Background

“The protagonist, simply, is the prairie, but through this poem the prairie grows until it becomes the symbol for the all-embracing principle of growth itself.”

“I was born on the prairie.” With these words Carl Sandburg began his extraordinary journey through the landscapes and lives of the American Midwest in his 1918 work “Cornhuskers.” Sandburg gave voice to the dust and loam, the generations of men and women that were swept up by successions of change as America adjusted to life as an industrialized society.

20 years later, Lukas Foss made his own extraordinary journey. Uprooted with his family from the trauma of the Third Reich and in love with America, Foss found inspiration in the horizons and mountains of Sandburg’s poems. He set “Prairie,” a poem in “Cornhuskers,” for chorus, soloists, and orchestra. When it was introduced by Serge Koussevitzy and the Boston Symphony in 1943, Mr. Foss was only 21. He was immediately hailed as a major talent.

"The Prairie" has not been performed in the New York area for over 30 years, and is neglected in the repertoires of most orchestras and choruses. To revive it, and to honor Lukas Foss on his 85th birthday, two performances will be given on June 28 at Lincoln Center and July 7 in Bridgehampton, NY under Conductor Mark Mangini by the combined choruses of the Choral Society of the Hamptons and the Greenwich Village Singers, the Brooklyn Philharmonic (of which Foss was music director for many years), and soloists Elizabeth Farnum, soprano, Julia Spanja, mezzo-soprano, Gerard Powers, tenor, and Robert Osborne, bass-baritone.

On May 15, 1944, when the legendary American choral conductor Robert Shaw presented the world première of Lukas Foss’s The Prairie, the printed program included the composer’s own prologue:¹

"The attempt to develop an oratorio style based on the American soil and spirit is not new, but Sandburg’s epic poem, it seems to me, offers new possibilities in its earthy and almost religious approach. It is a new expression of an old faith drawn from the native soil. The protagonist, simply, is the prairie, but through this poem the prairie grows until it becomes the symbol for the all-embracing principle of growth itself. "

Foss has written the following about the themes and structure of his cantata:

"The opening movement, which has the nature of a prologue, speaks of the prairie as we are accustomed to visualize it. The author, in a pastoral tenor solo, sings of open valleys and far horizons, and the music breathes fresh air. "

After this pastoral introduction, a fugue is heard in the orchestra, above which the chorus takes up a new theme in the manner of a chorale. This is the voice of the prairie: “I am here when the cities are gone. I am here before the cities come. ... I am dust of men. ... I who have seen the red births and the red deaths of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.”

As a complete contrast, a folk-like movement follows, but the melodies remain original throughout the work, no native tunes having been used. With the re-entry of the chorus, the prairie becomes “mother of men, waiting.” Then the author reaches far back into the past and we see the cities rising on the prairie, out of the prairie, while the chorus chants of the years when the red and the white man met. A male voice calls out: “To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake; I say to him: ‘Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short.’”

In rugged 5/4 and 7/4 rhythms follows what may be styled the industrial section, ending with a fugue for male voices on the words: “What brothers these in the dark of a thousand years.”

A lyrical intermezzo brings us back to the prairie. This consists of a short a cappella chorus, “Cool Prayers,” a soprano song, “O Prairie Girl,” and a scherzando duet, “Songs Hidden in Eggs.” These are held together by a dreamy little shepherd’s lay, a nostalgic woodwind refrain of the prairie.

The tenor’s voice introduces the seventh and last section, and everyone joins in the final hymn to the future, expressing the healthy and sunny optimism unique to this country: “I speak of new cities and new people. I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes. ... I tell you there is nothing in the world, only an ocean of tomorrows.”

Thus, having opened to us the past and the present, the prairie announces the future, “Tomorrow is a day.”

Text adapted by the composer from Carl Sandburg’s “The Prairie.”

1 Anecdote cited by Eldonna L. May in “Family Values Revisited: A Critical Analysis of Lukas Foss’ The Prairie,” a paper presented at the 19th Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists (October 19-21, 2005).  Courtesy of The Providence Singers.

2 Cited in Robert Bagar and Louis Biancolli, The Concert Companion, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc.; ©1947 by The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York), pp. 267-268. Courtesy of The Providence Singers.