Düsseldorf-based choir Nefesch-Vokalensemble premieres John’s latest choral piece, “At a Window,” commissioned by music director Constanze Pitz.

At a Window is a setting of the poem by Carl Sandburg, an American writer who was based in Chicago at the start of the 20th century. The piece opens with a frenzied litany of the words “Give me hunger,” each time growing in intensity and desperation. There is an anger, even an irreverence, directed at the “gods,” the powers that be, the unrelenting masters of the circumstances that make up our daily lives. The “hunger” to which Sandburg refers was (and still is) a visceral reality for many. An escape from these conditions seemed impossible. 

Within these demands to be “shut out” by “shame and failure,” there is a listlessness in the music characterized by a somber chorale texture in a minor mode. But this momentary restraint steadily gives way to another bout of manic, unbridled rage that builds toward the words “shabbiest, weariest, hunger,” marked by a significant acceleration in tempo and stringent rhythmic activity. 

If these “gods that sit and give the world its orders” insist on instituting such an arduous life for the common man, then our protagonist demands the one thing that can offer respite from the trials of human life: a little love. At this point, the music takes on a flowing, hazy quality, a total shift from the first half of the piece, as our protagonist turns their attention to the window, to the future, knowing better days lie ahead.