Let These Things Be Written Down

Michael Burnett
Comus Edition
Background to the work
First performances
The cantata Let These Things Be Written Down was composed by Michael Burnett
between November 2006 and March 2007. The work lasts about 90 minutes, and was
written for performance in Jamaica during October 2007 in commemoration of the
legislation abolishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Africans. The composer
directed the first performances which took place in the University of the West Indies
Chapel, Kingston on 6 October, and in the Civic Centre, Montego Bay, on 7 October.
The performances involved participants from the Jamaican National Chorale,
Methodist Chorale, University Singers, and School of Music Choir who were joined
by children from Cantabile and the choir of Mona Preparatory School. Reviews in the
Jamaica Gleaner and Jamaica Observer were appreciative; indeed Let These Things
Be Written Down was described as fusing disparate elements to convey displacement,
brutality, agony and the ultimate soaring of the human spirit and of heart-wrenching
immediacy. Michael Burnetts links with Jamaica go back to the 1980s when he was
seconded from Roehampton University, London, to the University of the West Indies
and the Jamaica School of Music for a period of three years.
Scoring
Let These Things Be Written Down consists of settings of Jamaican, other Caribbean,
English and US texts of relevance to the issue of slavery and its abolition, and it is
scored for Childrens Choir, SATB Choir, Soprano and Bass Soloists, Flute,
Keyboard, Bass Guitar and Rastafarian Drums.
The work fuses traditional melodies and harmonies with contemporary riff and
western classical devices, yet it is readily performable by choral groups large and
small. A classical flute is used in the score to echo the use in Jamaican and Caribbean
traditional music of the bamboo flute. In addition, the Rastafarian drum parts (using
high-pitched repeater, medium-pitched fundeh and bass instruments) are designed to
be improvised using a number of simple rhythmic ideas as starting points.
Publisher
Michael Burnetts cantata Let These Things Be Written Down is published by Comus
Edition, Heirs House Lane, Colne, Lancashire BB8 9TA, UK
www.comusedition.com A vocal score, full score and individual instrumental parts
are available. Copies may be ordered direct the publisher or from Michael Burnett
www.rhinogfawr@hotmail.com
Significance of the work
The issues raised in Let These Things Be Written Down are of immense and
continuing significance. These issues have relevance to all societies and Michael

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Burnetts cantata provides the means by which musicians can focus upon them in
performance. The dramatic and heartfelt melodies and harmonies set texts of real
importance in such a way as to ensure that audiences respond positively to the issues.
Suite of movements
The following movements from Let These Things Be Written Down have been
selected for study in relation to the CSEC Paper 1, Section 3:
Part 1: a) Jane and Louisa (vocal score pp16-25)
b) The Slave Singing at Midnight (pp26-28)
c) The Bound (pp28-33)
Part 2: a) Brown Baby Blues (pp48-55) (2nd edn pp47-54)
b) Brown Girl in the Ring (pp59-67) (2nd edn pp58-65)
c) Peace and Love (pp67-72) (2nd edn pp66-71)
d) One People (pp84-98) (2nd edn pp83-97)
Part 1:
a) Jane and Louisa (pp16-25)
Background
Jane and Louisa is a Jamaican traditional song, the melody and style of which
derive from 19th Century English dance-hall song repertoire and are related to the
waltz.
The movement quotes musical material from the first movement of the cantata, a
setting of the poem Epitaph by Dennis Scott which describes the hanging of a
slave.
The words Am I not a man and a brother? are taken from the Seal of the AntiSlavery Society reproduced by Wedgwood (1787).
Scoring
Childrens choir
SATB choir
Flute, keyboard, bass guitar
Structure
The movement is in four sections (A1, B, C, A2) with the final section being a
repeat and development of the first.
Section A1 (bars 1-78): The childrens choir sings three verses of Jane and
Louisa, followed by a repetition of verse 1 which is interrupted by the entry of the
SATB choir.
Section B (bars 79-93): The adult choir sings the words They hangd him, from
Dennis Scotts poem.
Section C (bars 94-118): Bass and soprano soloists each sing a melodic motif,
respectively nine or ten notes long, to the words Am I not a man/woman and a
brother/sister? The motif is taken up by the choir, doubled in speed, and built to a
dynamic climax.
Section A2 (bars 119-192): The childrens and SATB choirs together sing the first
verse of Jane and Louisa. The melody and words of the second verse are sung by
the tenors accompanied by altos and tenors. Verse 3 is sung by both choirs with
SATB voices in unison, the final phrase Into this beautiful garden being

