Peter McIlwain: Songless And Waiting

Abstract

And now on a little island tenuous in a hungry sea we sit on the shore songless and waiting for the tide to come in. Part of the impetus for composing Songless and Waiting is a response to an ongoing personal dilemma about the relevance of art at the end of the 20th century. It is often hard to feel that art has much of a voice left now at the end of a century in which it has been so prominent and in which it has done so much. And given the problems facing the people of the world, it is reasonable to question whether composing music at this time might not be a bit like fiddling while Rome burns. The poem above (which is another face of the piece) comments on this dilemma. It is also a lament for the future.