COMPOSER'S NOTE

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a rhapsody for voice and orchestra which I adapted from the famous poem by T.S. Eliot. It makes its premiere at The National Philharmonic at Strathmore under the direction of conductor Piotr Gajewski.

Composed for the beautiful lyric voice of soprano Danielle Talamantes, Prufrock embodies a modern musical language that makes use of eclecticism while also suggesting the familiar symphonic American vernacular of 20th century composers like Howard Hanson, Samuel Barber, and Leonard Bernstein. 

In his essay on my work, musicologist James Melo notes: 

"Henry Dehlinger has been one of the most successful practitioners of polystylism, a distinctly 21st-century musical style that draws from multiple influences, genres, traditions, and techniques...

"In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Dehlinger approaches the voice as another instrument capable of the most varied and nuanced delivery. He took the stream of consciousness technique that is the basis of the poem by T.S. Eliot and gave it musical expression through a perpetually changing combination of vocal and instrumental textures."

When the poem was published in 1915, it was an entirely new kind of poetry that thrust Eliot onto the modernist stage.

In her essay, "When T. S. Eliot Invented the Hipster" (The Atlantic, January 4, 2015), author Karen Swallow Prior hits the nail on the head:

"The original cuffed-trouser urbanite on the hunt for authenticity—and undercutting it with his own self-consciousness—was J. Alfred Prufrock...An embodiment of turn-of-the-century angst wrought by a world sucked dry by skepticism, cynicism, and industrialism, Prufrock bears striking similarities to a subculture of mostly white, urban, detached-yet-sensitive young adults at the cusp of our own century. One might say Eliot invented the hipster… 

"Whatever hipsters are, they cannot be separated from the cultural mood that birthed them or their natural habitat: the city. Neither hipsters nor Prufrock would exist without the modern urban setting that bred their sensibilities. It is in the city that the pulse of a civilization is taken. The cityscape in Eliot’s poem, with its skyline "like a patient etherized upon a table," is, in fact, as famous as Prufrock, whose emotionally and spiritually unconsummated desire creates the central tension of the poem."

To underscore the tension of Prufrock's unconsummated desire, I use a hybrid voice that synthesizes classical and vernacular styles. Each theme and motif uses the melodic and rhythmic contours of Eliot’s stream of consciousness narrative to dictate mood and melodic character. Notable among them is the "Prufrock Motif" that heralds the poem’s famous opening line, "Let us go then, you and I." These rich thematic textures are then woven into a coherent aural tapestry.

Before the opening of the poem, Eliot places a six-line epigraph from Dante’s Inferno in which the condemned soul of Guido da Montefeltro agrees to confess what he knows to Dante, mistakenly assuming it would be impossible for Dante to betray his confession to the world of the living. Sung in the original Italian, the epigraph is musically rendered as a sarabande, a slow, stately dance in triple meter. It is a prelude to the dramatic monologue that follows in which Prufrock reveals with equal candor the burdens of his unmet desire.

I use extended techniques and semi-aleatoric passages to help amplify the emotional content. As Prufrock muses upon "the mermaids singing, each to each," for example, I combine artificial harmonic glissandi in the cello part—which produces the sound of a flock of seagulls—with an ocean drum, played ad lib, and tubular bells. Woodwinds, harp, and strings support the ensemble. The result is a remarkable simulation of the sounds of the seashore: ocean waves swell and crash to the cawing of seagulls as the mournful toll of a bell buoy heralds the open sea and Prufrock concludes, "I do not think that they will sing to me."

The ending is calibrated to Danielle’s vocal genius. Brass, percussion, and celesta enter, intensifying the rich orchestral palette. The high note is sustained over seven measures of a dance-like scherzo in 7/8 meter as singer and orchestra build to a magnificent forte fortissimo climax.

With the vocal line soaring above the din, the "Prufrock Motif" returns to mark the closing line, "Till human voices wake us, and we drown."