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Hello and welcome to the Insights and Sounds podcast, a podcast centered around classical music. Join Dr. John Sinclair, and explore composers past and present, their works, and an occasional classical music informational episode.
Ted Rickets Descript
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Dr. Sinclair: [00:00:00] I am so thrilled to have an opportunity to talk to you, Ted, about your piece. I liked it the first time I saw it, now that I've been working on it, and now that we've recorded it, I love it.
Ted Ricketts: Thank you very much, John. I'm, I'm thrilled to be here talking with you.
Dr. Sinclair: , we go back a long way and I have admired your music for so many years and anyone who has ever been to one of our Disney theme parks. Here's your music, whether they don't know it or not, and all those years of you writing candlelight music. So this piece is a little bit of a departure for you.
Ted Ricketts: Yes. It's a, it's a lot of a departure for me. It really is the, probably the single thing I've written that falls into the classical world of music.
Dr. Sinclair: it certainly is
Ted Ricketts: It goes back to originally performing parts of this [00:01:00] music with you two in the year 2000. 24 years ago, we did the first performance of th three of these movements. The original movements. I've revised
Dr. Sinclair: they're quite different.
Ted Ricketts: They are, they are different. I, I think they're improved from the original
Dr. Sinclair: They are, and you composers are allowed to borrow from yourself whenever you want. So, so it's, it's, it works well. I just think it, it flows so well. It tells the story. It takes us from well, well start with telling us a little bit about the text of this work and why you chose them.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. The original text for the first movement, beat, beat drums, a poem by Walt Whitman was something that I've been reading since I was in college.
I, I originally set beat, beat drums. When I was in college, I composed a piece for concert band and choir. And this is when I was working at Milliken High School in Long Beach, California.
Dr. Sinclair: [00:02:00] Wow.
Ted Ricketts: And I, I was a TA at the high school and the director there, I got to know the director and the choir director, and they were like, open for me to write something.
So I did. So I set this text and I don't even remember what that sounds like, but it has no, no relationship to what, this is the piece that we've done. Yeah, so it's a long time ago, but I, I always loved Walt Whitman poems, , beat, beat drums just to me is very, um, kind of theatrical poetry and it, it had a, a sense of form.
That I liked, the cadence of the sentences worked well in my mind for, for music. There, there's a lot, I mean, I've read a lot of Walt Whitman poem poems , and the poetry strikes me very quickly as, do I like it for a a, a song, a song setting or not?
Dr. Sinclair: Well,
Ted Ricketts: B, b drum does
Dr. Sinclair: others have , there's a famous setting of that by Vaughn
Ted Ricketts: Yeah, Vaughn Williams. It's interesting because I, [00:03:00] I didn't find that out. This, when I first wrote this material, there was nothing like the, the internet to go and search all these things. I didn't know that somebody else had said that. I should have figured that somebody did.
You know? But I didn't know that. And so it eventually, I found out and I intentionally didn't listen to those other that, and now I have, since I, I wrote my piece, I went and, did everything I needed to do. I went and researched Von Williams and after I'd finished my piece, I said, okay, now I can listen to Von Williams, and I love his, what he did with it, but it's really different.
I was really happy to discover that what he did it, what he did with it was completely different than what I did with it.
Dr. Sinclair: y Your version of the text is so much more singable. I've done the Von Williams, Don and obese pop it's called in the first movements that beat, beat drums.
it
is scored in such a way that the voices don't have a chance to get through. And it's one of the reasons. I've kind [00:04:00] of avoided in the last few years performing that piece.
Ted Ricketts: It's, it's really complicated from a, from a singer's point of view, it's, there's a lot of layering of different texts and and, and I have to be honest and say, I thought a lot about it is, is what I am doing too simple,
And, and I've decided that it's okay.
That's what I hear in my head, and that's what a composer does, is you try to put on paper and what you hear in your
Dr. Sinclair: Well, anytime. As you know, when you layer things with choir the competition with instruments becomes greater. And so the thing that we have the same rhythmic intent against the instruments gives us a chance. So yeah, it works Great. Go, go to the second movement for me. I'm fascinated by that.
Ted Ricketts: Suicide in the trenches was actually a fairly recent discovery by me of a poem that immediately spoke to me. [00:05:00] It it's a just three verses very, three very simple verses and with a very repetitive rhythmical nature to them. And we've talked about this before, that it, as soon as I read those, the melody.