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developed so as to form a coda. The movement ends with a repetition of the words
Jane and Louisa.
Harmonic and melodic style
The movement opens with a five-bar long instrumental motif, in unison, which
recurs during Sections A and A2. This motif is characterised by its use of G# (in
the context of a traditional song in the key of D major) thus giving it the feel of
the Lydian mode (in its simplest form the white notes F to F on the keyboard). The
keyboard writing during Sections A and A2 generally adopts the oom-pah-pah
style of a waltz accompaniment. Here the writing is diatonic with consistent use of
the following dissonances in the harmonic texture:
Major and minor seconds;
Major and minor sevenths
In Section A, during verse three of Jane and Louisa, the childrens choir is divided
into two groups, each of which sing the melody, with group 2 starting four bars
after group 1 (ie the choir sings the melody as a round). This produces some
consonant effects (eg the major and minor thirds in bars 45, 49-51 and 55) but also
some dissonant ones (the major and minor seconds in bars 52-54, minor sevenths
at bars 44 and 48).
The accompaniment during Section B is characterised by its use of continuous,
low-pitched E crotchets. These are played with an emphasis on the fourth beat of
each 4/4 bar, an emphasis derived from mento, Jamaicas national dance-song.
The choral writing during Section B is initially imitative, with the parts entering in
SATB order, with each part singing either an ascending, or a descending, version
of a three-note motif set to the words They hangd him. The short section ends
with a homophonic setting of the words which is derived from a combination of
the original SATB versions of the motif.
The three-bar long motif Am I not a man/woman and a brother/sister? (Section
C) is characterised by its use of 1) the Aeolian mode with its minor third omitted
(the mode can be played in its simplest version as the white-note keyboard scale A
to A; 2) perfect fourths (first and third bars); 3) an assertive opening phrase which
moves from a low tonic note to the tonic an octave above.
Tonal centres
Section A1: D (the prominent use of G# in the opening/linking keyboard motif
gives a strong sense of the Lydian mode)
Section B: E (the prominent use melodically of the semitone interval E to F gives
a strong sense of the Phrygian mode or white notes E to E on the keyboard)
Section C: D (ends with a move to E)
Section A2: D (as Section A)
Time signatures and tempi
Jane and Louisa (Section A1) uses a 3/4 time signature and is by origin a waltz
melody. It is marked Not too fast in the score and accordingly taken at a steady
pace in performance.
Sections B and C each use a 4/4 time signature. They are marked respectively
Slower and Freely.
Sections B and C each end climatically with a crescendo and a rallentando.
Section A2 contains a rallentando in bars 184-185 followed by a short, a tempo,
section.

b) The Slave Singing at Midnight (pp26-28)

Background
The Slave Singing at Midnight is taken from Voices of the Night; The Seaside and
the Fireside; and Other Poems, an illustrated collection of poems, ballads, songs
and sonnets by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). The collection
contains a section of eight poems, written during October 1842, which make
explicit Longfellows desire for the abolition of slavery in America. In the first of
these, he calls upon the well-known abolitionist William Channing to continue
with his anti-slavery campaign
until this land revokes
The old and chartered Lie
The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes
Insult humanity.
The Slave Singing at Midnight is the fourth of the poems and consists of six fourline stanzas redolent of the verses of a hymn. For the purposes of Let These
Things Be Written Down the third verse of Wordsworths poem is omitted and the
first is repeated after the last verse.
Scoring
4-part SATB choir with the childrens choir singing with the sopranos
(unaccompanied).
Sopranos, altos and aenors are divided into two parts (S1 & 2, A1 & 2, T 1 & 2)
during the final two bars, the basses into two parts (B 1 & 2) during the last bar.
Structure
Verses 1-5 are each 8 bars long.
The 6th verse consists of a repetition of the words and music of verse 1. However,
following bar 7 the verse is extended by transposition and development, and by
repetition of the words sang of Zion, so as to create a short coda and a final verse
of a total length of 12 bars.
Harmonic and melodic style
The choral writing is homophonic in style (i.e. hymn-like), with the harmonic
movement being predominantly on the crotchets of each bar with some quaver
passing notes in the tenor and bass parts.
The words are set mostly on the basis of one syllable per crotchet, again as is the
norm in hymn-tunes.
The writing is predominantly four-part although sopranos and tenors sing in
unison, an octave apart, during the penultimate bar of each verse.
The melody is consistently in the soprano part and is marked by the use of an
uneven quaver/dotted crotchet rhythm on the third and fourth beats of bars 2, 4
and 7 of each verse.
The writing is diatonic with consistent use of the following dissonances in the
harmonic texture:
Major and minor seconds;
Major and minor sevenths
Tonal centre
G

