On the Way

(Chicago Songs, Book Two)

For medium voice and piano. Duration - 20 minutes.

I’ve always been repeatedly drawn back to Carl Sandburg’s poetry when searching for text to set. In particular, his Chicago Poems illustrate a city from the 1910s that’s recognizable in the 2010s – rich and poor, mansions and slums, but with street cars replaced by the El. Six of his poems eventually became my cycle Chicago Songs.

Amid Sandburg’s street scenes and buildings is an intense sympathy for his fellow man. In the spring of 2017 I felt a new, updated cycle was needed – one focused on the human fabric of the city, especially its immigrants and its toiling poor. Chicago is a city that can be hard and cruel, but it is also a city made great by its citizens.

“Clear pools of understatement and reserve, Malmquist’s meditative ‘Masses’ (heard for the first time on Sunday) and selections from his ‘Chicago Songs’ cycle let Sandburg’s verses land the emotional blows, rather than frilling them up with episodic shifts and excessive word-painting.”

-Chicago Tribune