O, For Such a Dream (2006)

For Soprano Solo, Mixed Chorus (SATB) and Keyboard

Year: 1996

Duration: 4’

Text: Letter of Ann Smith to her husband David, August 16, 1864 (E)

First Performance: 21 June 2007 / Louisville, KY / Festive Voices / Roger Lamb

Publisher: E.C. Schirmer | Purchase

Program Note;

During the summer of 1990 in Sweet Briar, Virginia, as the United States began moving armed forces into the Gulf, Hagen set words from a letter of 16 August 1864 from Ann Smith to her husband David that underlined the human toll taken by the prosecution of war. The resulting song was part of a cycle for soprano, flute, and piano entitled Dear Youth. Sixteen years later, Robin Bourguignon, the soprano who first sang Dear Youth, asked Hagen to choose one of the songs to reinterpret for mixed chorus. He chose O, for Such a Dream, the text for which he originally drew from Who Only Stand and Wait: Civil War Letters of David and Ann Smith, 1863- 1865 (ed. by H. C. Phelan. Almond, NY: 1990) because, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.