Bridge | Fragments | Ecstasy

(Hart Crane)

Download this Score and/or Parts

Enter a valid email address to unlock your download.

Program Notes

Everyone seeks happiness – but their definition of what that might entail varies widely. While I am not a religious person, the search for some ecstatic state of being that seems to be at the core of Hart Crane’s poem “The Bridge” always resonated with me. His own life was a shambles – a perpetual struggle with his dysfunctional parents, inability to achieve his unbounded poetic ambitions, self-acceptance of his intense bi-sexuality, compounded by uncontrolled alcoholism. In his epic poem of America, Crane employed the Brooklyn Bridge as an ever-unfolding expansive metaphor for nearly every form of connection – geographical, historical, physical, emotional, metaphysical. The language is often rhapsodic, perhaps out of hope that through such intensity of language, the author might free himself from his demons and become one with the world.

This music sets three fragments from “The Bridge” that struck me as most indicative of this great ambition. While it may have been personal to Crane, it is a universal desire, common to all humankind.

MIDI rendition of BRIDGE | FRAGMENTS | ECSTASY

Support Original Music

Consider making a donation of any amount to help support this composer's work.