The attempt to develop an oratorio style based on the American soil and spirit is not new, but Carl Sandburg's epic poem, it seems to me, offers new possibilities in its earthy and almost religious approach. It is a new expression of an old faith drawn from the native soil. The protagonist, simply, is the prairie, but through this poem the prairie grows until it becomes the symbol for the all-embracing principle of growth itself.

The opening movement of The Prairie, which has the nature of a prologue, speaks of the prairie as we are accustomed to visualize it. The author, in a pastoral tenor solo, sings of open valleys and far horizons, and the music breathes fresh air. After this pastoral introduction, a fugue is heard in the orchestra, above which the chorus takes up a new theme in the manner of a chorale. This is the voice of the pairie: "I am here when the cities are gone. I am here before the cities come...I am dust of men...I who have seen the red births and the red deaths of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait."

-Lukas Foss