SATB
Dedicated to the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima, this poignant work is sung in both English and Japanese, and is an excellent choice for concerts in remembrance of the victims of war, or for Veteran’s or Memorial Day performances.
Also available for chorus and organ, chorus and string quintet, or chorus and chamber ensemble.
Program Note
Over the City was commissioned by the Unitarian Universalist National Consortium to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. On the anniversary date, August 6, 1995, it was simultaneously premiered in 30 cities across the US.
The lyrics are by Molly McGee, a Seattle poet who lived in Japan for many years. She writes: “The text for Over the City is derived from an actual experience. During my two-year stay in Japan I had traveled down to Nagasaki and visited the bomb museum there and ate, it seems, some bad fish from a little food stall. I had planned to stop off in Hiroshima on the way back to Kobe, but on route became extremely ill. By the time I reached Hiroshima the conductor had encamped me in his little office on the train (a retching foreigner is rather noticeable in Japan). All I remember of Hiroshima is the brief sight of it through the window and my garbled emotions, compounded by food poisoning. Only later did I equate that historical date, August 6th, in Hiroshima with my own illness — the symptoms of food poisoning strangely mocking those of radiation sickness.
World War II is often referred to as “the good war.” But it was horrible, as all wars are. There were atrocities on all sides. Even if the rationale is true, as the purveyors of Realpolitik assert (that the war ended earlier due to our dropping of the atomic bomb), it is nevertheless, a legacy in which we can never, in any way, take pride. Human beings, most of whom had very little control over the conduct of the war, were savagely slaughtered. The “hibakusha” (survivors of the Bomb) and their descendants continue to suffer today and are often ostracized by their own communities. The Bomb was so horrific that “no one” wants to remember it. Even those who died are left “homeless.” So, fifty years later, it is so important that we take time to be reconciled with the more than 200,000 men, women and children who lost their lives.”
Notes on preparation and performance
Over the City is available in three different instrumental scorings, to suit various needs – SATB with organ, SATB with cello and piano, or SATB with chamber ensemble (2 vln, vla, vcl, db, fl, cl, pno). The choral parts are identical in all three scorings.
Text
Late night and the train stops in Hiroshima. A new snow covers our postwar years. And high above the city I see lost constellations, voiceless fears, inflamed emptiness.
Does Hiroshma deluge our memory? Only disfigured souls find glory in it. Our own extinction becomes so clear when we see another’s face reflected in a train window.
Soon, Hiroshima, the modern consequence, will be left behind the train. And I, born after that long, hot day, open up a window, to let in the cool ash-like snow, believing that the act of remembrance can shelter the homeless dead.
wasurenai koto ga the act of not forgetting
ikiba no nai shi no the dead without homes
yuki tokoro to naru can become shelter
Reviews
“…a superb work of the utmost sensitivity and beauty.” Gil Seeley, conductor