2017 anniversaries, 1. Classical

With 2017 fleeting away, my remaining posts will all feature videos of composers, arrangers and performers born 100 years ago in 1917--101 years in the case of Yehudi Menuhin featured below, first by genre--classical, contemporary, jazz and popular/anthems/band--and ending with three posts celebrating the New Year. Let's get started with the classical masters.

   - First up is the African-American composer Ulysses Kay (1917-1995). Jazz cornetist and bandleader King Oliver (1881-1938) was his uncle.

        Ulysses Kay received an excellent music education, first with William Grant Still (1895-1978) in Arizona where he grew up, then at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, with Howard Hanson (1896-1981) and Bernard Rogers (1893-1968), in 1941/42 with Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), and after serving as a musician in the Navy during World War II, with Otto Luening (1900-1996) and finally in Rome from 1949 to 1953.

        Kay worked for Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), a performing rights organization (1953-1968), and from 1968 taught at the City University of New York. He wrote symphonic and choral compositions and five operas, a.o. Frederick Douglass (1991).

His output includes works for voice, solo instrument, chorus and symphony orchestra. According to bio material provided by City University of New York, Kay drew many of his themes from black life, focusing on the Civil War.⁽¹⁾

        Let's listen to Kay's Chariots: An Orchestral Rhapsody (1979) in its world premiere on 08/08/1979. Kay conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga, N.Y. Festival, the first time a black composer conducted the orchestra in a premiere of his own work. BMI presented Kay with its Commendation of Excellence award on the occasion. ⁽²⁾

           Kay himself explained that the term 'chariots' is symbolic of "a person's aspirations and being," referring to Blake, Shakespeare, the Book of Common Prayer, and Andrew Marvell. Near the end (@ 12:35) a horn solo quotes from Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and the work's thematic material derives from the spiritual. ⁽³⁾ A clever work that deserves more attention.



   - Greek pianist and composer Rena Kyriakou (1917-1994) studied in Vienna with Paul Weingarten (1886-1948) and Richard Stöhr (1874-1967), and in Paris with Henri Büsser (1872-1973) and Isidor Philipp (1863-1958). She earned a first prize in piano from the Conservatoire at age sixteen.

        Most of Kyriakou's compositions are works for her own instrument but here we have a song, a deeply felt setting of Goethe's poem Trost in Traenen (Comfort in Tears), the first of a set of Drei Lieder (Three Songs).



   - American violist, conductor, composer and painter Emanuel "Manny" Leplin (1917-1972) studied music at UC Berkeley  in San Francisco, a.o. Albert Elkus (1884-1962), with Roger Sessions (1896-1985) during the summers of 1936 and 1937, and with Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) in Paris.

        He worked closely with the San Francisco Symphony. In 1954 he contracted polio and was paralyzed from the neck down, with the exception of three fingers of the right hand, which permitted him to continue composing. The following touching video--with music by Leplin's son Rocky Leplin--illustrates how Leplin was able to paint.



        Symphony No. 1 "Of the Twentieth Century" (1961) in four movements (Illumination, Consternation, Contemplation and Adaptation) was commissioned by pianist Agnes Albert (1908-2002) and other friends of the San Francisco Symphony for its 50th anniversary season. For the premiere in January 1962, 'Leplin painted four pictures with a brush clamped in his teeth, which were on display in the Opera House lobby during the concerts.'

If any in the audience were minded to approach Leplin’s work with a kindly tolerance, suitable to a gallant effort by an afflicted fellow human, they were immediately put straight by Leplin’s music. It is a big, vital, masculine, muscular work. It defies you to pity a man who can blow such life into a big orchestra with his mind.⁽⁴⁾

           An appropriate review.



        Symphony No. 2 (premiered 1966) was also premiered by the San Francisco Symphony. The conductor Josef Krips (1902-1974) proclaimed "It's more complicated than Stravinsky!"⁽⁵⁾ Indeed, in this work Leplin uses 'four separate and distinct themes,' and opposes rhythmic and lyrical impulses both in its larger sections and in 'short, rapid, dramatic juxtapositions. All of this is supported by a sensitive, natural ear for instrumental color, cultivated and schooled by Mr. Leplin’s years in the orchestra and as a conductor.'⁽⁶⁾



   - From Romanian pianist and composer Dinu Lipatti's (1917-1950) who died from Hodgkin's disease at age 33, we hear the third movement Allegro – Chef cu lăutari or L'ivresse ou le festin (Drunkenness or the feast) of the Satrarii Suite (Les Tziganes), Op. 2 for piano and orchestra which earned him the 1933 George Enescu Composition Prize.

        Lipatti was baptized at age four, and George Enescu (1881-1955) was his godfather. He studied piano and composition with Mihail Jora (1891-1971) during high school and piano with Florica Musicescu (1887-1969) at the Bucharest conservatory and privately. After a piano competition in Vienna in 1933 where he won second prize, Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) who thought he deserved the first prize, invited him to come and study in Paris. His teachers there were Cortot and Yvonne Lefébure (1898-1986) for piano, Paul Dukas (1865-1935)--for a few lessons--and Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) for composition, Diran Alexanian (1881-1954) for chamber music, and Charles Munch (1891-1968) for conducting. Also in Paris, Lipatti formed a close friendship with fellow pianist and compatriot Clara Haskill (1895-1960). ⁽⁷⁾

        During World War II Lipatti gave concerts across Nazi-occupied territories. In September 1943 he fled to Geneva, Switzerland where he taught piano at the conservatory. In 1947 his illness erupted. Cortisone injections gave temporary relief, and from 1947 to 1950 he was able to make most of his now legendary recordings. He died in Geneva in December 1950, three months after giving his last recital.



   - British organist, harpsichordist, pianist, choral coach, composer and conductor George John Malcolm (1917-1997) plays The Cuckoo for harpsichord, the first piece from Louis-Claude Daquin's (1694-1772) Third Harpsichord Suite. A dazzling performance of a dazzling piece.

        Malcolm's first instrument was the piano. He attended the Royal College of Music at age seven, Wimbledon College and Oxford. He was bandleader in the Royal Air Force during World War II. After the war he mostly played the harpsichord but at times still played piano in chamber music settings. His harpsichord repertoire included Baroque and modern works, including his own compositions. During twelve years (1947-1959) he worked as organist and choral trainer at Westminster Cathedral developing the choir's 'brilliance and vocal authority,' according to Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) who wrote his Missa Brevis (1959) for them.

        After his work at the cathedral he continued to perform and record as organist, founded a music school, and focused more on conducting later on. Pianist András Schiff (b. 1953) was one of his students, and together they recorded Mozart's piano duets on Mozart's own piano.

        Malcolm composed works for harpsichord and choral works.



   - Israeli-American violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) plays his composition Prabhati based on the Raga Gunkali together with Ravi Shankar (1920-2012) on sitar and Alla Rakha (1919-2000) on tabla.

        Menuhin was one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. He was born in New York City and studied with George Enescu in Romania and with Adolf Busch (1891-1952) in Basel. He spent most of his career in Britain.

        In 1952 Menuhin traveled to India, studied yoga, and became a colleague of Ravi Shankar. In 1966 they recorded the album West Meets East (1967). In the 1970s he collaborated with jazz violinist Stéphane Grapelli (1908-1997) on the album Jalousie (1975).

        The video contains amazing solos.


   - From Czech-Canadian composer Oskar Morawetz (1917-2007) we hear the Overture to a Fairy Tale(1956) for orchestra. The composer did not have a particular fairy tale in mind, but the themes start out as 'elfin light' or 'mysterious,' becoming 'dramatic' and 'gay,' and there is a 'happy ending.' ⁽⁸⁾

        Morawetz studied in Prague, Vienna and Paris. He left for Canada in 1940 where he taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto. By the end of the twentieth century he was one of the more frequently performed Canadian composers. ⁽⁹⁾



   - British/Scottish-Czech composer Geraldine Mucha (1917-2012) who lived for a long time in Prague, composed For Erika, a beautiful piece for piano and cello. It was written for a friend.

        Geraldine Thomson Mucha was born in London to a Scottish father and a mother from New Zealand. Both parents were singers. As a child she loved opera and ballet.

        Early on she studied with Arnold Bax (1885 - 1953) and Benjamin Dale (1885 - 1943) and learned their late romantic composition style. From 1935 to 1943 she studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, a.o. with Dale and also William Alwyn (1905- 1985), Alan Bush (1900-1995) and Harry Farjeon (1878-1948). The more astringent, post-romantic style of Alwyn and Bush influenced Mucha's own style.

        Geraldine met Czech writer Jiří Mucha (1915-1991) in 1941. They married in 1942. During the war her husband was a war-correspondent abroad, and she worked as a telephone operator while making arrangements for the BBC.

        In 1945 the couple moved to Prague. Mucha helped create the early Prague Spring music festivals. In 1950 her husband was arrested by the communists for his wartime collaboration with the Allies. He was jailed until 1953 while Geraldine worked as an organist in the countryside. Afterward she became a music editor, and her compositions were given performances.

        In the 1960s Geraldine move to Scotland where her husband was allowed to visit her. During these visits the couple worked on exhibits of Jiří's father's Alphonse Mucha's (1860-1939) magnificent art nouveau paintings. After her husband's death in 1991 Geraldine moved back to Prague and continued to spend summers in Scotland.

        In addition to the late and post-romantic influences from her teachers, Geraldine deeply loved Scottish folk music and admired Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), Béla Bartok (1881-1945) and Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Even before meeting her future husband, she had met Jiří's first wife Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940). Wartime performances of pieces by Janáček (1854-1928) and Martinů (1890-1959) strengthened her admiration for Czech composers, and after arriving in Prague she hoped--in vain--to study with Vítězslav Novák (1870-1949).

        In Prague she 'continued to seek to blend her personal romantic spirit with a more modern, mid-twentieth century sound,' similar to her Petr Eben (1929-2007) and Luboš Fišer (1935-1999). ⁽¹⁰⁾



   - From Northern Irish composer and conductor Havelock Nelson (1917-1996) comes Ruffle the Old Hag in the Corner from Three Irish Diversions for piano. Ruffle the Old Hag in the Corner is a setting of a traditional fast-paced Irish slip jig. Nelson gave it a beautiful glissando at the end, and the piece has been used for grade exams. ⁽¹¹⁾

        Nelson studied composition with John Francis Larchet (1884-1967) at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and later studied medicine and music at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). ⁽¹²⁾

• In 1939 he co-founded the Dublin Orchestral Players.
• In 1947 he joined the BBC in Belfast. He conducted the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra, also the Studio Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Singers.
• In 1950 he obtained a doctorate in music from TCD.
• In 1977 he went to Trinidad to direct a local opera company.
• He died in Belfast.

        Nelson wrote many works, a.o. orchestral works, a ballet, a choral suite, anthems, and many part- and solo songs and song cycles, piano pieces and other instrumental works, music for film, television and radio, and arrangements of Irish and other folk songs.



   - From conductor and composer Georg Tintner (1917-1999) we hear an early work, the Variations on a Theme of Chopin (1934), a set of fifteen variations on Chopin's (1810-1849) Prelude in A major. Tintner probably wrote them for his own use. The work was probably inspired by a short-lived love for a 'fickle young pianist named Piroška.' ⁽¹³⁾

        Tintner was born in Austria and sang in the Vienna Boys' Choir. He studied composition with Joseph Marx (1882-1964) and conducting with Felix Weingartner (1863-1942), and then became assistant conductor of the Vienna Volksoper.

        He left Vienna in 1938 and was arrested in Australia, falsely suspected of being a German spy. He arrived in Auckland, New Zealand in 1940 where he first conducted a church choir during the war, in 1947 the Auckland Choral Society, and in 1948 the Auckland String Players. In the 1950s he went to Australia where he conducted a couple of opera companies and pioneered televised opera.

        In the late 1960s he spent a year in Cape Town, South Africa, and three years at the Saddler's Wells Opera in London. In the early 1970s he returned to Australia to work as opera music director. Under Tintner's direction the smaller Queensland Theatre Orchestra first played opera and ballet and later expanded to concert repertoire. In 1987 he moved to Canada and became director of the Symphony Nova Scotia.

        Tintner was especially known for his Bruckner interpretations and recordings, many of which were made in the late 1990s when he was already struggling with cancer. The disease would ultimately prompt him to jump to his death from his 11th-story apartment in Halifax.

Although known for his success in big classical works, Tintner was able to establish a sense of intimacy in his music making that was unique, and often spoke from the podium, one on one, to his audiences.⁽¹⁴⁾

         In the early Chopin Variations this intimacy alternates with technical exuberance.



   - From American composer, conductor and author Robert Ward (1917-2013) we hear the enjoyable Siciliano from his Concertino for Strings (1973).

        Ward started singing as a boy in Ohio in church choirs and local opera theaters. He started composing in 1934 during high school. He studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY with Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson and Edward Royce, at the Juilliard School of Music in New York from 1939 to 1942, a.o. composition with Frederick Jacobi ( and orchestration with Bernard Wagenaar ( , and in the summer of 1941 with Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts.

        Ward's army service during the war included:

• Induction at Fort Dix, NJ in early 1942.
• Basic training at Fort Riley, KS where he began training as a motorcyclist and served off-duty as bartender in the Officers' Club. Met fellow G.I.s with similar backgrounds which led to possibilities for new compositions. The Special Services officer asked them to produce an all-soldier review about life at Fort Riley: The Life of Riley. This experience taught him how to score for jazz ensembles.
• Trained as a bandmaster at the Army School of Music at Fort Myers near Washington, DC.
• Assigned to 32nd Infantry Band of the Seventh Division in San Luis Obispo, CA. Improved the band's swing ensemble. Entire Division transferred to Aleutian Islands, Alaska where they face reality as medical aids. They were able to take up musical duties again later, but this time in remote forward positions amidst or after fierce fighting, and 'seeing the glazed stares and expressionless eyes of the men who had witnessed the horrors of combat "come back to life."' In 1943 the band was transferred to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where, combined with another band, they played dances and concerts. They later participated in the Island Hopping Campaign, and Ward was able to compose when things started to relax more. The division was later sent to Okinawa, Japan and ultimately to Seoul, Korea at the very end of the war.

'The war years had broadened and deepened his perspectives on life' and 'reaffirmed his belief that all people should be responsible for the welfare of others.'⁽¹⁵⁾

        After the war he completed his last semester of graduate work at Juilliard and taught there from 1946 to 1956. From 1946 to 1948 he was also an Associate in Music at Columbia University. He continued to conduct and compose. From 1952 to 1955 he was music director of the Third Street Music School Settlement on 11th Street in Manhattan, the oldest community school of the arts in the United States with roots in the late 19th-century settlement house movement. He left Juilliard in 1956 for executive positions, a.o. at Galaxy Music Corporation.

        In 1967 Ward became Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, stepping down in 1975 and remaining as a member of the composition faculty. From 1978 to 1987 he taught at Duke University in Durham,NC.

        Ward's style derives largely from Hindemith but shows strong influence from Gershwin. He composed a large body of work in many genres. The concertino, an adaptation of part of his First String Quartet, was written at a time when Ward was still Chancellor of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and felt his skills as composer deteriorate because of his full-time administrative duties. After he stepped down as Chancellor in 1975 he had more time to compose. ⁽¹⁶⁾


