Month: May 2024

Spirituals of William L. Dawson: The St. Olaf Choir

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Through his numerous a cappella choral arrangements, African-American composer William Levi Dawson (1899-1990)  helped to preserve and promote the rich tradition of spirituals. When Dawson was awarded an honorary doctor of music degree from Ithaca College, president James J. Whalen honored this legacy eloquently, stating, You, William Dawson, have spent a lifetime immersed in the folk music of your peoples…You have committed your life to bringing this music of the heart, this …

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Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 4, “Amazing Grace”: The Kronos Quartet

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American composer Ben Johnston (1926-2019) was a pioneer of just intonation (pure intervals tuned as whole number ratios) and microtonality (the use of intervals smaller than a half step). At the age of 17, following a concert of his music, Johnston gave an interview in which he predicted, “with the clarification of the scale which physics has given to music there will be new instruments with new tones and overtones.” He went …

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Finzi’s “Farewell to Arms”: An Ode to the Aging Warrior

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English composer Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) was too young to fight in the First World War, but he experienced personally the results of the carnage. Within a span of two weeks in 1918, combat claimed the life of his only remaining brother, as well as his teacher, the composer and pianist Ernest Farrar. Finzi’s Farewell to Arms, Op. 9, a song in two parts for tenor and small orchestra, evokes melancholy remembrances of these …

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Peter Schickele’s “Last Tango in Bayreuth”: An Awful Lot of Bassoons

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Last Wednesday, May 22, marked the 211th anniversary of Wagner’s birth. During his lifetime, the German Romanticist became a cult-like figure, revealing magical new orchestral colors and pushing tonality and formal scale to their ecstatic limits. In contrast with Brahms the traditionalist, Wagner appeared to offer a radical new vision. Looking back on Wagner’s work, Claude Debussy more accurately described it as “a beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.” The …

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Verdi’s Requiem at 150

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Today marks the 150th anniversary of the first performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem. The premiere, led by the composer, took place on May 22, 1874 at the Church of San Marco in Milan, and was followed by subsequent performances at La Scala and in Paris. Powerfully dramatic, Verdi’s Requiem is liturgy through the lens of opera. Scored for four vocal soloists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass), double chorus, and orchestra, it is …

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Arvo Pärt’s “Silouan’s Song”: “My Soul Yearns After the Lord”

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Arvo Pärt’s Silouan’s Song, composed in 1991 for string orchestra, reveals the sacred quality of both sound and silence. Inhabiting a meditative space which taps into cosmic expanses, it unfolds with the mystical bell tones of the Estonian composer’s tintinnabulation style. Pärt’s inspiration for the piece came from a text by the Russian poet and monk, St. Silouan (1866–1938), who spent much of his life at St Panteleimon on Mount Athos. Each phrase …

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Alec Wilder’s “Blackberry Winter”: Marlene VerPlanck and Keith Jarrett

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American composer Alec Wilder (1907-1980) was a maverick and an eccentric whose music defied categorization. Born in Rochester, New York to a prominent family, Wilder was largely self-taught. For a few years, he studied composition and counterpoint privately at the Eastman School of Music, but he felt confined and stifled by the rules of the academy. As a young man, he moved into the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, an enclave …

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