Was in my head,
To just to sing those. And it worked for all of the, all of the parts. I just knew and I knew I didn't want to expand it as far as lyrics are concerned. It was just those three simple verses, they're very powerful. So I knew that I had to have a little instrumental sequences between those verses that kind of made the b section of the, the material right.
Dr. Sinclair: And I like the, the, the unique they, they have the two, the two interludes really have a different feel each one.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. Well, the first verse is, is kind of wistful thinking back to, I, I knew a simple soldier Boy, and sets up the idea that this is just a young man, who enjoyed life with simple [00:06:00] joy.
And so that that first instrumental break is. It's supposed to be light. The idea is a reaction to what you just heard lyrically. The second reaction, the second instrumental break is a reaction to the second verse, which is about the struggles of being in a trench. I. Thinking about what's gonna happen to you, so the, the second verse, the second instrumental section is meant to be a much more militaristic and in a way honoring the death of this young man.
Dr. Sinclair: And the third is, is certainly reflective. Yeah, it's, it, they make all, each of them have a little different, different feel, but they, they all have a, that similar beautiful melody. now take me to the third movement.
The
third [00:07:00] movement is on fire, or kely is just on fire. I mean, if you threw kerosene on the stage and lit a match, that's the
Ted Ricketts: sound
Dr. Sinclair: you would get.
It is, it is so much fun.
Ted Ricketts: That's
Dr. Sinclair: The players are loving playing it.
Particularly
the low brass. I
Ted Ricketts: mean, you get to
play.
well, I can't tell you how many people here have talked to me, the students and everybody I run across, somebody has a, they want to tell me how much they enjoy singing it or playing it, or the, those brass.
Parts are great, whatever. And, and I, my response always is a big part of my writing. I try to make every part be enjoyable to perform. There's, there's a challenge to play or whatever you're, you're singing or you're playing, that there's something about it that you enjoy doing.
I mean, that's why we do music right? To enjoy it.
Dr. Sinclair: Absolutely. And, and they are, I to a person in the choir have not had anyone who said anything other than how much fun they're having. One of the, my bass singers told me I [00:08:00] knew how much I love the piece when I was thinking about it and singing it at home, just.
Started singing and I recognized I was singing that piece. So, I mean, it doesn't get any better for that than it, that it creates that earworm for him.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. Yeah.
Well, you, you'll see, we'll see. Every, every piece of music starts where nobody knows it.
and soon someday, maybe other people will know
Dr. Sinclair: Yeah.
Well this, this piece I keep telling you, this piece is gonna be sung a lot. I. This, this is a piece that, that, it takes a good choir and it takes a good orchestra, but it it will be played and sung. It's going to go into the cannon of classical choral music. This will be in that
Ted Ricketts: That's a very
Dr. Sinclair: Yeah. Well, it's very true. It's very true. You've known me lo long enough, and I've known you long enough that neither of us are very good at
Ted Ricketts: enough.
Dr. Sinclair: smoke. so
so That's
true.
That's true. And so, so I always appreciate your kind words, 'cause I know they're, they're sincere and, and you should take that as sincere too.
So the, the third movement is, is a lot of [00:09:00] orchestral work. And then the choir comes in with this very powerful statement that every time we sing that I just grips the, I cried It says, and then you come back and do not weep. I mean, what a ironic text of war is kind.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah.
Yeah. That, that, I love the text because it, it goes back and forth between kind of a ironic statement of these.
Men, they're young boys who are usually out in the battlefield dying. That we, we, we make it out to be this wonderful thing and it's really an awful, horrible thing, so that, that poem war is kind, is, is a kind of back and forth between that pull of being out in the battlefield and dying in the trenches and this very soft and beautiful.
Do not weep.
Dr. Sinclair: [00:10:00] This, this question might sound too simplistic. You remember, have to remember as conductors don't think as deeply as composers at least on the, on the onslaught of the, the slot of the work. So when you were composing that section, you were really thinking, as you read the text, you were thinking exactly what you just said, that you were trying to pull back and forth between those
Ted Ricketts: Absolutely. The, the, the poem, even in, in all of the texts that different printings of it that I saw, the, what I think of as the chorus,
that's kind of the triumphant man in the field statement is actually a separate, it's indented
Dr. Sinclair: Okay.
Ted Ricketts: in the printing, in the actual setting of it, in the book.
Dr. Sinclair: I'll be,
Ted Ricketts: you've got those [00:11:00] things that actually just look like a chorus, right? They're, and it kind, it comes back with some slightly different words in that chorus, but each time it happens, I think it happens three times, maybe two or three times.
