For this Guided Listening, you will need the following:

A copy of these teaching steps
Audio asset: Excerpt of Wo bist du Licht! by Claude Vivier
Text asset: Claude Vivier, Wo bist du Licht!
All assets are provided below.

I. First Impressions

• Write "Wo bist du Licht!" and "Claude Vivier" on the board and then listen to audio asset excerpt of Wo bist du licht!
• Students write an observation or question about the music on a stick-on note. Place on a two-column chart with the headings "Observations" and "Questions".
• Discuss as a class: What is going on? (Students may recognize the famous "Let freedom ring" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King.) Does the music tell you how the composer feels about Martin Luther King? What is the mood of the music?

II. Read and Discuss

• Provide student copies of Claude Vivier Wo Bist du Licht!
• Read and highlight any information that answers the original stick-on note questions and observations. Discuss and note new information on a separate chart.
• You may wish to explore more information about Dr. King or to view the "Let Freedom Ring" speech with your students.

III. Composer Strategy

• Identify the strategy used by the composer to bring the real world into the music. How is this strategy somewhat different from the previous ones? (In this excerpt the composer introduces actual sounds from the real world into the music, captured by tape recorder, as opposed to evoking an association by activating our prior knowledge.) Add this strategy to your Composers Strategy Chart.

Excerpt of Wo bist du Licht! by Claude Vivier (0:02:06)

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This dark work (1981) reflects on the theme, “Where is the light?” In this section a tape recording of Martin Luther King’s renowned “Let Freedom Ring!” speech is played along with the instrumental music.

Claude Vivier, Wo bist du Licht!
Vivier (1948-1983) was born in Montréal and died very young in Paris, France. The title Wo bist du Licht! comes from German poet Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin's poem "Light, where are you?" In this poem a blind old man remembers the joys of his youth and longs for freedom, perhaps through dying. Vivier combines the words of the poem first with a recording of either Martin Luther King's "Let freedom ring" speech or a news report of Robert Kennedy's assassination (both events occurred in 1968), then with a made-up language and finally with a news report about torture which is delivered in very neutral news reporter style. The work was commissioned by the Société Radio Canada in 1981.

Credits and Copyright

• Audio Asset: Excerpt from Wo bist du licht! by Claude Vivier
  1981, Claude Vivier