Product Description
The popularity of the song The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon from 1964 has earned its place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the songs that shaped Rock and Roll. The duo Simon & Garfunkel sang it at their concert in the Central Park in New York in 1981, only with a guitar, and this underlined the whispering and distand storytelling of the lyrics: People lost their way in creating a religion-like culture that circels technical and economic progress like a religion. In stepping out of this cult, the song is a fundamental critique of the spirit of the 1960s in the United States.
So, why to put this quiet Sound of Silence amid a large orchestra and an opera choir? Well, the message of the song, though sung in piano, could also be understood as a frightened warning, because it compared the present situation of the society to a biblical scene of the Old Testament: The Babylonian king Belshazzar saw writings on the wall of his palace, drawn by a ghost. A prophet tells him that his reign will end and his kingdom will be destroyed because of his sacrilege.
By and by, a vision becomes clearer to the protagonist of this song: And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people maybe more. People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening. And later: And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.
What is the neon god of our time, sixty years later? Well, there may be several ones, but an influential one may be seen in the overcommunication by the ubiquitous presence of social media and mobile phones. And the lyrics by Paul Simon already pointed warningly to this kind of communication without a message.
In this verison, the role of the choir is to illustrate the archaic pagan incantation, performing a ritual ceremony of bowing and praying, praising here the self-created god of communication. Therefore, the choir sings in a strange and incomprehensible language. The lyrics are created by rearranging the syllables of the word communication. This Babylonian confusion of languages spells disaster, destroying the sound of silence warned of by the words of the prophets.
So the drama of the pagan scene formally presented distantly and quietly by Simon & Garfunkel now becomes audible as if the the warning message of the vision has become more urgent over the last sixty years. I hope you like the outcome.
I am a professional composer and arranger from GERMANY and work together with many orchestras from Germany and international orchestras. If you are looking for an arrangement or a composition, that is not listed, feel free to contact me. For more information have a look at my website: www.ingo-laufs.de.
Orchestra
Flute 13
Oboe 13
Clarinet in B 13
Bassoon 13
Horn in F 14
Trumpet in B 13
Trombone 12
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Cymbal, Pair, Suspended
Strings
Band
E-Bass
E-Guitar
Singers
Lead Voice (Tenor)
Mixed Choir
Duration: 6'03''
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