The Mad Farmer Revolution (2007)

Art song with words by Wendell Berry
for voice and piano (or guitar)
5 min.

Alternate Version (2008)
voice, piano or guitar, acoustic bass, and drum set

Voice + piano

March 15, 2007, San Francisco Conservatory Recital Hall

Brittany Hicks, soprano
Carl Pantle, piano

Quartet

May 17, 2008, San Francisco Conservatory Salon

Brittany Hicks, soprano
Mike Roberts, guitar
Tigran Nersissian, bass
Brad Harbidge, drums

Notes

My entry to the SFCM Art Song Competition of 2007 (First Prize). I love Wendell Berry, and never more so than when he tells a crazy story like this one. Quirky, mysterious, and altogether magical, The Mad Farmer sucked me right in. I liked it so much that I wrote a version of it for guitar, then for piano, then rewrote the one for guitar, and finally a version for quartet. Lucky for me, Mr. Berry has plenty more Mad Farmer poems to inspire future tinkering.

Text

from Farming: A Handbook by Wendell Berry

The mad farmer, the thirsty one,
went dry. When he had time
he threw a visionary high
lonesome on the holy communion wine.
"It is an awesome event
when an earthen man has drunk
his fill of the blood of a god,"
people said, and got out of his way.
He plowed the churchyard, the
minister's wife, three graveyards
and a golf course. In a parking lot
he planted a forest of little pines.
He sanctified the groves,
dancing at night in the oak shades
with goddesses. He led
a field of corn to creep up
and tassel like an Indian tribe
on the courthouse lawn. Pumpkins
ran out to the ends of their vines
to follow him. Ripe plums
and peaches reach into his pockets.
Flowers sprang up in his tracks
everywhere he stepped. And then
his planter's eye fell on
that parson's fair fine lady
again. "O holy plowman," cried she,
"I am all grown up in weeds.
Pray, bring me back into good tilth."
He tilled her carefully
and laid her by, and she
did bring forth others of her kind,
and others, and some more.
They sowed and reaped till all
the countryside was filled
with farmers and their brides sowing
and reaping. When they died
they became two spirits of the woods.