Ravinia 2022, Issue 2

JULIA PERRY (1924–1979) Short Piece for Large Orchestra Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, suspended cymbals, bass drum, military drum, xylophone, harp, celesta/piano, and strings Dr. Abraham (Abe) Murphy Perry, a physi- cian and amateur pianist in Lexington, KY, and his wife, America Lois Heath, nurtured the musical interests of their five daughters. Julia began lessons at age 6, eventually be- coming proficient as a violinist, pianist, and vocalist. In 1934, the family relocated to Ak- ron, OH, where she continued to thrive as a student and musician at Spicer Elementary School and Central High School. Julia re- ceived a scholarship to attend the Cleveland Institute of Music, but her family decided that she should remain closer to home at the Uni- versity of Akron for her freshman year in col- lege. She next transferred to Westminster Choir College, where she completed a bache- lor’s degree in music (1947) and master’s de- gree in composition (1948). Over the next three years, Perry taught at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, studied choral singing at Tanglewood (1949), took an opera conducting course at Juilliard, received top honors as a vocalist and composer in the Na- tional Association of Negro Musicians and Marian Anderson Award competitions, and began composition lessons with Luigi Dal- lapiccola at Tanglewood (1951). In November 1951, she crossed the Atlantic on an ocean lin- er bound for Europe, where she lived off-and- on until 1959, primarily in Italy, with support from two Guggenheim Fellowships. She re- sumed composition lessons with Dallapiccola in Florence, tutored with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau during the summer of 1952 (her Viola Sonata, lamentably now lost, re- ceived the Prix Fontainebleau), and spent three summers studying conducting at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. Julia Perry By the time Perry returned to New York City in February 1959, she already had begun ex- hibiting symptoms of acromegaly, a condition in which the body produces excess growth hormones, resulting in abnormal bone de- velopment. But illness did not yet impede the feverish pace of her musical activities—com- position, conducting, singing, recording, and possibly the beginnings of a doctoral degree in musicology—though financial pressures periodically forced her to return to Akron. Perry continued to struggle professionally and physically. Her artistic productions ex- panded to include original poetry, transla- tions, and compositions based on African and African American subjects. She taught one year at Florida A&M University and served a short-term consultancy at the Atlanta Uni- versity Center but never held a permanent university faculty position. Perry suffered a stroke in 1970 that paralyzed her right side. After learning to write with the left hand, Per- ry resumed composition, solicited financial support through grants and commissions, and arranged recordings even as her health steadily declined. Two more strokes in 1973 and 1974 required lengthy hospitalizations and rehabilitation. Her mother attended to her medical needs during this period. During a hospitalization at the Akron General Med- ical Center, Perry suffered cardiac arrest and died on April 24, 1979. During her first summer of studies with Dal- lapiccola in Italy, Perry created a seven-min- ute composition for chamber orchestra, a work that she would reorchestrate twice and retitle once over the next 13 years. In its orig- inal form, A Short Piece for Orchestra em- ployed a modest-sized chamber orchestra with double winds, percussion, and strings. Its powerful opening fanfare, which functions like a refrain in a modified rondo form, intro- duces motivic material that Perry submitted to development and character transformation throughout. Dean Dixon—an African Amer- ican conductor who enjoyed great profes- sional success in Israel, Europe, and Australia from the 1950s through the mid-1970s—led the Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI in the 1952 world premiere. Three years later, Perry expanded the instru- mentation to include auxiliary winds (picco- lo, English horn, bass clarinet, and contra- bassoon), two additional horns, one extra trumpet, and tuba for a performance of Short Piece for Large Orchestra by The Little Or- chestra Society under founder and conduc- tor Thomas K. Scherman in New York City. The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and con- ductor William Strickland recorded this ver- sion for Composers Recording, Inc., in 1961. Southern Music Publishing Company issued this version of the score the following year. A final revision preceded performances conducted by William Steinberg during the 1964/65 concert season. This orchestration