Composer:
Melissa Dunphy

Librettist:
anonymous

Composer website:
https://www.melissadunphy.com/compositions.php

Composer contact:

Performance forces:
sop or ten — cor, cl, theremin, vc, tape

Length:
0:06

Languages:

Notes:
L’homme Armé is a reaction to gun culture in the United States composed during the violence of the Iraq War and the shooting at Virginia Tech. The text and part of the melody are taken from a medieval French song: “The armed man should be feared. Everywhere it has been proclaimed that each man shall arm himself with a coat of iron mail.” The voice and instruments form a metrical canon over a distorted bed of audio from the conflicts, interviews, and historical recordings, such as Robert Oppenheimer’s comments on the first successful test of the atomic bomb.