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Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Bolcom's setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a three-hour work for soloists, choruses, and orchestra culminated 25 years of work on the piece.

Inspiration for the Creation of the Work

At the age of seventeen, William Bolcom wanted to set the complete poems of Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake into music.^[1] As he comprehended the huge diversity of the artistic ideas and the technical styles presented in the poems, he realized that he needed more musical vocabulary of different styles in order to complete his music. This realization also bolstered his ideas that genres of music should not be placed in a hierarchy and that there was no distinction between "serious" music and "popular" music.^[2]

Style and Instrumentation

Bolcom incorporated a variety of different musical styles and genres in the music, including modern classical style using pentatonic scales, tonal classical style, bluegrass, country, soul, folk vaudeville, rock musical, and reggae. In order to make the genres sound more convincing, Bolcom has used instruments that are not usually used in a traditional orchestra but are used in the genres that he chose: saxophones, guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, electric violin, and "country, rock, and folk singers."^[3]

Premiere, Subsequent Performances

Its premiere at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984 was followed by performances in Ann Arbor, Chicago's Grant Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, St. Louis, Carnegie Hall, and London's Royal Festival Hall, the latter performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin.

Reception, Awards

In 2004, Naxos Records produced a recording of the Songs, featuring the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Symphony Orchestra, University Musical Society, Michigan State University Children's Choir, and a variety of solo instrumentalists and singers (who also included Joan Morris, wife of Bolcom). In 2006, it won 3 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Classical Album on Naxos Records.^[4]

Composer and critic Robert Carl has stated that Bolcom wrote seemingly disparate genres of music with "sincerity," without irony, "as equal partners," and with "love for and mastery of popular music."^[5]

References

^ "Lister, Rodney (2006). WILLIAM BOLCOM: Songs of Innocence and of Experience...Review by Rodney Lister". Tempo. Retrieved 2014-04-12.
^ "Hu, Chih-long (2004). Interview of William Bolcom, 4 Dec. 2004". Living Music. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
^ "Bolcom, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience". William Bolcom. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
^ "NPR (2006). William Bolcom Tops Classical Grammy Awards". NPR. Retrieved 2014-04-14.
^ "Carl, Robert (1990). Six Cases Studies in New American Music: A Postmodern Portrait Gallery". College Music Symposium. Retrieved 2014-04-08.

[Tempo-1] "Lister, Rodney (2006). WILLIAM BOLCOM: Songs of Innocence and of Experience...Review by Rodney Lister". Tempo. Retrieved 2014-04-12.

[Living_Music-2] "Hu, Chih-long (2004). Interview of William Bolcom, 4 Dec. 2004". Living Music. Retrieved 2014-03-31.

[3] "Bolcom, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience". William Bolcom. Retrieved 2014-04-06.

[4] "NPR (2006). William Bolcom Tops Classical Grammy Awards". NPR. Retrieved 2014-04-14.

[5] "Carl, Robert (1990). Six Cases Studies in New American Music: A Postmodern Portrait Gallery". College Music Symposium. Retrieved 2014-04-08.

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