About the Works

I AM SORRY THAT IT HAS COME TO THIS
Premiered on November 11th, 2018 — a date marking not only Veterans Day, but also the centennial of the end of the First World War — I am sorry that it has come to this is an acknowledgement of the importance and realities of veterans healthcare. Scored for offstage voice and piano, I am sorry that it has come to this revolves around its electronic soundtrack, which focuses on a recording of twenty-two individual voices reading excerpts from a Veteran's suicide note documenting crippling mental and physical illnesses. These voices are a manifestation of the statistic that — at the time of this veteran's death — twenty-two veterans took their lives each day. Additionally, the diverse collection of voices helps to provide not only a textured soundscape, but also drive home the idea that this letter could have been written by any service person. The soundtrack begins with the “presidential chatter” of the five U.S. presidents who were in office during the lifetime of the individual who wrote the letter; the overlapping ramblings are the boastings of government achievements with respect to veterans healthcare. However, this flaunting of government successes is almost immediately contrasted with the reciting of the note left by the veteran, who states that the government has abandoned them, and that receiving proper health care is “too much to ask from a regime built upon the idea that suffering is noble, and relief is just for the weak.” Accompanying the centerpiece of a soundtrack is the piano, whose main role is to not only add live harmonies that settle with the additional sounds of the track, but also provide harmonic context for the offstage voice that interjects with selected chants drawn from the Latin Requiem Mass — the Mass for the dead.

The latest figures from the Department of Veterans Affairs show there were more than 6,000 Veteran suicides each year from 2001 to 2021 (the last year of available data). In 2021, the suicide rate was 2x greater for Veterans than for non-Veteran adults. As a friend recently said, “it is striking how many of our country’s most fundamental issues are, or ought to be, nonpartisan matters of shared human concern.” This is one of those issues.

For more information and to view the most recent VA National Suicide Data Report, please visit: https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/data.asp

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BATTLE SONGS recounts the events/effects of four battles of pre-WWII wars—the battle of Concord (Revolutionary War), the battle of Buena Vista (Mexican-American War), the battle of Shiloh (Civil War), and the second battle of Ypres (World War I).

Concord was my first venture into writing art song. Written for myself to perform, it was not until after many performances that I decided to expand the work into a set of songs. Shiloh, the second song added, is not only a powerfully reflective text, but represents the Civil War battle in which my own great-great-grandfather fought and was wounded.

I. Concord – "Concord Hymn" Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson’s "Concord Hymn" was sung to the tune Old Hundredth during the 1837 4th of July celebration in Concord, MA. The day’s festivities marked the dedication of the monument commemorating the battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, erected near the North Bridge where the initial battle took place. Today the foremost recognizable stanza is inscribed on the base of Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man Statue. Through Emerson’s words, coupled with the scenic surrounding landscape, visitors are able to reflect on the activity of April 19, 1775.

II. Buena Vista – "The Bivouac of the Dead" Theodore O’Hara
Fought near Monterrey, the battle of Buena Vista was the last major battle in northern Mexico during the Mexican-American War. It was future U.S. President Zachary Taylor’s final battle of the war. Although written to honor Kentuckians slain during the War, Theodore O’Hara’s "The Bivouac of the Dead" is commonly used to remember veterans of the Civil War. Plaques engraved with O’Hara’s text may be seen today in various cemeteries which commemorate some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War: Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Stone’s River, and Vicksburg. Even the McClellan Gate leading to the Arlington National Cemetery bears an inscription from O’Hara’s poem. O’Hara was born in Danville, Kentucky, on February 11, 1820. On June 6, 1867, O’Hara died and was buried in Columbus, GA. However, in 1873 his remains were moved to Frankfort, KY, to rest near the graves of the soldiers who inspired his famous poem.

III. Shiloh – "Shiloh: A Requiem" Herman Melville
Melville’s "Shiloh: A Requiem" depicts one of the bloodiest battles in the history of American warfare. Fought near Pittsburg Landing in southern Tennessee, the two-day battle (April 6-7, 1862) left over 23,000 men killed, wounded, or missing. The misery of the battle is vividly represented in James Lee McDonough’s Shiloh—in Hell before Night. “The rain came slowly at first, then gradually fell harder and harder until it beat against the ground in torrents. Continuing through most of the night, the downpour was accompanied by a cold, chilling wind that swept the battlefield. An intense darkness was broken only by flashes of lightning and the fuses of shells in the sky momentarily illuminating scenes of wasted humanity. Every fifteen minutes, all night long, a gun on each of the Union gunboats roared from the Tennessee River, sending two giant 8-inch shells arching toward the Confederate lines, their red fuses lighting up the starless night for a brief instant before they came screaming down, exploding and scattering fragments of iron in all directions…Many of the wounded, Confederate and Union, were spending an agonizing night—the last night some would ever know—in the blackness between the lines of the armies. As the flashes of lightning lit the fields and the rolling timberland, they found themselves alone, except for other wounded and innumerable bodies of the dead.” (1977, 184-185)

IV. In Flanders Fields – "In Flanders Fields" John McCrae
McCrae’s "In Flanders Fields" is recognized as one of the most moving war poems ever written. It remains a symbol of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Although he had been a doctor for years and served in the Canadian armed forces, McCrae found the conditions of Ypres almost impossible to bear. As a surgeon, Major McCrae spent 17 days treating injured men—Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans. One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student Alexis Helmer of Ottawa had been killed by a shell burst on May 2, 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae’s dressing station. With the absence of a chaplain, McCrae performed the funeral ceremony. The next day, while sitting on the back of an ambulance, McCrae vented his anguish by composing his historic poem. In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches. Why poppies? According to Rob Ruggenberg in his article "The Making of In Flanders Fields," “wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighborhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout…But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, thou poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium, from which morphine is made. Morphine was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.” (http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-poppies.html)

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NORFOLK LETTERS
Norfolk Letters are settings of the letters contained in the Norfolk Armed Forces Memorial. Erected in the summer of 1998 at Town Point Park in Downtown Norfolk, the Armed Forces Memorial consists of 22 cast bronze letters scattered along the waterfront as if blown by the wind. Artists Maggie Smith and James Cutler curated a collection of letters conveying diverse emotional experiences, offering a glimpse into the humanity of the soldier's experience, and the effects of their service on loved ones back home. Find out more about the memorial on the Norfolk Arts webpage.

