I Saw Without Eyes (1994) · 3 min
for baritone and piano
baritone (voice), piano
Composed in partial fulfillment for the University of California, Berkeley qualifying exam
Program Note
I Saw Without Eyes was assigned as part of my qualifying exams by composer John Thow, while working towards my Ph.D.at the University of California, Berkeley. As I had mostly composed instrumental music to that point, Professor Thow wanted to see what I could accomplish with a work for piano and voice (he would also assign me Aaron Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson for my oral exam).
If I recall correctly, we had one week to complete this composition assignment. I decided to set a poem of my father, Paul Anthony De Ritis:
I saw without eyes
that music speaks
a thousand scenes in
a thousand notes tormenting…
With good ear I heard
tympanies boom hope,
cymbals crash doom,
Yes, I heard
war and I heard peace.
Mothers I saw and babies
faceless images meaning
will-o-the wisps whispering
in the wind.
Let us whisper a great breath
that shouts out,
“Give us perpetual life!”
.. or we die …