CBA Ode to Joy

Program Notes A Jubilant Song

Norman Dello Joio (1913 - 2008) http://www.dellojoio.com

Composed in 1946, this song adapting Walt Whitman’s poem “A Song of Joys” is the first of at least eight more Dello Joio settings of Whitman poems in the composer’s lifetime. In the song, as in the original poem, the composer explores the relationship between body and soul and celebrates the ecstasy of experience and the joy of life. Generally, the piece is in three sections of different tempos– fast, slow, fast–with the fast tempos portraying the physical manifestations of joy and the slow middle section portraying the more abstract concepts of universal love and lofty ideals. A Jubilant Song features frequent meter changes and syncopation. In a 1985 interview Dello Joio observed of the amateur performers, the New York City high school students for whom he recalled originally writing A Jubilant Song: “It may not be the beauty of sound that you’ll get from an experienced professional group, but you’ll have a spirit of some kind that is into the thing, particularly with young people who are doing it for the love of the thing itself. They don’t let their personalities get in the way. A kind of spirit happens that is very refreshing at times. It’s an open-eyed quality that is enjoying itself just for the sake of doing it... With that particular work, kids love to do it; the text itself is so related to what I think feelings of young people are... it’s all about the stars, the Moon and getting outside yourself.” Noted American poet Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), like Dello Joio a native of New York City and a life-long resident, is perhaps best known for his Leaves of Grass, a collection of 300 poems. A Jubilant Song O! Listen to a jubilant song! O! Listen to a jubilant song! The joy of our spirit-it is uncaged, the joy of our spirit is uncaged, it darts like lightning! My soul it darts like lightning! Listen to a jubilant song, Listen to a jubilant song, For we sing to the joys of youth, and the joy of a glad light-beaming day. For we sing to the joy of life, and youth, and the joy of a glad light-beaming day. O! O! Our spirit sings O! Our spirit sings a jubilant song that is to life full of music, a life full of concord, of music, a life full of harmony. We sing prophetic joys, we sing prophetic joys of lofty ideals, lofty ideals. We sing a universal love awaking in the hearts of men. We sing prophetic joys we sing of lofty ideals— we sing of love,—of love—awaking in hearts of men,—of men—a universal love.

O! to have life, a poem of new joys, a poem of new joys, to shout! shout! shout! shout! shout! shout! shout! to dance, exult, to shout, and leap, to dance and exult, shout and leap.

30 ODE TO JOY