Birth in Bondage 

Narrative:

Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick Douglass endured injustice and cruelty from his earliest days. Yet even in bondage, he discovered a path toward freedom.

Musical Character:

The section opens with low strings establishing a somber foundation. Upper strings enter with fingered tremolo, creating tension that builds toward a string chorale. This resolves into a brass tutti functioning as a semi-fanfare—a glimmer of defiant hope amid oppression.

Awakening of Mind 

Narrative:

Despite laws forbidding literacy for enslaved people, Douglass learned to read and write—unlocking a transformative power that could never be taken from him.

Musical Character:

Following the brass tutti, a solo trumpet with a straight mute accompanies the orator's words, it’s clear, focused tone representing the clarity and precision of educated thought.

Passage: Flight to Freedom (m. 70)

Narrative:

In 1838, disguised as a sailor, Douglass escaped northward to New York—a perilous journey toward an uncertain but longed-for freedom.

Musical Character:

This marks the first appearance of the 'Passage' motif. Set at a fast tempo with dance-like energy, the tambourine evokes biblical imagery—recalling Miriam and the women of Exodus celebrating liberation. Violas create urgency through a rapid ostinato pattern, suggesting rushing movement. Syncopated percussion drives the momentum forward as the melody passes from woodwinds to upper strings, then to trumpet in percussive syncopation with snare drum. The section culminates with woodwinds and upper strings executing ascending sixteenth-note runs, propelling us into freedom.

Free from Bondage 

Narrative:

Having escaped bondage, Douglass emerged as one of America's most powerful orators and tireless advocates for abolition.

Musical Character:

Solo piano enters with unsettling harmonic progressions and irregular rhythms—evoking Douglass's initial apprehension and vigilance as he experiences a radically different world free from bondage in New York. The piano material features rapid tuplets, dissonant harmonies, and rhythmic unpredictability, reflecting the urgency and unconventional delivery of his early abolitionist speeches.

As the section develops, woodwinds enter, restating the piano material at a slower tempo in full ensemble. This transitions to glissando cellos and basses with tremolo upper strings—a musical reflection back to 'In the Beginning.' The slow glissandi suggest Douglass nervously, haltingly finding his voice at his first abolitionist meeting as he describes the brutal reality of enslavement. The tremolo strings create a thread connecting his words spoken in bondage with his utterances in freedom.

At a quickened tempo, the section concludes with woodwinds reprising the unorthodox piano material—representing Douglass's extensive travels and increasingly confident speeches throughout New England as he spoke with growing authority about slavery's moral evil.

Passage: Across the Atlantic (m. 180)

Musical Character:

The 'Passage' motif returns, now accompanying Douglass's voyage from America to Europe. Upper brass carry the passage melody while the lower string glissando motif reappears, emphasizing Douglass's voice gaining clarity and power as he prepares to speak about American slavery on the international stage.

An Irish Welcome 

Narrative:

In Ireland, Douglass discovered a land where no color line was drawn between himself and others, though he recognized a people suffering under different forms of oppression.

Musical Character:

A brass chorale introduces a string variation on the traditional Irish melody The Last Rose of Summer. In his 1855 autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass wrote that 'the sweet sadness of its strain went to my heart like an inspiration'—a poignant recognition of shared human suffering and resilience.

Passage: A Return to America Fully 'Woke' (m. 238)

Musical Character:

The 'Passage' motif accompanies Douglass's return from Europe to America as a legally free man. Lower brass and upper woodwinds share the passage melody. The section concludes with a variation on My Country, 'Tis of Thee—signifying Douglass's complex, critical patriotism as he returns to confront his nation's ongoing sin.

The Moral Hypocrisy 

Narrative:

Douglass condemned the perverse use of religion to justify slavery, drawing a sharp distinction between the compassionate Christianity of Christ and the hypocritical faith practiced by slaveholding churches.

Musical Character:

At a quicker tempo, a 7/8 arpeggiated melody represents enslaved women's prayers ('Where’s our God?') over a moving bass line outlining E Mixolydian tonality that resolves to an E major triad. A contrasting melody enters—(the slaveholder's sermon)—while male slaves join the women's prayer in musical counterpoint, creating tension between oppressor and oppressed.

Women 

Narrative:

Douglass understood that the struggle for freedom was incomplete without women at its center. At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, he stood as the only Black man present and championed women's suffrage when even some reformers hesitated. For Douglass, the denial of women's equality sprang from the same injustice that denied equality to enslaved people.

Musical Character:

A repeated bass line in 9/8 meter introduces the 'woman's theme.' The section concludes with a penultimate eight-bar passage of dissonant tonality, conveying the continued oppression faced by American citizens and leading us into the work's final statement.

Your 4th of July 

Narrative:

Douglass's words remind us that liberty must be universal, or it is no liberty at all.

Musical Character:

The score concludes by returning to the enslaved people's prayer once more, set over a moving bass line outlining E Mixolydian tonality that resolves to E major—a final, hard-won resolution suggesting hope forged through struggle, and the enduring call for justice that Douglass's legacy represents.

— J. Kimo Williams