On the Setting up Mr. Butler's Monument in Westminster Abbey Epitaph (from Epigrams, Epitaphs) – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: Samuel Wesley (1691-1739)

Instrumentation: SATB, 4-hand piano

Duration: c 3:00]

Date Written:  1987

Composer’s note: Epigrams, Epitaphs was commissioned in 1986 by the Grand Rapids [MN] Area Community Chorus, which wanted a new work for a program that also included the Liebeslieder Waltzes. This was the impetus for the four-hand piano accompaniment as well as the inspiration for the fourth song, stylistically an homage to Brahms. Looking for texts, I found Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” and fell in love with it. This poem sets the tone for the entire work; all of the texts deal in some way with death (of beauty, of the poet, of two dickey-birds), thus the occasional use of the piano as a great tolling bell. The first three poems are also brief enough to be epigrams, hence the title.

Samuel Wesley’s “On the Setting up Mr. Butler’s Monument in Westminster Abbey” comments ironically on the proposed placement of a monument to poet Samuel Butler (1613-1680) in Westminster Abbey. Despite being the author of a much-celebrated satirical poem, he died a pauper and a servant—his burial and the monument were paid for by others. Great bells in the accompaniment and mournfully solemn melodic lines ostentatiously immortalize a poet who never quite achieved financial security and independence while alive.

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text

On the Setting up Mr. Butler’s Monument in Westminster Abbey
While Butler, needy wretch! Was yet alive,
No gen’rous patron would a dinner give:
See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust!
The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown:
He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
Samuel Wesley (1691-1739)