Lucia Joyce, James Joyce’s daughter once said: “C’est moi qui est l’artiste,” or “It’s me who is the artist.” With her impressive avant-garde dance training, Joyce would have had a lot to contribute to the Abbey Theatre Ballets, which ran from 1927 to 1933. Yet, Lucia was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and sent to a mental asylum for much of the rest of her life.
Musically, Color Me Dear explores the different textures and colors that tones have to offer; using syncopation and “cluster” chords to form color. For the bridge of Color Me Dear, I focused on creating a “church bell”-like resonance to create an echoing sentiment of the descension to insanity. The chords move in a similar way, reaching the lowest point of the song’s register during this descent. Measure 29 marks a sharp departure from the echoing low point, and a hopeful movement up. From the bridge onward I used triplets in coordination with higher register tones to create a feeling a hope for Lucia & her legacy. Although she did not live on through dance during her own time, she has become the muse for a lot of artists and the subject of biographies. Many say James Joyce traded Finnegan’s Wake(one of his respected works) for his daughter’s well being.
Hand Written Score