Note
The Wilton Songs were written for cellist Arlen Hlusko and commissioned by Grace Farms in New Canaan, CT. In researching musical traditions in the region, I discovered a cache of recordings made in nearby Wilton of the Appalachian singer Aunt Molly Jackson by Alan and John Lomax in 1935. I was struck by the flexibility of Jackson’s voice, and her repertoire, which conveys a veritable catalogue of human tragedy: betrayal, isolation, lost love, murder. This music seemed to me less an aesthetic statement than a communal repository of stories, warnings, and consolations.
The first, “Frankie and Johnny” (sometimes “Frankie and Albert”) was a contemporary example of the murder ballad. Dating back to British Isles folk music of the 1600s, this form serves both as a kind of bardic crime blotter and as a way of distilling these events into clear moral parables. The other two songs are obscure; “Ten Thousand Miles” departs significantly from the well-known song of the same title, and the haunting lament “Poor Stranger” appears untraceable.
After spending many days listening to the source recordings, I transcribed them by memory, and then wrote continuous variations on those transcriptions, while layering in a scrim of “recording” noise. The result is music that is not so much quotation as it is a process of musical telephone—distorted memories of a time and place.
Purchase
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Wilton Songs score, print edition
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Wilton Songs score, PDF edition
11 pages, 9×12 format.
