Chris Cresswell

Details:

Duration: 10 min
Instrumentation: high voice and 2 channel fixed media
Premiere: TBD

Program Notes:

In the Shadow of Great Times is a setting of a poem by Helen Goldbaum. Published in Poetry Magazine in September 1939, and presumably written earlier that year, Goldbaum’s poem captures the mundanity of living in exceptional times. I set the poem amidst an electronic backdrop that includes radio dramas, Laurel and Hardy films, news reports about events in Europe, and advertisements for Wonder Bread, all from 1939.

Despite my best efforts, I have found very little biographical information for Ms. Goldbaum. She published a handful of poems in Poetry magazine in the late 1930s and early 1940s. I found an article from 1936 about a Helen Goldbaum, presumably the same one, who had been named one of seven “outstanding” student poets in the United States. That would suggest she was in her early 20’s when she wrote this poem.

The lack of information lends even more of every day quality to her writing. They are observations from a poetic, intelligent, but otherwise ordinary individual. Observations that are as relevant today as they were when they were written.

Audio:

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