L.'s.G.A. (Lincoln's Gettsyburg Address) is a multimedia performance featuring three films, music, and the poet Michael Holloway reciting the Gettsyburg Address through an oxygen mask feeding him helium from a tank whose valve he can control for effect. The MP3 below was recordewd at Nature's Table in 1969.

L's. G. A. (Excerpt) MP3 A composition by Salvatore Martirano, featuring Michael Holloway on helium 7:11 6.6MB

L'sG.A. Salvatore Martirano

Fourscore and seven. Seven? Seven Sections!

I. Forksore, a stomach real and imagined. Imagine a real storm-ache;
the bottom ascends, swirling sauce, muddy brown it boils down
eudiometrically. Intergastric electricalization. Fango-therapy,
it's delizioso

II. Boom, Boom Boom, Boom!
Eat and be eaten by the calefactive cannonball of Kiln 574.5.

III. L'sA.H. rises slowly, draws from his pocket a paper and when a
commotion subsides, in a sharp unmusical treble voice, reads the
brief and pithy remarks. (end of quotation)

IV. Speeded-up. A lion caged? A Cagey lion a the blat in Mudville.

V. A case of canned knots and furthermore would knocks.
L'sB.J. saith: Thou shalt not; Thou shalt not; Thou shalt not;
plus 7.

VI. Ox-tongue mined are raids. Look out! Sirenes wail. Intermedium?
The General clubwoman said: War is, hell, raw electro-anathesia.

VII. Babies. Babies slobbering, dribbling saliva. A megaton of spit
orbits and slides. Two hundred and fifty men, a link and a chain
toward epiphany. Whose hearts, whose sweet voice, cry music, when
soft voices die, lingers in the Memor-eye?

"...this is not a verbal analog or a description of the composition but a literary companion to it, complete in itself. Perhaps it should be read a day or two before or immediatley after one hears the music. LsGA was chosen for one simple reason: of the approximately two hundred mixed media works that were considered for a series presenting only two concerts a season, Martirano's savage, tender and elegantly crafted work proved the most artistically successful... If one is shocked, stunned and , in the conclusion, edified by this powerful experiential statement, one is then made aware, through art, of a very creative exposition of today's Weltanschauung. This work goes far beyond the possible "campy" interpretation of its title (a wrong interpretation) into regions of terrifying violence and equally vivifying hope. From Monteverdi to the work under discussion, the theatre piece of any consequence aims for the solar plexus, delivering a haymaker. Martirano not only delivers the haymaker, but presents us with a deus ex tempore who haymakes the haymaker."

--From a statement by Charles Whittenberg (Music Director University of Connecticut Nov 17,1969)

Articles & Reviews of L's.G.A.

Lincoln Address Distorted in Poem
Electric Ear Offers Antiwar, Mixed-Media Assault
A review by Theodore Strongin, printed in the Village Voice.

The printed program was wrong, the composer said, because it gave away his secret. What should have been simply, "L's G.A." on the program was listed as "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address."

But Salvatore Martirano who wrote "L's G.A.," was himself wrong. Nothing printed on the program could possibly give away what a savage, mindtearing, thundering, antiwar mixed-media documentary poem Mr. Martirano had made out of the famous address.

It was a far cry from a high school elocution demonstration at the Electric Ear series at the Electric Circus, 23 St. Marks Place, last night.

Mr. Martirano's multispeaker, multiprojector version of Lincoln unfolded like a fullfledged battle, threatening every second. The chief live character was a "politico" who recited the address - more or less. It was not given straight. It was distorted and extended to last about 40 minutes.

Taped Sounds Dominate

Although Mr. Martirano's taped sounds are the leading edge, dance, theater, literary and purely visual elements are mixed together inseparably in "L's G.A." Certainly it is literary irony to pick the Gettysburg Address as the key element in a work about man's destructiveness. Ronald Nameth's multiprojector background film underscores the irony, as when the screen shows insectlike toy tanks and planes being arrayed in formation on a nude female body.

The film does more than this. It is fantastically active, with patterns, abstract and not, cascading past the eye so fast that sometimes all the politico needs do to dance is to stand still as the lights play over him.

War Sounds Suggested

But the strongest comment comes from Mr. Martirano's pretaped sounds. Everything that can be associated with war, from bombs bursting to infants crying, is suggested, not quite explicitly, on tape, each kind of sound with an episode to itself. And in distorting the address - beautifully done by M. C. Holloway, reciting through a gas mask - Mr. Martirano has made everthing out of it, from hysterical demagogy to political twaddle.

Aside from commentary, Mr. Martirano's ability to make cogent forms out of telling sounds was clear. "L's G.A.," though it uses other elements, is musical in conception. Its events follow musical order and musical timespans.

Mr. Martirano's way with sounds was also heard in other more strictly musical events on the program, improvised live by his jazz-poetry group, The Border Guard, as well as taped by him.

The program will be repeated tonight at 8:30.

Avant Garde Entices Oberlin With Mixed-Media 'L'sGA'
An article by Wilma Salisbury.

"Blow your mind (and 50c) on the mixed media concert in Finney Chapel," suggest signs presently posted on the Oberlin College campus.

Featured on the avant-garde program tonight at 8:30 will be a staged performance of "L's GA" ("Lincoln's Gettysburg Address") by Salvatore Martirano, a theater peice for gas-masked politicos, helium bomb, three movie projectors and two-channel tape recorder.

Describing his notorious composition to a group of Oberlin students yesterday, Martirano said, "It starts with eight minutes of low sound that actually vibrates the floor (you get a massage), and ends with an organ version of 'My heart at thy sweet voice' from 'Samson and Delilah.' It gives a very exalted feeling."

The 24-minute piece, the composer explained, also incorporated Lincoln's speech recited in several dialects, films of faces, flowers, tongues and other things, and electronic sound from 24 speakers.

"It's not too loud for people who are accustomed to rock," he said.

The original impetus for "L's GA," which also exists in recorded and filmed versions, came from a lecture Martirano heard opposing the use of political subjects in art works. So negative was the former Marine's reaction that he decided to write a work showing that "it could be done."

Completed in 1968, the piece has received 35 performances in a variety of geographical locations and physical environments.

The audience reaction is different every time," Martirano said. "At the Electric Circus in New York, people were shouting and cheering. But in Portland, Ore., they just sat there, stunned."

Martirano reports, however, that his music has never stimulated violent responses.

"I try to make connections with the audience," he said. "I start with something they know - texts by Lincoln, Shakespeare, Dante - and then translate word inflections into many different sounds. Generally, people like my music - because it's easy."

Martirano's career as a composer began more than 20 years ago when he was a student of Herbert Elwell at Oberlin. After completing his undergraduate degree, he attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Bernard Rogers. He then received a Fulbright fellowship to Italy where he worked with Luigi Dallapiccola.

Numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions followed. And today as composer-in-residence at the University of Illinois, Martirano is securely entrenched in the university complex, which he regards as "a very enlightened place to be."

To an impressive list of compositions for orchestra, chamber ensemble, chorus, voice, electronic tape and mixed media, Martirano will soon add a new work scored for large orchestra, controller and bunny.