The UYMP office is operating very limited hours while the staff remain on furlough. You can still obtain music from our catalogue in the usual way, from Musicroom.com, and hire from our agent Wise Music Classical. Please contact UYMP composers directly, via their own websites, if you have any queries.

Cover

I _ the body electric

male singer and a male speaker playing a piano or another instrument

Philip Venables

How to buy

979-0-57036-192-2 Songs for the Twenty-First Century – Score Available at MusicRoom Buy now (£17.95)

Description

Part of the Songs for the Twenty-First Century collection

A collection of 15 songs for voice and accompaniment

Find out about the collection

I sing the body electric takes cuttings from Walt Whitman’s much longer poem called I sing the body electric. I’ve parsed out the emotive words from the text and ‘beeped’ them out using an instrument. The ‘censored’ text is read aloud while the emotive words that had been removed are re-inserted into the sung part. As a result, Walt Whitman’s ‘monologue’, written over 100 years ago, becomes a dialogue between two men, bringing out the brave and rebellious carnal aspects of the text – and, hopefully, a little tender romance.

Details

Categories
Duration
5 minutes
Libretto/text
Walt Whitman
Scoring
1 Piano, 1 Speaker, 1 Male Voice, 1 Unspecified Ensemble
Composition date
2010