I first encountered the memorial in the spring of 2000, during a high school choir trip to Virginia Beach. As a typical high school sophomore, I didn't exactly grasp the significance of the words I was reading. It would be another decade before I visited the memorial again, but it would become a regular stop during my yearly camping excursion down to the North Carolina coast. During one of these visits, in 2016, I began to think about the possibility of hearing these letters set to music for voice and piano (in the tradition of the art song). Then in January 2022, as many artists began emerging from isolation, I began discussing a new music project with my friend and wonderful baritone, Ross Tamaccio. For whatever reason, the concept of musical settings of the letters contained in the Norfolk Armed Forces Memorial reemerged in my mind and I knew this was the project that needed to happen. 

The letters featured in the memorial were written by fallen soldiers to their loved ones, which allows the reader (and listener) insight to both sides of the relationship between a service person and those that they leave behind; the dates of these letters span the entire history of conflicts involving the United States, ranging from the Revolutionary War to the War in Afghanistan. Despite the time separating the first and last of these letters, all of these soldiers describe similar circumstances and experiences, in a way that — besides some differences in vernacular — these letters almost do not date themselves.

Almost 24 years after that first encounter, tonight's recital features the world premiere of the first five pieces in Norfolk Letters: Book 1. When complete, Book 1 will contain the letters dating 1776 through 1918, marking the Revolutionary War to the end of the First World War. Ten songs are contained in Book 1, along with an opening piano prelude and three piano intermezzi, which offer reflections on extracted texts from the letters of previous songs. Tonight we hear the opening piano prelude, and four letters. Over the next year, I will compose the remaining nine pieces in Book 1 for Ross and a commissioning consortium of singers, pianists, and arts supporters. To join the consortium and be a part of helping bring Norfolk Letters: Book 1 to more listeners, visit https://rickeltonmusic.com/norfolkletters.html. 

When complete, Norfolk Letters (Books 1 and 2) will contain 22 songs and roughly 10 solo piano pieces offering ca. 3 hours of musical memorial to all those who sacrificed their lives in service to their nation. It is my hope that this music lives as a tribute to them and to their loved ones back home.

I. Prelude (solo piano)
The solo piano prelude opens the suite with music exploring emotions connected to war: duty, sacrifice, and loss. The prelude introduces several musical elements that serve as the foundations for the pieces to follow.

II. Even the trenches can be beautiful
Lieutenant Quincy Sharpe Mills (January 15, 1884 – July 26, 1918) — the only child of Thomas Mills (d. 1940) and Nannie Sharpe Mills (d. 1955) — was known as an exceptional author and political journalist prior to his military service. After the declaration of war on Germany by the United States in 1917, Mills left his hard-earned position as city editor at the New York newspaper Evening Sun to volunteer for military service, as he felt it his duty to fight for his country. At the age of 32, Quincy Sharpe Mills died during the Battle of Château-Thierry — a battle that successfully held off German invasion into France. During his service, he often wrote to his parents, specifically his mom, about the flowers and fields near the trenches.

III. I want now [to] take up my pen
Little is publicly known about Alexander Ogg, Jr., besides the following excerpt from The Norfolk Memorial: "Alexander Ogg, Jr. fought in the War of 1812 with Captain Robert Hooke’s Company of Riflemen, volunteers from Rockingham County, Virginia. Ogg was killed in action or died of illness while in service in 1813, at the estimated age of 35." Additionally, online records suggest that Ogg’s father arrived in Virginia from Scotland, and that the Jane and Susanna mentioned in Ogg’s letter are two of his sisters.  

IV. We are on the march to Fort Wagner, to storm it
Robert J. Simmons (d. August 23, 1863) was a former clerk from Bermuda who served as a First Sergeant for the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first recognized black regiments during the American Civil War. During the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in July of 1863, Simmons was wounded and captured as a prisoner, which he remained until his death in a South Carolina jail. For months after his capture, Simmons was recorded as being Missing In Action after the Fort Wagner attack. While he did not have children of his own, Simmons’ sister, Susan Reed — who lived with their mother, Margaret Simmons — had two children. While Simmons was preparing for war, his nephew, Joseph Reed, died at the age of seven on July 14th, 1863 after being beaten by a mob during the New York City draft riots; Susan Reed would later give birth to another son she named Robert John, after her brother. 

V. My girl, my girl, how I do miss you
Francis Michael Tracy (d. September 27, 1918) served as a Second Lieutenant of Infantry in the Army during the First World War. While Tracy was a law student, he married Gertrude Colman, who was born in Washington D.C. during the summer of 1889. In a letter to Gertrude, Tracy’s Lieutenant Colonel James B. Cavanaugh writes that, while in France, Tracy was “struck by a piece of high explosive shell which went over his head, landed about 100 yards past him, exploded & threw the piece backward — one of those strokes of fate so unaccountable for.” Gertrude kept the letters that Frank wrote her for almost 50 years, until her own passing.