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Time signature and tempo
The Slave Singing at Midnight uses a 4/4 time signature and is taken at a steady
pace in performance.
The movement ends climatically with a crescendo and a rallentando.
c) The Bound (pp28-33)
Background
The Bound is taken from Derek Walcotts epic poem Omeros, which was
published in 1990. Walcott was born in 1930 in St Lucia and was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. The texts which form the movement are from
parts 4 and 28 of Omeros and tell of how the enslaved, who founded no cities yet
became the found, who were bound for no victories yet became the bound, and
who levelld nothing before them yet became the ground, survived their
enslavement in a feat of epical splendour.
Scoring
Soprano solo
Bass solo
Keyboard
Structure
The movement is in ternary form (A1, B, A2) with the final section being a repeat
and development of the first.
Section A1 (bars 1-27):
Section B (bars 28-78):
Section A2 (bars 79-105):
Harmonic and melodic style
The vocal writing is generally imitative in style, the two voices sharing similar
melodic motifs supported by the keyboard, which at times sustains long pedal
notes and at others provides harmonic momentum, moving predominantly in
crotchets and minims.
The words are set mostly on the basis of one syllable per crotchet, with the phrase
Who levelld nothing before them (bars 56-58) being sung, not in imitation on
this occasion, but in unison . However, at the climax of the movement (There is
the epical splendour, bars 69-73) the two voices enter and exit together, each
singing a long melismatic phrase to the first syllable of the word epical. During
this phrase the two voices continue the use of rhythmic and melodic imitation but
finally sing a motif, consisting of descending perfect fourths (E, B, F#) in unison,
before harmonising the word splendour.
The writing in Section A is predominantly diatonic with the phrase Herdsman
haieing cattle making use of the pentatonic scale C, D, E, G, A (haieing means
calling in a melodic fashion).
In Section B the writing is more chromatic, with F# and B flat featuring in the
bass phrases Who set out to found no cities and Who were bound, were bound
for no victories (bars 20-22, 37-39, tonality C) and F# and G# featuring in the
sopranos singing of the same phrases (transposed up a tone) in response (bars 2426, 41-43, tonality D).
The extension of Section A2 takes the form of a setting of the phrase Let these
things be written down sung by the two soloists. The phrase is taken from the
poem Valediction by the Jamaican writer W. Adolphe Roberts (1886-1962), and

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it provides the title of Michael Burnetts cantata since it is used several times more
during the work as the equivalent of a Leitmotif (the German word used to
describe a recurring, short melodic and/or harmonic figure of distinctive
character).
This figure consists of 1) an upper vocal line which starts with three tonic notes
before moving, stepwise, up and then down a minor third to the final tonic and 2)
a lower vocal line which moves, stepwise, down three tones followed by a
semitone before moving upwards using the same series of intervals to reach the
final tonic.
The downward and upward sequence of tones is reminiscent of the whole-tone
scale (in full, downwards, C, B flat, A flat, G flat, E, D, C).
The setting of W. Adolphe Roberts phrase recurs in the following movements: no
5 (Heart Music) bars 204-210 (tonal centre D: sung by the SATB choir, with
sopranos and tenors singing the upper line, and altos and basses singing the lower
line, in unison an octave apart); no 12 (One People) bars 184-190 (tonal centre E:
sung by the SATB choir as before).
Tonal centres
Section A1: C
Section B: F, E
Section A2: C
Time signatures and tempo
The Bound uses a 4/4 time signature except for in bar 72, where is used to
emphasise the important word epical. The movement is marked Unhurried and
rallentandos occur at bars 26-27, 43-44 and 102-105.