booklet-8.559870.pdf

(12659 KB) Pobierz

8.559870

William Dawson ran away from home at the age of 13 to

study at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington to provide

practical training for African Americans, the Institute

eventually broadened its focus to become an accredited,

degree-granting institution. Dawson left there in 1921 to

pursue further musical studies in Kansas City and at the

American Conservatory in Chicago, but he returned to

Tuskegee in 1931 to establish and lead its music

department – a move that changed both his focus and his

ultimate legacy. He spent approximately three years

composing the

Negro Folk Symphony,

completing it in

1934 after winning two consecutive Wanamaker

Foundation Awards in 1930 and 1931. Leopold Stokowski

premiered the work with The Philadelphia Orchestra on

14 November 1934, following up with additional

performances on the 16th and 17th and again on the 20th

at Carnegie Hall (the February 16th performance was

broadcast to a national audience over the CBS radio

network).

Initially, the work was greeted with great enthusiasm.

One critic observed, “It is no wonder Stokowski put his

Negro Symphony

[sic] last on the program, and no

wonder the audience heralded the end of each movement

with spontaneous applause and stood to cheer the young

composer.” Interest (and performances) soon waned,

however, but Dawson did not lose faith in the

Symphony.

He revised it in 1952, following a trip to seven countries in

West Africa, trying to, in his words, “[infuse] it with a

rhythmic foundation strongly inspired by African

influences.” Shawnee Press published this revision in

1963 and Stokowski recorded it with the Symphony of the

Air (the former NBC Symphony Orchestra) the following

year. This is its third recording.

In a detailed study of the

Negro Folk Symphony

published in the

Black Music Research Journal,

musicologist John Andrew Johnson describes the work as

“masterful on many levels. Each of its three movements,

while cast in a traditional form, is ultimately not controlled

William Levi Dawson

(1899–1990):

Negro Folk Symphony

Ulysses Simpson Kay

(1917–1995):

Fantasy Variations • Umbrian Scene

by these predetermined structures; rather, a continuous

process of variation and development shapes its course.”

Dawson applies his own highly individual touches in a

work that is both structured and freely programmatic. At

the outset of the first movement,

The Bond of Africa,

introduces a recurring motif – a sort of

idée fixe

– that he

labeled the “missing link” to represent “the link [that] was

taken out of a human chain when the first African was

taken from the shores of his native land and sent to

slavery.” Solo horn announces the brief pentatonic idea

that is soon repeated on English horn. After this slow

introduction, Dawson begins the sonata-form movement

with a principal theme – also introduced on horn – that is

brief in duration but rife with possibilities for rhythmic

development. The secondary theme, introduced on oboe,

is based on an authentic spiritual,

Oh, My Littl’ Soul

Gwine-a Shine.

(It is worth noting that although Dawson

uses several authentic melodies in the symphony, they

are not well-known tunes and the composer uses them

only in an excerpted, fragmentary way. No one walks

away from the work humming

Deep River

Swing Low,

Sweet Chariot.)

The beginning of the development

section is marked by a return of the somber “missing link”

motif, which returns yet again before the recapitulation.

Also in this movement, initially near the end of the

exposition, Dawson adds rhythmic references to the Juba

dance brought by slaves from the Kingdom of Kongo to

plantations in South Carolina.

The second movement, entitled

Hope in the Night,

begins with three gong strokes intended by Dawson to

represent the Trinity “that guides the destiny of man.”

Roughly in A–B–A form, with the A section marked

Andante

and the B section a much quicker

Allegretto,

thus fulfils the roles of both a slow movement and a

scherzo

in a traditional four-movement symphonic

structure. The A theme, introduced on English horn, is a

variant of the “missing link” motif (with rising rather than

descending intervals), which Dawson meant to suggest

“the monotonous life of the people who were held in

bondage for 250 years.” He intended the

scherzando

theme (introduced by two oboes) to symbolize “the merry

play of children yet unaware of the hopelessness

beclouding their future.” But the playful theme is

interrupted by a return of the ominous “missing link” motif

and a brief reprise of the opening idea (separated by a

remarkable transition orchestrated for string quartet and

solo woodwinds). When the A section finally returns, it is

with full orchestra and a heavy tread marked by timpani

and chimes. The “missing link” motif makes yet another

appearance, and the movement closes with gloomy string

sustains growing from

pianississimo

fortississimo

and

back again over a fatalistic drumbeat.

The concluding movement – again in sonata form –

takes its title from the first of two spiritual tunes that make

up its themes:

O, Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning

Star!

Begun on oboe and soon taken up by other

woodwinds, it is characterized by its long-held opening

pitch, which Dawson uses to create tension by adding a

crescendo. The second theme is also based on a

spiritual,

Hallelujah, Lord, I Been Down Into the Sea,

again begun by oboe and then repeated on clarinet. The

“missing link” motif is absent from this movement,

although it bears a slight similarity to the first four notes of

O, Le’ Me Shine,

suggesting the latter may have inspired

it. The Juba rhythms return in the development section,

and the piece concludes with a magnificent coda featuring

prominent timpani and syncopation.

