Emotion and Drama in Lament for the Stolen (1938)

The March/April 2024 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “Emotion and Drama in Lament for the Stolen (1938)” by Dan Wessler. Following is a portion from the article.
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In 1930, wealthy Philadelphia socialite Sophie Drinker joined a small women’s chorus called the Montgomery Singers and immediately asserted control, moving rehearsals to her house and developing strict dual criteria for choosing repertoire. First, it must have been written for women’s chorus (not originally for SATB or men’s chorus and alternately arranged for women) and second, it must express what she considered to be genuinely feminine sentiment.2 As she witnessed the complex web of burdens, emotions, and responsibilities put upon women during the Great Depression, she inevitably felt the need to give it musical voice. Then, in 1932, a tragic event occurred that would dominate the consciousness—and news cycle—of the nation for over four years and add further anxiety to the already-burdened experience of American women: the infant son of world-famous military officer and aviator Charles Lindbergh and wife, Anne, was kidnapped for ransom and eventually found murdered.

Six years later, on back-to-back concerts on the evenings of December 30 and 31, 1938, the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered Lament for the Stolen, a thirty-minute, single-movement work for women’s chorus and symphony orchestra, with music by Harl McDonald and poetry by Katherine Garrison Chapin, commissioned by Sophie Drinker.3 Here was a musical work written for a chorus of women, with original poetry reflecting the anxieties, fears, burdens, and hopes of women and mothers in America at a time when those feelings were at a boiling point. The work was performed again shortly after, on May 15, 1940, by the Brico Junior Symphony Orchestra at White Plains High School in New York.4 No evidence of any other performance exists.

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Read the full article in the March/April 2024 issue of Choral Journal. acda.org/choraljournal