellectually or spiritually. ” What fulfills you intellectually and spiritually in terms of music?
ELD: In terms of finding texts?
NNH: Well, writing music.
ELD: Well I don’t know. You can tell by what I write whether it seems genuine or not and the
easiest thing I can do and most composers is set words to music. You can set anything: the
dictionary or country; it’s been done, the want ads, you can set anything.
NNH: But you’re inspired by beautiful poetry.
ELD: Yes, and sometimes happy poetry or sad poetry. As I’ve said before. nothing too
philosophical. I think I’ve set only one of the sonnets of Shakespeare, the “Shall I compare thee
to a summer’s day?” I’ve set that for vocal music because the words are so beautiful, so there has
to be something to work with in the way of language and the ideas too. The thing about Emily
Dickinson is she’s just full of ideas in her very short poems, but if they’re too many words, it’s
hard to work with too. Some people like to set Walt Whitman because he has certain grandeur of
writing, but there too there an awful lot of words to deal with.
NNH: So it’s nice to have a limited text.
ELD: Yes.
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NNH: With limited ideas and then you do a great job of repeating them and layering them and
changing the different textures.
ELD: Yes, that’s right but it’s like working with a Biblical text. There has to be some beauty to it
and many composers turn to the Psalms because of that. I think I have set, maybe, at least 75 of
the Psalms.
NNH: Oh my.
ELD: Quite a few from the organist, Joan Dickson, that she commissioned. She wanted to do all
of them so I have a few more to go.
NNH: Are you still working on that?
ELD: No, because her husband, who was behind the commissions, passed away. He was in his
eighties. So, that kind of dried up the commissions. She did ask me to write a couple things after
that, but he was the impetus I think.
NNH: Are you working on any particular projects currently that you’re excited about?
ELD: Well, as I said I’m always working on organ music, mostly for the church. There are a lot
of things I could write. I could write something for all of the people I know. I had a good
collaboration with a violinist, a young man who taught at Westmont named Philip Fischer. He
came to me and wanted to record all my violin music and also to ask me to write some for him.
This was just a few years ago, two or three years ago. I wrote him a suite or a sonata. I wrote him
a concerto and some arrangements of things. We came here and he stood right over there in that
corner and he recorded for several days and we made two albums of my violin and piano music.
So, those are fairly recent. He’s a very good violinist so I didn’t have any trouble technically
writing difficult music. But, other than that. That was because he asked me. As I say I am lazy. I
don’t write anything unless someone asks me, and then I can’t get out of it or if I’m writing it for
myself or for organ.
NNH: Yes. Will you do more of the Huntsville poetry contest commissions or did you just do the
three?
ELD: Yes, they asked me to write those three. Take three of the children’s poems and so I did
that. That was the commission more or less.
NNH: So, there aren’t more of those in store besides the third one that you’re working on?
ELD: No, I hope not because as you can see, I’ve done so many things and I think after a while
that’s enough.
NNH: Is there a commission you’re hoping to get at some point?
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ELD: No. Commissions are very tricky. I did something for the San Francisco Choral Society. I
did a work for chorus and orchestra and I used several different poets, mostly women poets.
Mary Oliver was one of them and my sister was one and Emily Dickinson and there’s something
from the “Rubaiyat” which I just love. One of my favorite works is verses from the “Rubaiyat”
and that list I gave you, this is a list of all the choral things by the way.
NNH: That’s wonderful. That’s really helpful.
ELD: I liked that. That’s another one that just isn’t done much but …
NNH: What’s the work called?
ELD: Verses from the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” but what I did for the San Francisco group
used, as I said, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, my sister, two by Emily Dickinson and then
“Rubaiyat” something from that.
NNH: And what is that work called?
ELD: It’s called “Songs for the Earth.” It’s a whole cycle. I wrote that in one of the houses that
Marilyn was living in. She does dog sitting sometimes or she did. Not so much anymore. So she
had a house over in Goleta and there was a little terrier. I filled in for her because she was over
booked or something so the little dog was sitting there while I was writing this particular work.
NNH: Did that feel like company?