The premiere of the symphony was followed by

performances in Birmingham, Alabama, but after 1936 the

work simply fell off the radar – partly because there was

only one full score and set of parts – until Stokowski’s

recording. For Dawson, it became a road not travelled

since he spent the rest of his career focusing mostly on

music education, choral performance and arranging.

Ulysses Kay was also a music educator, teaching at

several universities, including a 20-year career at the

Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New

York. As a composer, he was more prolific than Dawson,

leaving behind approximately 140 works for orchestra,

chorus, chamber ensembles, piano, voice, organ and

band; he also wrote five operas as well as scores for film

and television. While Kay was studying at the University

of Arizona, William Grant Still encouraged him to become

a composer, and the aspiring musician went on to study

with Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson and Paul

Hindemith.

Conductor Arthur Bennett Lipkin commissioned Kay’s

Fantasy Variations

for the Portland (Maine) Symphony

Orchestra, which premiered the work on 19 November

1963. It might also be called

Variations in Search of a

Theme

since the actual theme does not appear until the

end, after an introduction and 13 variations. About the

work, the composer wrote:

“Over the years musical ideas or materials occur

to a composer as he works along from day to

day. Most often these ideas are fragmentary

motives, distinctive rhythms, or merely

relationships between notes. In themselves the

import of these ideas is negligible, but they are

important for the composer, for they are the raw

material out of which a composition grows.

Just such an experience happened to me,

beginning in 1958, with the materials used in my

Fantasy Variations.

The opening horn motive

was jotted down then in my sketchbook, and

other related ideas came to me from time to time.

Though I had no idea what kind of piece these

ideas might make, they stayed on my mind until

Mr. Lipkin commissioned an orchestral piece

from me. Then their purpose became clear, and I

wrote the work between March and July of 1963.”

The piece opens with a four-note cell in Phrygian mode

announced by solo horn. Although this cell is not the

theme, it is an important thematic element throughout the

work. It appears – sometimes transposed and

rhythmically or melodically modified (including retrograde)

– in all variations except

5, 6

and

It is not always

apparent to the ear, but it is a significant structural device

that helps unify the work.

Kay’s melodic lines move freely between diatonicism

and chromaticism, and his harmonies make judicious,

8.559870

expressive use of dissonance – including the intermittent

appearance of tone clusters (as in

Variation 7).

The

variations flow together without breaks, and can be

distinguished one from the other as much by the textures

and orchestral colors Kay deploys as by their melodic or

harmonic content. When the theme finally arrives, first on

brass and later on strings, the first seven notes

incorporate the four-note cell, reasserting its importance

as the

urmotiv

of the entire work.

Also in 1963, Edward Benjamin commissioned Kay to

compose a piece for the New Orleans Philharmonic

Symphony. Several years earlier, the New Orleans

industrialist and philanthropist had established the

Edward Benjamin Award for Restful Music for

composition students at the Eastman School of Music,

encouraging them to write pieces that conformed to his

personal idea of musical beauty. The commissioning

series was later expanded to include The Philadelphia

Orchestra and other ensembles. Kay described the

invitation as “a joy and a challenge – a challenge because

the piece wanted was to be of symphonic proportions, ten

to twelve minutes in length, and quiet or restful in mood.”

Searching for ideas for the piece, Kay recalled the time he

spent in Italy as winner of the 1949 Prix de Rome (his

second time to win the coveted prize).

Listeners looking for Italian musical tropes in

Umbrian

Scene

will be disappointed. The piece is, in fact, highly

Germanic in tone. From the sparse opening that suggests

a Schönbergian tone row (clarinet doubled by muted solo

viola) to the intimations of Webernian Klangfarbenmelodie,

the work is rife with lean melodic lines played in

counterpoint with one another. There is very little in the

way of chordal structure until the climax (about two-thirds

of the way through), which is marked by a somber chorale

on muted brass. There are numerous tone clusters (as in

Fantasy Variations),

and the piece ends as mysteriously

as it began, with a return of the clarinet/viola duet

(although this time the strings are

tutti)

and, ultimately, the

solemn stroke of a gong.

Frank K. DeWald

“I remembered the wonder and magic I had felt

while I attended the Festival of Sacred Music

near Perugia … in the fall of 1950. I recalled the

antiphonal instrumental music, the glorious

choral singing there in the old chapels of Umbria,

an ancient district of Italy, comprised of the

provinces of Perugia and Terni. I thought of my

visits to the historic towns of Arezzo, Assisi and

Narni – of the rugged hills and beautiful valleys of

the terrain. And [thus] came the inspiration for

writing my

Umbrian Scene,

as an evocation of

the wonderful time I spent in that part of Italy.”

8.559870

booklet-8.559870.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: