Gearing Up for Considering Matthew Shepard, Part III

So already,* it's time for the next installment of that Considering Matthew Shepard  talk that my fellow singer Stephen Tooker and I developed together, and that I shared at Linden Ponds last week. As some of you already know, my two choral groups, the Broad Cove Chorale and the Unicorn Singers, will be presenting Craig Hella Johnson's passion oratorio twice during the last weekend of March.

Before I proceed, though, just to let you know that within the text of the talk, I'll be linking you to a full performance of CMS by the Western Illinois University Singers (you may want to listen to the whole thing at some point) and telling you at what minute you can hear several pieces of music that I mention in the talk--certainly the ones that the I played during the talk last week.

So here's the second installment of the talk.

People’s Reservations about Singing/Hearing Considering Matthew Shepard

So in talking about Matt’s flaws as an Icon and person, we're moving right into the second part of today’s talk—the reasons that people sometimes have for being a little reluctant to sing or hear Considering Matthew Shepard.

• So yes, some people would rather not sing or hear a piece of music that is extraordinarily sympathetic to someone whose character they question.

• Other people fear that a piece of music that tells the story of a brutal murder and a protested funeral—especially a full-length oratorio--will be unrelentingly depressing and disturbing. 

• And, yet other people would rather not sing or hear a piece of music that contains hate speech—and there is some in CMS. It’s not easy to hear that speech. And it’s definitely not easy to sing it. It’s not easy to feel it come out of your own mouth and to realize that its bound to land painfully even though you’re not hurling it at someone and you’re actually saying it so no one forgets how powerful, and incendiary it can be.

The best way I can think of to talk people through these reservations is to share some of the thinking and experience of Craig Hella Johnson, the composer.

When Johnson, who’s a gay man, first learned of Matthew Shepard’s brutal death, he was touched by the story so profoundly and viscerally that he knew almost immediately that he would need to respond to it, probably musically. At first, obviously, he was troubled by Matt’s murder and funeral; later he was troubled by the fact that Matt had become an icon and poster boy: he felt that deprived Matt of his individuality and personhood.

In a Colorado Public Radio interview, Johnson said he wanted to rescue Matt from the Matthew Shepard iconography and to give him back his voice and humanity. In terms of visual imagery, he said he didn’t want to leave Matt at the fence, forever a victim. As he got to know Matt’s parents, Judy and Dennis, he became increasingly committed to evoking Matt’s life and his legacy.

Ultimately, the question that most guided him was, In the face of such “confounding darkness’, how do we find our way back to love and the fullness of life? 

Johnson’s solution was to write a “passion oratorio.” I’m guessing that those two words may have musical or religious associations for some of you—or even both, and that they may create certain expectations in your mind about what you’re going to hear.

So before I say another word about them—and just to be transparent, we’re now transitioning to the third part of today’s talk--I’d like to play you the first few minutes of the first movement of this passion oratorio. And then to ask you to do a simple activity.

Here are the directions. Please listen to the piece, knowing that afterwards you’re going to choose one of these four questions and come up with your personal answer to it. After you hear the piece, I’ll give you a minute or two to gather your thoughts about one of these:

• What did you hear, and what did it make you think?
• What did you hear, and what did it make you wonder?
• What did you hear, and how did you feel about it?  
• How was what you heard like and unlike what you thought you’d hear?

Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass (First Four Minutes)

All.

Yoodle—ooh, yoodle-ooh-hoo, so sings a lone cowboy,

Who with the wild roses wants you to be free.

Cattle, Horses, Sky and Grass

Cattle, horses, sky and grass

These are the things that sway and pass

Before our eyes and through our dreams

Through shiny, sparkly, golden gleams

Within our psyche that find and know

The value of this special glow

That only gleams for those who bleed

Their soul and heart and utter need

Into the mighty, throbbing Earth

From which springs life and death and birth. 

So now here’s that minute to choose a question and develop your answer—you can do that by yourself, or talk to someone near you about what you’re thinking.

Are there 5 or 6 people who’d be willing to share their questions and answers, maybe something about the thinking behind them?

Well thank you for sharing your reactions with all of us. There’s one more reaction I’d like to share with you: it’s Stephen’s reaction. I love the way he talked about this in some of our email correspondence about this piece:

“. . . CMS begins by quoting Bach’s C Major Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, a simple piece, well-known to generations of piano students. CHJ says he chose this beginning for its simplicity and familiarity, but being Bach, it signals importance. He also wanted C major, the harmonic key in which CMS begins and ends. Do you remember C major? No sharps or flats. Is there a more accessible and welcoming key? The C major Prelude transitions into five glorious chords for the chorus, each setting the simple, monosyllabic word “All.” A big little word. Could the first word of the oratorio be more inclusive? These chords transition in turn to a simple yodeling cowboy tune evoking the yearning to be free, long associated with the American West. Simplicity, accessibility, inclusivity are all hallmarks of CMS.”

