As an undergraduate research fellowship with Morehead State University this year, I annalyzed and arranged "The Awakening" by Joeseph Martin for trombone choir. The Awakening is originally an SATB choral piece with piano accompaniment. Below is the programmatic annalysis of the work.
The beginning of the piece describes a very dreary and lifeless landscape. While writing this section I envisioned a very cold and gloomy ghost town, silent, entirely void of life and it’s raining. Somewhere in the distance, however, we hear a music box playing, whose melody melds fluently with the rhythm of the rain. The music box represents childhood and innocence. With its simple melody it quietly echoes a time when things were better, when life could happily coexist with music. It’s a lone memory of hope in a vast desolate landscape.
Every child is born with some creativity. They color, they play house, they fearlessly sing without worry of the judgment of others. And then, somewhere along the line, they’re told that they need to grow up. Big kids don’t play. Adults must be serious. It is this thought that destroys our inner child and ultimately squelches our creativity as a society. This is the dream that Joseph Martin describes so vividly. A world completely void of music and creativity would certainly be a most meaningless existence. So therefore in this piece the composer poses the question to us as musicians, “why do you do what you do? What is the purpose of your music? Is this world any better for having you in it?”
The next section of the poem becomes much more insistent as the dreamer comes to realize the gravity of the situation that they have found themselves in. They cry out for the melodies that are absent from this world. “No halleluiah, not one hosanna, no song of love, no lullaby.” It is here that the composer is reflecting on the original purpose of music which seems to have been forgotten over the years. “The original purpose of music was worship, divine intelligence, and basic communication. Music intoxicated the soul. It was, according to legend, the song of angels that induced the unwilling soul to enter the body of Adam. In every way music is our bond between the material and eternal.”
“Our most natural tendency is to make music. It requires no more thought than breathing. ‘The infant begins his life on earth by moving its arms and legs, thus showing the rhythm of its nature, and illustrating the philosophy which teaches that rhythm is the sign of life.” Even as musicians we sometimes forget why we do what we do. Making music becomes just another job. Like a factory worker we crank out notes and melodies for the consumer, forgetting creativity in the process.
And then the dawn begins to break. In the next section the composer begins to call us to awake. Each voice comes in at seemingly sporadic intervals proclaiming “Awake, awake!” until eventually all the voices meld into one great swirling entity and the top voices come soaring in with the answer. “Why do you do what you do? Why are you here?” The melody proclaims in response “Soli Deo Gloria.” Soli Deo Gloria, or “Glory to God Alone” is one of the founding principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was based. Our purpose is then to glorify creation. Instead of shunning our creative nature early on in order to “grow up and become a serious musician, or painter, or businessman, or factory worker, or what have you” we should instead embrace the gift that was given to us in all its many beautiful forms. George Carlin once said that every child should be given time each day to daydream and I agree. When we’re allowed to dream then our imagination truly is the limit, not just until we get old enough to experience the “real world.” The world is full of glorious opportunities until you allow someone to tell you that “you can’t.”
