The Four Freedoms (download)

Description

The Four Freedoms–patriotic anthem

SATB quartet or chorus, piano
Text: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Message, the “Four Freedoms” Speech.
2012
Duration: 4′
Commissioned by Plymouth Congregational Church in celebration of the “Summer of the First Amendment” embroidery.
Premiere: July 15, 2012 by Maria Jette, Lisa Drew, Dan Dressen, James Bohn and James Lee Bobb, Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
8 pages

Text

This nation has placed its destiny
in the hands and heads and hearts
of its free men and women;
and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights
everywhere.
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms:
freedom of speech and expression;
freedom of every person to worship God in his own way;
freedom from want—everywhere in the world.
freedom from fear—anywhere in the world.

This is no vision of a distant millennium.
It is attainable in our own time.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from Message to Congress January 6, 1941, in Public Papers, vol. 9, p. 672 (P.D.), edited by the composer.

Program note

Entering Guild Hall in Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis, a grand, intricate embroidery covering the west wall immediately catches the eye. There are actually four embroideries, each 15 feet tall by 25 feet wide, though only one is displayed in each season. They were designed by Pauline Baynes, the illustrator of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, but even more impressive, each was executed by a team of volunteer needlers, laboring over a ten-year period. The dedication of these women has been truly astounding, a commitment spanning forty years. In July 2012, I was asked by Philip Brunelle to write a work celebrating the unveiling of the fourth and final embroidery. The subject was the “Summer of the First Amendment,” specifically the signing of the Bill of Rights and the preservation of the core value of freedom of speech.

For a hymn commissioned by Plymouth Congregational Church in honor of Philip Brunelle, see There is a Yearning.