Can(n)ons of Freedom
Chris Brubeck
In 1775 a group of courageous colonists decided that they would risk everything to live free and not yield to the dictatorial control and disruptive whims of a king! This is the original spirit of resistance that led to the Revolutionary War, our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and an unending quest for a truly democratic republic. But these grand ideals had to be backed up by bold action. Charles Peltz, the Music Director of the Glens Falls Symphony, has collaborated with me on other patriotic orchestral works and asked me to compose a new work to celebrate an incredible chapter in our military history that surprised the world in the early days of The American War of Independence.
George Washington’s all-volunteer army was vastly outnumbered and outgunned by England's professional military’s occupation of Boston. However, Washington's generals came up with an ingenious plan; capture the lightly defended Fort Ticonderoga and “repurpose” the 59 cannons, mortars and ammunition. Bolder yet, construct large sleds, powered by teams of oxen and horses to haul the tons of cannons across a frozen Lake George, then pull the heavy artillery over the icy, hard ground, sliding over the cushioning snow left by “providential" blizzards across New York State and Massachusetts. The ragtag caravan struggled all the way to the hills above Boston where the British were stationed as the occupying force. This entire military operation was conducted in secret and only when the British Army woke up to see the stolen cannons from Ticonderoga pointing down on them from Dorchester Heights in March of 1776 did the Redcoats realize they were outwitted, outmaneuvered and forced to retreat from Boston Harbor with over 9,000 troops. In modern parlance the British Army and Navy were caught with their pants down and with great humiliation had to sail out of Boston. The British Empire was humbled and King George III was apoplectic about the audacity of George Washington and our all-volunteer army. He would have his revenge!
To paint this revolutionary story with music, I employ timpani with glissando pedals, bass drum, military snare and field drum rhythms, layered with low brass and strings to evoke the cannon-hauling over the frozen New England 300-mile route. Some melodic ideas are inspired by authentic fife and drum corps tunes played during the Revolutionary War. In music, a canon is a repeating musical theme that folds back in on itself very much like a round. So there are two kinds of Can(n)ons represented with this new work. The sounds and compositional techniques work together to salute those patriotic warriors, in most cases just a generation beyond immigrating from Europe in order to find freedom and opportunity in the American Colonies. As our country looks forward in 2026 to its 250th birthday, it is important to look to the past and honor the history of our founding fathers, clever and educated patriots, who fought alongside brave farmers and tradesmen who made the highest sacrifices. They left their families behind to serve the high ideals of a nation based on laws and guaranteed freedoms. Collectively, our American ancestors worked together and pushed our newborn democracy into a revolutionary reality. Their stunning story is the musical inspiration for “Can(n)ons of Freedom.”
-Chris Brubeck- Danbury CT, December, 2025
Blades of Grass was inspired by the poem Grass by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967):
Pile the bodies high at Austerliz and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work-
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Sandburg's poem addresses several aspects of war, among which the incalculable cost in human lives and the ease with which later generations forget that cost are forefront. Grass was published in 1918 after the end of World War I in the collection Cornhuskers. Sandburg was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for that body of work.
On September 11, 2001, I was teaching my music theory class at the Juilliard School, when we were notified of the catastrophe that was occurring several miles south of us in Manhattan. Gathering around a radio in the school's library, we heard the events unfold in shock and disbelief. Afterwards, walking up Broadway on the sun-filled day, the street was full of silent people, all quickly heading to their homes. During the next several days, our great city became a landscape of empty streets and impromptu, heartbreaking memorials mourning our lost citizens, friends and family. But then on Friday, a few days later, the city seemed to have been transformed. On this evening, walking up Broadway, I saw multitudes of people holding candles, singing songs, and gathering in front of those memorials, paying tribute to the lost, becoming a community of citizens of this city, of this country and of this world, leaning on each other for strength and support.
A Hymn for the Lost and the Living portrays those painful days following September 11th, days of supreme sadness. It is intended to be a memorial for those lost souls, gone from this life, but who are forever treasured in our memories.
A Hymn for the Lost and the Living was commissioned by and is dedicated to the U.S. Air Force Heritage of America Band, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, Major Larry H. Lang, director.
- Program Note by composer
Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America in 1918 while serving in the U.S. Army at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, but decided that it did not fit in a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank, so he set it aside. The lyrics at that time included the line "Make her victorious on land and foam, God bless America..." as well as "Stand beside her and guide her to the right with the light from above".
In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Irving Berlin, who was Jewish and had arrived in America from Russia at the age of five, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song," and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show.
God Bless America takes the form of a prayer (intro lyrics "as we raise our voices, in a solemn prayer") for God's blessing and peace for the nation ("...stand beside her and guide her through the night...").
- Program Note from Wikipedia
Prayer of Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali—literally "song offerings"—is a collection of poems that earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In "Gitanjali 35," Tagore imagines a world where the mind is without fear, where knowledge is free, where words come out from the depth of truth. The repeated "where" keeps the poem suspended: we move through a series of seven visions without knowing exactly where they lead. Only in the final line do we discover that Tagore has been offering a prayer.
The line that first spoke to me was "Where words come out from the depth of truth." I built the piece around the sound of that "where." The opening and closing chord consists of two perfect fifths, stacked a semitone apart. The perfect fifth is among the most stable intervals in Western music; yet placed against its neighboring fifth, it becomes strangely unsettled. It is stable, but we do not quite know where it belongs. I think of it as the "where chord." The harmony makes audible what the poem leaves unanswered: where? The question remains open.
Tagore wrote these words in the context of India's struggle for independence, but their questions of fear, freedom, truth, and human possibility continue to resonate—perhaps even more vividly today. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to set this extraordinary text for Korliss Uecker and Tammy Hensrud; for the wonderful Bismarck-Mandan Civic Chorus, led by Tom Porter; for my friend Beverly Everett; and for the wonderful Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra. Thank you, Bismarck!
- Emerson Eads, composer