Lacrimosa

“Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet.” The words of poet Walt Whitman ring out in unison in Lacrimosa. Set to music by composer Andrew Staniland, this disturbing vanity plunges us into a world that is at once gloomy, cold, and utterly spare. Whitman, apparently humiliated by his sexuality, perhaps thought that the only way to release his shame was to shed blood. Shame pulsed through his body, stained his writing, to be discharged and “stain every page.”