While “Cattle, Horses, Sky, and Grass” said nothing specific about Matthew Shepard, rest assured that CMS will do what passion oratorios do; tell a story of suffering and death, and provide some commentary, in the form of arias and choruses, to help us heal and grow from it.  

In the foreword to the choral score, music scholar Daniel Bara characterizes both Bach and Johnson as writers of contemporary passion oratorios: “And just as Bach structured his passion oratorios using multiple text sources and a blend of contemporary and “ancient” musical styles, so has Craig fashioned a new work, the breadth and diversity of whose textual and musical language, creates a tent vast enough to welcome the broadest of audiences.” 

Much as I like it when Bara reminds us that at some point, Bach was a contemporary composer, I do suspect that for some of you, the idea that the passion of Matt and the passion of Jesus Christ somehow equate in significance might be something you push back against. You should know that neither Johnson nor Matt’s parents ever intended to make Matt be seen as a Christ figure—but that didn’t stop some people from seeing crucifixion symbolism in Matt’s suffering on the fence. Especially, though, as Easter draws near, I did want to acknowledge what some of you might be feeling about this connection. 

Overall Structure 
So now that you’ve had a taste of the CMS’s first section, let’s talk about its overall structure.

CMS is divided into three major parts: a Prologue, the Passion, and an Epilogue. You heard the very beginning of the Prologue. “Ordinary Boy” (at 7:30) the second piece, is the one Johnson wrote to transform the icon Matt into the human being Matt. The third section (at 14:30) is about why we tell stories. After a soloist sings, the chorus vows to be open to the story about to be told.

The Passion is the story that’s told, and it’s the longest section of the piece. 

Actually, there are 32 numbered sections in CMS; #33 is a reprise of #1, so the whole piece ultimately circles back to its beginning. You can also see that there are ten numbered recitations—all of them in the Passion: they’re spoken by various people, rather than sung by one person, as they would be in Bach, and they provide most of the narration. 

Much, but not all, of the sung text comes from Leslea Newman’s poetry cycle called October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. I recommend her book to you—and also Dennis Michael Browne’s Voices, another source of the CMS text.

The piece that dramatizes the protest of the Westboro Baptist Church at Matt’s funeral is #9, and it’s called “A Protestor” (at 27:56). I’m not going to play it for you today—frankly, I think it’s important for you to hear it in the context of the whole piece, which you’ll be able to do on March 16. But I would like to say a few things about it. 

First of all, it alludes to, literally quotes, from two other choral works. The first is Benjamin Britten’s “This Little Babe” from Ceremony of Carols—Jesus is an infant warrior in that piece. And the second is one of the choruses in Bach’s St. John Passion. If you look at this music here, you can see “kreuzige,” the German word for “crucify,” is sung to one eighth note and 2 sixteenth notes: this is the exact same rhythm that the women sing these words in CMS. "Kreuzige, Kreuzige, Kreuzige, Kreuzige." Against the women’s soft yet persistent, insistent kreuzige, kreuzige accompaniment, the men sing the really hateful things said by the Westboro Baptist Church—and then laugh Matt to scorn. The piece then becomes calm, but not exactly gentle: #9 ends with the women of the Westboro Baptist Church putting their children to bed with a really chilling lullaby. 

I’m Jewish, and I have a sort of Jewish theory about why Johnson chose the St. John text: that part of the Gospel of St. John is often quoted by people who still believe that the Jews killed Jesus, and that was 26% of Americans in 2017, according to an Anti-Defamation League poll. I think that Johnson used this text to make sure CMS was about more than the power and danger of anti-gay hate only— I think he wanted it to be about the power and danger of all varieties of hate and hate crime. There’s so much significant layering in this piece, all in the name of making sure everyone is seen, acknowledged, and included.

So back to the CMS big picture. One thing that’s really interesting about CMS is that all the events that people don’t look forward to singing or hearing about happen relatively early in the piece. So if the ugliest, most violent parts of the story are over in the first third of the piece, what is the rest of the piece about? Just the resulting anger and pain?

* Photo to the left by Debi Milligan; part of her collection called "Laramie, Wyoming." Photo of statue below also by Debi Milligan, part of same collection.