Intermediate
Program note
One hundred times a day our lives are touched by some form of swift, casual communication. It is easy to forget that before the age of the cellphone, e-mail, and text, every inclination toward spontaneous communication—every impulse to transact some social or commercial business—was checked by the need to write a letter instead.
Dick’s Letter Writer for Ladies was a collection of model letters provided to help cope with the nuances of what had become nearly an art form. In the 1880’s, even the most mundane exchanges required a command of style which now in the 21st century leaves us gasping. And to judge by the wide array of such books as Dick’s Letter Writer for Ladies, left many in the 19th century quite breathless as well.
As a composer, I find these letters represent a kind of personal ideal: beautiful in their elaborate formality, comic in their startling frankness. These letters are both touching and amusing (sometimes darkly so), and I have sought to convey both qualities in the songs.
Dick's Letter-Writer for Ladies (1884)
for A.J.B. and G.P.R.
Ann Jeffers Brown and Gregg Romatowski
1991 First Church (Congregational), Cambridge MA / Ann Jeffers Brown, soprano, Gregg Romatowski, organ
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