Donald's potent musical exploration of slavery through original antebellum texts was originally inspired by his study of the Civil War. He realized that the topic of slavery itself-- whose effects can be felt to this day -- hadn't received enough attention, and he felt there were many issues to bring out into the open. In a Boston Globe interview with Richard Dyer before the 1990 premiere, Donald Sur noted, ". . . it's good to think and talk about slavery. Even immediately after the Civil War it was a subject to avoid, to be embarrassed by. But the only way to get rid of a problem is to see it clearly, no matter what it is. Historically, that was the role of the artist, who was in a privileged position to think about difficult things and to deal with them. That is a role that music abdicated too soon."

Donald's unflinching vision allows us to see the problem clearly. His goal was to allow the documents to speak for themselves. He began work on the text first. Over the course of two years, from 1984 to 1986, he studied the history of slavery in America, researching texts encompassing a 150-year span, from the writings of Cotton Mather in 1706 to pro-and anti-slavery writings written just decades before the start of the Civil War. The Cantata Singers commissioned Slavery Documents in 1986, and Donald composed much of the music while in residence at various artists' colonies througout the United States.

This is a bitter subject, yet the music, with lush, grand sweeps of orchestral sound and surprising, pensive moments, captures qualities in the text in ways we don't quite expect. As music director David Hoose points out, Donald's voice "seduces us into seraphic comfort, only to shake us with more disquiet than we could have imagined." Dramatic, ferocious choruses proclaim the words from Cotton Mather's "Catechism for Slaves". A slaveowner's wife, refusing to believe she will see her slaves in heaven, sings a beautiful, glittering solo, clearly convinced she is right. We hear the lash of the whip as slave punishments are recited. Without apology, slaveowners sing out loud the want ads they placed to recover runaway slaves, describing brandings, iron collars and shackles as though they were mere business as usual. And at the close of part I, after the chorus and orchestra thunder out Cotton Mather's catechism for the last time, we are left with a wistful duet for flute and piano on the spiritual "Let My People Go."

Yet throughout, hope, not bitterness, forms this composition's common thread. Donald's vision also speaks to the resilience of the human spirit, something he very much wanted to convey. The voice of hope finds its fullest expression in the orchestra, outside the realm of human words, and the honesty, strength and power in the music cause those words to stand out in stark relief. As David Hoose has written, "His is music that is unpredictable, but is also correct at every moment -- impassioned, heartfelt, and moving in ways that are mysterious." This changeable, deeply human piece catches us off guard as we hear music that both resonates with the bitterness of the experience and, through its sweetness and power, challenges us to ask why, too.