Let These Things Be Written Down by Michael Burnett

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Let These Things Be Written Downby Michael
Burnett

• CSEC MUSIC
• SET WORK from 2011

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Background to the work Part One (1)

• Composer Michael Burnett
• When composed Between November 2006 and March
  2007
• Genre Cantata
• Length 90 minutes
• Significance Commemoration of the bicentenary of
  the British legislation abolishing the
  trans-Atlantic slave trade in Africans

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Background to the work Part Two (2)

• First performances
• (a) October 06, 2007 at the University of the
  West Indies Chapel, Kingston, Jamaica.
• (b) October 07, 2007 at the Civic Centre,
  Montego Bay, Jamaica.
• Participants Jamaica National Chorale, Methodist
  Chorale, University Singers, School of Music
  Choir and children from Cantabile and the Mona
  Preparatory School

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Overall Scoring Part One (1)

• Childrens Choir
• Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass (SATB) Choir
• Soprano and Bass Soloists
• Flute
• Keyboard
• Bass Guitar
• Rastafarian Drums (high-pitched repeater,
  medium-pitched fundeh and bass)

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Overall Scoring Part Two (2)

• Texts of relevance to slavery and its abolition
  have been taken from the following territories
• (a) Jamaica
• (b) Other Caribbean countries
• (c) England
• (d) United States of America (USA)

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Musical facts

• The work fuses traditional with contemporary and
  Western Classical devices.
• A classical flute is used to echo the traditional
  bamboo flute.

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Reviews by the Jamaica Gleaner and Jamaica
Observer newspapers

• a fusing of disparate (different) elements to
  convey displacement, brutality, agony and the
  ultimate soaring of the human spirit.

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Suite of Movements

• Part One (1)
• (a) Jane and Louisa
• (b) The Slave Singing at Midnight
• (c) The Bound
• Part Two (2)
• (a) Brown Baby Blues
• (b) Brown Girl in the Ring
• (c) Peace and Love
• (d) One People

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JANE AND LOUISABACKGROUND

• Jamaican traditional song
• Quotes music from first movement of cantata, the
  poem Epitaph by Dennis Scott describing a
  slaves hanging
• Words Am I not a man and a brother are taken
  from the Seal of the Anti-Slavery Society .

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JANE AND LOUISASCORING

1. Childrens choir
2. SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass) choir
3. Flute
4. Keyboard
5. Bass guitar

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JANE AND LOUISASTRUCTURE

• Four (4) sections A1, B,C, A2
• Final section is a repeat and development of the
  first.

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JANE AND LOUISASTRUCTURESECTION A (BARS 1-78)

• Three (3) verses are sung by Childrens choir
• Repetition of verse one (1) with interruption by
  entry of SATB choir.

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JANE AND LOUISASTRUCTURESECTION B (BARS 79-93)

• SATB (Adult) choir sings They hangd (hanged)
  him from Dennis Scotts poem, Epitaph.

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JANE AND LOUISASTRUCTURESECTION C (94-118)

• Bass solo ( 9 notes long) and soprano solo (10
  notes long) of melodic motif Am I not a
  man/woman and a brother/sister.
• Motif sung by choir then doubled in speed.

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The Slave Singing at MidnightBackground
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THE BOUND
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BROWN BABY BLUES
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BROWN GIRL IN THE RING
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PEACE AND LOVE
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ONE PEOPLE