ELD: Yes, and that’s true, you know, with a lot of composers. They have some little animal
helping them, you know, sitting there on the chair and listening to the music.
NNH: So it’s Vega, right? That you’ve been dog sitting? Has she been helpful?
ELD: Yes, that particular time is was not Vega but it was a little terrier named Casey. You
usually remember where you were when you wrote something. I can remember when I wrote the
Three Madrigals sixty years ago and I can remember when I wrote the Oscar Wilde and this that
I’m talking about.
NNH: And where were you for the Three Madrigals?
ELD: I was working in the schools, you know. I was writing music for the schools and I was
staying in one of the teachers’ houses, and she had a little spinet piano and when she was gone
during the day, I would do my composing. I did that one afternoon at her house.
NNH: That’s great. What about the Oscar Wilde?
ELD: I was upstairs at the Clavinova I guess, in the study.
NNH: Oh, here?
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ELD: Yes, and you know, I’m sure all composers remember where they were.
NNH: Well, it’s like that composition of music that you remember what had happened when you
hear it again and it brings it back.
ELD: Yes, and the concerto was right there at the piano, looking at the mountains.
NNH: Well, I think I have come to the end of my questions for today.
ELD: They are very good questions Nancy.
NNH: Well, thank you. Would you be willing to answer some questions via email as I continue
to study your work, and I may have some other questions?
ELD: Oh, certainly.
NNH: Would you be willing to meet with me again in a few months?
ELD: Sure, certainly.
NNH: That is, if I have more follow up questions?
ELD. You don’t have to bring the food next time.
NNH: Well, that was my pleasure. Okay, anything else?
ELD: No, I don’t think so. Thank you for coming all this way.
NNH: It was my absolute pleasure.
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Appendix D: Institutional Review Board Documents
University of Southern California
Thornton School of Music
INFORMATION/FACTS SHEET FOR EXEMPT NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
Emma Lou Diemer's Shorter Choral Works since 1987
You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Nancy Holland under the
supervision of Dr. Beatriz Ilari at the University of Southern California. This document explains
information about this study. You should ask questions about anything that is unclear to you.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study aims to closely examine your shorter choral works since 1987.
PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to participate in an interview lasting for
8 hours, spread over 2 days. You do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to.
ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate. Your relationship with the researcher will not be affected
whether you participate or not in this study.
CONFIDENTIALITY
The data collected is directly identifiable. The results of this research may be made public,
shared with participating sites and quoted in professional journals and meetings in identifiable
form.
The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.
INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Principal
Investigator Nancy Holland at nholland22@gmail.com
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu.
245
University of Southern California University Park Institutional Review Board
3720 South Flower Street Credit Union Building (CUB) #301
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702
Phone: 213-821-5272
Fax: 213-821-5276
upirb@usc.edu
Date: Aug 23, 2016, 02:12pm
Action Taken: Approve
Principal Investigator: Nancy Holland
THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Faculty Advisor: Beatriz Ilari
THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Co-Investigator(s):
Project Title: Emma Lou Diemer's Shorter Choral Works since 1987
by Nancy Holland
Study ID: UP-16-00474
Funding:
Abstract (if available)
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Holland, Nancy Noble
(author)
Core Title
In search for a deeper understanding of Emma Lou Diemer’s compositional style through the analysis of her shorter choral works for mixed chorus since 1987
School
Thornton School of Music
Degree
Doctor of Musical Arts
Degree Program
Choral Music
Publication Date
05/02/2017
Defense Date
02/02/2017
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
choral works,Composition,Diemer,mixed chorus,OAI-PMH Harvest
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Grases, Cristian (
committee member
), Scheibe, Jo-Michael (
committee member
), Sparks, Tram (
committee member
)
Creator Email
nholland22@gmail.com,nholland22@mac.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-371069
Unique identifier
UC11255810
Identifier
etd-HollandNan-4987.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-371069 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-HollandNan-4987.pdf
Dmrecord
371069
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Holland, Nancy Noble
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA
Tags
choral works
Diemer
mixed chorus