removed the auxiliary instruments and tuba, restoring the original paired winds, while retaining four horns. The New York Philhar- monic under Steinberg’s direction performed the Study for Orchestra —retitled at his re- quest—on May 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1965. NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844–1908) Sheherazade , op. 35 Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, bass drum, gong, cymbals, harp, solo violin, and strings The revision and orchestration of Prince Igor , an opera by Alexander Borodin left incom- plete at his death, completely absorbed Rimsky-Korsakov’s energy for much of 1887 and early 1888. Freed of his editing responsibil- ities in the summer, Rimsky-Korsakov quickly compensated by producing three orchestral works: the symphonic suite Sheherazade , op. 35, the Souvenir de trois chants polonaise for violin and orchestra, and the liturgically in- spired overture Russian Easter Festival , op. 36. Immersing himself in “Oriental” literature, Rimsky-Korsakov discovered the ancient an- thology of Persian, Indian, and Arabian tales known as One Thousand and One Nights , or The Arabian Nights . This collection of discon- nected stories is unified only by the narrative voice of Sheherazade, the ill-fated wife of the Sultan. Rimsky-Korsakov selected four tales to inform the four movements of his sym- phonic suite. Similar to his literary source, he unified the movements with a single solo-vi- olin theme “delineating Sheherazade herself telling her wondrous tales to the stern Sul- tan.” Other themes recur periodically: “These given motives thread and spread over all the movements of the suite, alternating and in- tertwining each with the other. Appearing as they do each time under different illumina- tions, depicting each time different traits and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1897) expressing different moods, the selfsame giv- en motives and themes correspond each time to different images, actions, and pictures.” Rimsky-Korsakov prefaced the first edition of Sheherazade with the following programmatic outline: “The Sultan Schahriar, convinced of the duplicity and infidelity of all women, vows to slay each of his wives after the first night. The Sultana, Sheherazade, however, saved her life by the expedient recounting to the Sultan of a succession of tales over a period of a thou- sand and one nights. Overcome by curiosity, the monarch postponed from day to day the execution of his wife, and ended by renounc- ing altogether his sanguinary resolution. “Many were the marvels recounted to Schahriar by Sheherazade. For the telling of these she drew from the verses of the poets and the words of folk songs and tales, con- necting her stories one with the other.” All four movements were given descriptive ti- tles, which the composer later attempted to suppress. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted the premiere of Sheherazade , in 1889 at a Russian Symphony Concert in Saint Petersburg. I. The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship . The sultan speaks gruffly in the opening measures, but Shehe- razade’s gentle voice soothes him for the first tale. Sinbad, a wealthy Baghdad sea mer- chant, gains his riches through seven difficult voyages. The ocean rocks back and forth in a gentle 6/4 meter. Billows gradually rise, mak- ing for a tumultuous journey. II. The Story of the Kalender Prince . In the Arabian Nights , three royal princes are dis- guised as wandering beggars (kalenders). Each has lost his right eye: the first is plucked out, the second is burned by a hot cinder, and the third is knocked out by a flying horse’s tail. Rimsky-Korsakov perhaps represents the hapless trio in recitative passages for trom- bone/trumpet, clarinet and bassoon. III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess . A string waltz serenades the young lovers. Within this romantic setting, a most unlikely debate arose. Vasily Vasilyevich Yastrebtsev wrote in his Reminiscences of Rimsky-Kor- sakov (November 10, 1898), “We [the com- poser and Yastrebtsev] also took note that Sheherazade was played recently in London and that a heated controversy had broken out among the English over whether the clarinet runs in the third movement depicted kisses!” IV. Festival at Baghdad—The Sea—The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior—Conclusion . Rimsky-Kor- sakov embellishes the tale with this festival in Baghdad. The fifth of Sinbad’s voyages violently sweeps him to a rocky crag, which smashes his ship to bits. Themes from the previous three movements make fleeting ap- pearances. The solo violin plays a final, gentle phrase as Sheherazade spins her last tale, lay- ing the sultan’s fury to rest. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 35