As any American schoolchild knows, Abraham Lincoln rose from his humble birth in a log cabin to lead the country through its violent Civil War and proclaim the emancipation of slaves. Most of us are less familiar, though, with America’s musical heritage. By exploring the overlapping terrain of these two seemingly unrelated fields, Lucas Lavoie’s final essay for WR 100 “Lincoln and His Legacy” comments simultaneously on Lincoln, America’s twentieth-century musical heritage, and what it means to be an American. In an exemplary synthesis of different disciplines—history, music, biography, political rhetoric—Lucas shows us how different genres can speak to one another and, if we listen carefully, to us, too.
Moving beyond the facts of Lincoln’s remarkable life and times—subjects of the earlier writing in the course—this assignment asks students to trace the ways that later generations have used Lincoln’s legacy. Lucas’s discoveries in Mugar Library of several musical scores from the twentieth century initiated a deeper examination of the historical issues that prompted these compositions and their relevance to Lincoln’s speeches and writings. By analyzing and comparing works of Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Vincent Persichetti, Lucas’s essay argues that these composers at critical moments in history used Lincoln in musical forms to demonstrate a shared ideal of American democracy.
One important virtue to recognize in this essay is its deft command of the language for analyzing music. Even for those who may not be music scholars, Lucas’s clear explanations of musical examples allow readers to follow his points of comparison. Finally, this writing demonstrates that a student’s passion in one field can certainly be applied to another—as long as the student is willing to take a risk and to use their imagination.
— DAVID SHAWN
WR 100: Lincoln & His Legacy