Civil War Songs Reset for 21st Century

June 21, 2011

Soprano Dawn Upshaw, portraying a US soldier returning from Afghanistan, rehearses 'Winds of Destiny' at the Ojai Music Festival in California.

The U.S. Civil War may be a century and a half behind us, but American emotions about the conflict can still be raw. Director Peter Sellars has taken music by Pulitzer-prize winning composer George Crumb and updated it to present day. Crumb’s "Winds of Destiny" recasts familiar Civil War-era songs in a jagged, haunting style.

Sellars was attracted to Crumb’s score after realizing that the situation in the United States today mirrors that of the Civil War 150 years ago.

"The kind of virulence and anger and fury of one part of the country towards another part of the country is bitter, and the same loneliness, bitterness, sourness, that these songs reflect from the Civil War period - "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," but also the songs of longing - "Shenandoah." These were American songs from a time when the country was torn apart, and they reflect the kind of emotional intensity of the divide and also the longing to come together."

Crumb first set these songs in 2004. He remembered hearing Dawn Upshaw perform one of them years before. He decided to incorporate her interpretation into his music.

"Dawn Upshaw performed some folk songs, including "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," and she repeated the first verse in a kind of funereal way, very sad, like the words were there, "We’ll shout," and "The girls will applaud," and all that, and yet she gave it an ironic twist."