_______________________________________________________
⁽¹⁾ Daniel Buckley, "Ulysses S. Kay a serious loss." Obituary, Tucson Citizen, 06/08/1995. (http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/1995/06/08/176205-ulysses-s-kay-a-serious-loss/ (12/22/2017))
⁽²⁾"Kay receives award from BMI in N.Y." Jet magazine, 10/11/1979, p. 60. (https://books.google.com/books?id=P0IDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA60&ots=vaDJC7eddM&dq=ulysses%20kay%20Chariots%3A%20an%20orchestral%20rhapsody&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q=ulysses%20kay%20Chariots:%20an%20orchestral%20rhapsody&f=false (12/22/2017))
⁽³⁾ Steven Stucky, "Notes. Music Reviews: Orchestral Music." JSTOR website, Notes, vol. 42, no. 2, 1985, pp. 390–392. (www.jstor.org/stable/897448 (12/22/2017))
⁽⁴⁾ George Dusheck, "Leplin's New Symphony Sounds Fine." S.F. Call-Bulletin, 01/051962.
⁽⁵⁾"Emanuel Leplin." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Leplin (12/22/2017)). Quoting Kile Smith, Notes on Discoveries From the Fleisher Collection, WRTI 90.1 FM Philadelphia, 04/05/2003.
⁽⁶⁾ Edward Lawton, San Francisco Symphony program notes. Rocky Leplin, "Emanuel Leplin—Indomitable Artist." E. Leplin's Blog, wordpress.com, 07/31/2012. (https://rockyleplin.wordpress.com/tag/jarrett-leplin/ (12/22/2017))
⁽⁷⁾ Madeleine Lipatti, "In Memoriam Dinu Lipatti - Souvenirs." Geneva, Editions Labor et Fides, p. 12. (https://books.google.com/books?id=QyhjtUfRACQC&lpg=PA11&ots=B51eBEBv50&dq=Les%20Tziganes%20suite%20Lipatti&pg=PA12#v=onepage&q=Les%20Tziganes%20&f=false (12/22/2017))
⁽⁸⁾ Robert Markow, "Overture to a Fairy Tale (1956)." NAC Music Box website, Timeline, Concert program notes, 02/02/1972. (http://artsalive.ca/collections/nacmusicbox/chronologique-timeline/index.php/en/html/vue-view/85 (12/23/2017))
⁽⁹⁾ Robert John Fraser, "The Programming of Orchestral Music by Canadian Composers, 1980‐2005." Victoria, Canada, University of Victoria, Master of Arts thesis, 2008. (https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/bitstream/handle/1828/1104/Robert%20John%20Fraser%20MA%20Thesis%20UVic.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (12/23/2017))
⁽¹⁰⁾"Geraldine Mucha." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Mucha (12/23/2017))
⁽¹¹⁾ Michael Dervan, "The Invisible Art: Why have Irish composers been ignored for so long?" The Journal website, 11/10/2016. (http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/irish-composers-3070300-Nov2016/ (12/23/2017))
⁽¹²⁾"Havelock Nelson." Wikipedia entry. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havelock_Nelson (12/23/2017))
⁽¹³⁾ Tanya Tintner, "Georg Tintner (1917-1999) - Chamber Music." Record review, Naxos website, 8.570258 - TINTNER: Violin Sonata / Variations on a Theme of Chopin / Piano Sonata / Trauermusik. (https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.570258&catNum=570258&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English (12/23/2017))
⁽¹⁴⁾ Uncle Dave Lewis, "Georg Tintner." Artist biography, Naxos website. (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/georg-tintner-mn0001376558/biography (12/23/2017))
⁽¹⁵⁾ Robert Paul Kolt, "Robert Ward's The Crucible: Creating an American Musical Nationalism." Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, 12/12/2008, pp. 10-12. (https://books.google.com/books?id=BaShAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA231&ots=FJ7bxfgRGg&dq=robert%20ward%2Bconcertino%20for%20strings&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q=army&f=false (12/23/2017))
⁽¹⁶⁾ Robert Paul Kolt, "Robert Ward's The Crucible: Creating an American Musical Nationalism." Lanham, MD, Scarecrow Press, 12/12/2008, p. 22. (https://books.google.com/books?id=BaShAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA231&ots=FJ7bxfgRGg&dq=robert%20ward%2Bconcertino%20for%20strings&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q=robert%20ward+concertino%20for%20strings&f=false (12/23/2017))