I should know that by now, shouldn't I? But, but you know, it comes back and that's that big bombastic thing. And I love the, the end of that sense. And that goes back to a little slower. It just that. Very
theatrical.
Yes. Wars
Dr. Sinclair: is kind. That's how it ends.
Ted Ricketts: Right. Which makes you cry and, and wanna change the world
Dr. Sinclair: I usually in that little, that very ending when they're doing the last wars kind, I get kind of shivers. I, and I, I, in recording it last night, I got little shivers. When I got to there, I just thought, I, I, I was thinking about the words and then I was listening to the sound and that stark open chord there. Just
just
Ted Ricketts: It, it [00:12:00] really is beautiful and it, that's from a composer, from my own point of view.
I, I went at this and thinking that I would be happy if I created something, that there were moments that were beautiful.
Dr. Sinclair: Oh,
Ted Ricketts: And, and that's one of those places where do not weep the, the, the sopranos and the do not weep and the,
the men coming in those nice cords underneath it that go to very quiet
Dr. Sinclair: It's
Ted Ricketts: moment.
And is, it is beautiful and I'm proud of
Dr. Sinclair: No, you should be, you should be. [00:13:00] , the reconciliation, the fourth movement is perfect. It's a perfect text to make the transition to your last statement that we'll talk about in a minute. But the, the reconciliation movement is melancholy. Although the war is over air, all the pain and agony and all the things that the war caused are in front of us.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. There's no question about it. Walt, another Walt Whitman poem, reconciliation. Yeah. Mother whose heart hung humble as a button on the white splendid shroud of her son.
Dr. Sinclair: Oh gosh.
Ted Ricketts: it's making, giving me goosebumps right
now. in the coffin.
Yeah. I bend down and touch lightly the white face in the coffin.
Dr. Sinclair: yeah, I, I, I get, I, I take a big breath every time I go into that before it sets in. It, the text is, is so [00:14:00] beautifully set. I mean, it, it's one thing to have a great poem, and it's another thing to have great music. Putting the two together
Ted Ricketts: Yeah.
Dr. Sinclair: form.
And, and this is so, magnificently accomplished that, in the moment of making the music, of course I'm focusing on making music, but I'm, those words are going through my head as, as we're doing it, and I, I moved every single time we've done that. It's
Ted Ricketts: that, but that, that's what it's about, isn't it? Right.
Dr. Sinclair: Well, it is. If, if, if music doesn't move you, why are we
Ted Ricketts: doing
that? Yeah. No, there it, it has meaning there. We are part of the world and music is a wonderful part of the world and it, it should mean something,
Dr. Sinclair: Sure. And it does. Well,
take me to the last movement. 'cause the last movement, we finally are not dying in the trenches and we, we finally have agreed the reconciliation and you've taken us to a truly positive spin at the end.
Ted Ricketts: [00:15:00] Well, the, the first thing that occurred to me when I was thinking about, I really wanted to have a, a finale to these, this piece of work.
And the first thing that came to me, and it was a little bit about the Rollins College.
Let there be light. Right? And I, and I, even from the beginning, I knew that I wanted something about light so I, I came on the phrase of you are the light of the world, and to me, I liked it because there were two, two sides of it. One, the, the biblical side of it, of you are the light of the world, the Rumi side of it, the, the 13th century poem poet that said, don't you know yet, you are the light of the world.
So to take it on the responsibility of. Us, us people, the humans.
The humans are the light of the world. And, and we can bring the light into the
Dr. Sinclair: [00:16:00] Well, it's rousing and it makes you wanna to, to do something. It makes you wanna at least make a statement and say, I have some responsibility here.
Ted Ricketts: Right?
Dr. Sinclair: Yeah. And,
Ted Ricketts: Yeah, that's, that's the idea.
Dr. Sinclair: and so, and I love that it's a, I love pieces of music that drive all the way at the end. And this one just. Barrels to the end and the, and the, and doesn't let the audience or the musicians off the mat until the release. I mean it does. I mean, and you know that no one's gonna be moving, everyone's glued. You don't know where that's going to end. 'cause we're not doing one of these kind of typical retirees when you raise your hand said, okay guys, we're getting ready to slow down and this is about to end, we barrel to the end and it's really effective.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. It, it's interesting because I, when I was working on the finale, the lyrics weren't done yet, so I wrote most of the instrumental part of it without the lyrics. No kidding. Yeah. [00:17:00] Which was very rare for me. Yeah. Usually I way the other way, and just take those lyrics and.
Sing a melody and think about what, what it means. So, but for me, I knew what the, I wanted this feeling to be powerful and joyous and to move people,
you know, and so you are, the light of the world is , the first line you hear the choir sing. And, and it goes from there. So I, I really wrote all of that music.
I. Before the lyrics were done. So I, I had some ideas for lyrics. Sherry Lynn Draper helped with lyrics and eventually Sarah Moore here, a local Orlando songwriter really polished the, the lyrics up to where the, they're really a beautiful setting. And it's, and it's all about. Take some responsibility when you, when you see something wrong, say so, Say so. And try to change the world if you can. We, we try to change the mu world with music,[00:18:00]
Dr. Sinclair: Yeah,
Ted Ricketts: that's what we're good at.
Dr. Sinclair: you, composers get a chance to really change the world. I always, the longer I've been in my profession, I think of myself as kind of the head waiter. Truly, I, I, I, I didn't grow the food. I didn't cook the food. That's, the composer is inspired. I think it's a circle.
You're inspired by something that, that moves you, whether text, and then you grow the food and you cook the food. Then I get to put it on the plate and hand it to people.
Ted Ricketts: And every part of that circle is very
Dr. Sinclair: yeah. And then of course, the back part of that circle is you inspire the audience
Ted Ricketts: Right?
Dr. Sinclair: who then inspires the composer again to keep creating yeah.
It's a, it's a, it's a big circle, but I, I'm fascinated, always have been fascinated and, and know that the thought process in composing. Is is truly deep and I can only imagine how much you must think about the text and sketching it before you actually [00:19:00] put a note down.
Ted Ricketts: Yeah. For, for me, there's a lot of the. Happens in my head as a composer, especially when you're composing with lyrics, you know that there's a lot of just singing. I mean, literally just singing in my is to myself.
I wake up singing, I dream about singing, and a lot, oftentimes I'm in bed thinking about, I mean, I, I, I really composed a lot of this music. In bed, know,
just
singing through
things. Yeah. Or I'd go to sleep with it in my head and, and there were a lot of things I worked through just that way.
And then hopefully I don't forget about it when, when I wake up the next day and can write it down, I think it worked, it went pretty well,
you know,
Dr. Sinclair: I, I, I, I love the piece and, and it's a guarantee the audience is gonna love it and it's a guarantee that this is gonna be a piece, in my opinion, that's gonna be around a long time. [00:20:00] One last thing I. It has been such a pleasure having you back in town. I mean, I I've always been so grateful not only for all the wonderful music you produce, but for your friendship.
For those in the audience, Ted is the person who hired me outta candlelight. Now, that was a few years ago, I think this might be year 28, maybe
Ted Ricketts: yeah, I was gonna say at least 25 years
ago. Yeah.
Dr. Sinclair: And, um. And it has been, that program has, has given me so many opportunities and changed my life. And of course it's, it's Ted's orchestration and some of his music and his and Derek Johnson's music together.
It's it's fabulous. And so I've always, I've lived with your music. All the time. And of course he writes extra pieces for us with the Bach Festival we do here too. Especially Christmas pieces. So, I am very grateful that you've shared this work with us, and I'm grateful for the time to talk with you.
It's been so much fun to have you on campus and you working with our students. I I just can't thank you enough,
Ted Ricketts: Well, thank you. [00:21:00] I, I've had a great time here being here and talking with the students and I love just chatting with you.
Dr. Sinclair: Well,
Ted Ricketts: fun. We, we always, we always sit down and just have a nice conversation,
Dr. Sinclair: This week has, we haven't had enough of that, but We'll, we'll, we will find more
Ted Ricketts: Well, we do have to earn a living too, I know. I know. And you need to think about your next think about your next piece right? Well, well, there you go.
Yeah, another 50 years.
I'll have another one.
Dr. Sinclair: Well, let's see if we can speed that up a little bit. I'm, I'm not sure if my expiration date goes to that, that far out, but I am truly last comment for you.
I'm very
Ted Ricketts: Well, thank you. Thank you, John. I, I, I have to finish by saying I'm grateful to the Bach Festival Society for, for having me do this, and especially to you for, for your trust in me to, to deliver music.
Dr. Sinclair: I, I, that is the least of my worries. I know. When I see your name on it, it's gonna be musical and I'm gonna like it. Thank you. [00:22:00] [00:23:00]