Ravinia 2023 Issue 5

CARL VAN VECHTEN (STILL) I WILLIAM GRANT STILL (1895–1978) Poem for Orchestra Scored for three flutes and two piccolos, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two percussionists (suspended cymbals, crash cymbals, gong, bells, snare drum, and drums), harp, celesta, and strings More than any other musician, William Grant Still earned the title “Dean of African American Composers.” His historical impor- tance would have been assured by one fact alone—his Symphony No. 1 (“Afro- American”) became the first large-scale sym- phony by a musician of color to be performed by a major orchestra, when Howard Hanson conducted the Rochester Philharmonic Or- chestra in the world premiere on October 29, 1931. Still holds further distinction as the first musician of color to conduct a major Ameri- can symphony orchestra, to have an opera performed by a major American company, to have a sold-out classical recording, and to re- ceive an invitation to the White House, among other accomplishments. He received honorary degrees from Wilberforce College, Howard University, Oberlin College, Bates College, University of Arkansas, Pepperdine University, New England Conservatory of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and Universi- ty of Southern California. Still’s parents both possessed musical abili- ty: his father was leader of the brass band in Woodville, MS, and his mother played piano. The family moved to Little Rock, AR, after his father’s death. There, young William studied violin and attended performances of traveling vaudeville shows. Still entered Wilberforce College (Ohio) in 1911 for pre-med studies, but he inevitably gravitated to musical activ- ities, playing in the university string quartet, conducting the band, and composing. He later attended Oberlin College before pursu- ing private composition studies with George Whitefield Chadwick and Edgard Varèse. William Grant Still with his wife, Verna Arvey, and children, Duncan and Judith, in Los Angeles (ca.1944) Still became involved in a variety of mu- sic-related pursuits. During the 1910s, he played in dance orchestras and arranged for W.C. Handy. Still joined the pit orchestra for the 1921 Noble Sissle/Eubie Blake musical Shuffle Along . Soon after, he became record- ing director for the Black Swan Phonograph Company, whose artists included Ethel Waters and Fletcher Henderson. A grow- ing number of musicians—Paul Whiteman, Artie Shaw, and Sophie Tucker—performed Still’s arrangements on radio programs. From 1934 until his death, Still and his sec- ond wife, the pianist and writer Verna Ar- vey, lived in Los Angeles. His credits includ- ed musical contributions to the films Pennies from Heaven (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), and Stormy Weather (1943) as well as to the tele- vision series Gunsmoke and the original Per- ry Mason Show . Freelance work for the Hollywood studios provided income for Still’s family, but it did not curb his production of concert music. In fact, the late 1930s and early 1940s wit- nessed an upsurge in “serious” composition with such works as the opera Troubled Island (1937), the cantata And They Lynched Him on a Tree (1940), and In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy (1943), inspired by a report that the first American soldier to die in World War II was African American. Commissions and requests for compositions multiplied. The Kulas American Composers’ Fund com- missioned Still’s Poem for Orchestra for the Cleveland Orchestra and Erich Leinsdorf, during the conductor’s exceptionally brief tenure as music director (1943 until being drafted in 1944). Rudolph Ringwall led the orchestra in the world premiere on Decem- ber 7, 1944. Across the expanse of his compositional career, Still employed the “tone poem” con- cept to describe single-movement orchestral compositions with narrative or programmat- ic content, as had Jean Sibelius and Richard Strauss before (Franz Liszt, Antonín Dvořák, and others preferred the allied term “sym- phonic poem”). These orchestral movements typically referenced people, places, and musi- cal forms: Darker America (1924), Kaintuck’ for piano and orchestra (1935), A Song at Dusk (1936), Dismal Swamp (1936), Old California (1941), In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy (1943), Serenade (1957), The Peaceful Land (1960), and Threno- dy: In Memory of Jean Sibelius (1965). Poem for Orchestra , on the other hand, rep- resented a tone poem of a more abstract, literary origin. Verses by Arvey prefaced the score with words “inspired by the concept of a world being reborn spiritually after a peri- od of darkness and desolation”—a welcome sense of hope during World War II: Soul-sick and weary, Man stands on the rim of a desolate world. Then from the embers of a dying past Springs an immortal hope. Resolutely evil is uprooted and thrust aside; A shining new temple stands Where once greed and lust for power flourished. Earth is young again, and on the wings of its re-birth Man draws closer to God. —Verna Arvey, Concert Pianist, Journalist, Wife to and Collaborator of William Grant Still The orchestral score parallels the poem’s emotional outlines, guiding the listener from the severe, anguished opening toward an optimistic future backgrounded by lyrical writing. The final moments create a sense of cessation rather than resolution, prolonging the uncertainty in our desolate human soul. EDWARD ELGAR (1857–1934) Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85 Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings While convalescing in London in 1918, ex- hausted physically and emotionally from the ravages of World War I, Elgar composed his first music in nine months, a gentle descend- ing melody in E minor. Back on the mend at Brinkwells (his remote cottage in Sussex), he paraded this undesignated theme—“the 9/8 idea”—before many of his friends and ac- quaintances. After settling on an orchestral setting, the melody slowly blossomed into the Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85. Elgar found a worthy soloist in Felix Salmond to introduce the concerto. Composer and cel- list agreed to rehearse during the summer of 1919, but much work remained before the pre- miere, scheduled for October 27 at Queen’s Hall in London. On June 26, Elgar wrote his close friend Sidney Colvin: “I am frantical- ly busy writing and have nearly completed a Concerto for Violoncello—a real large work Edward Elgar by William Rothenstein (1919) and I think good and alive. It is impossible to say when it will appear or be heard. …Would Frances and you allow me to put on the ti- tle page To Sidney and Frances Colvin? Your friendship is such a real and precious thing that I should like to leave some record of it; I cannot say the music is worthy of you both (or either!), but our three names would be in print together even if the music is dull and of the kind which perisheth.” The composer’s assessment of his cello con- certo is only partly on-track. Certainly the enormity of this four-movement work cannot be denied. Lightly accompanied, slow-mov- ing cello chords begin the concerto. Elgar linked his first two movements with a pizzi- cato version of the cello chords. These same chords reappear greatly transformed in the finale’s opening theme, creating an overall sense of thematic integration. Believing the work dull, though, missed wide of the mark. This highly intimate creation perhaps struggled under the recent strains of ill health and wartime conflict. Its elegiac character has earned the concerto a reputa- tion as Elgar’s “war requiem.” The somberness should not, however, overshadow the many ingenious solutions to accommodating a ten- or-range solo instrument. The luxurious or- chestration is weighted toward high and low extremes, opening the middle register for the cello. Winds and brass are used judiciously during solo portions to avoid overpowering the featured instrument. Without introduction, the cello launches the Adagio motto in multiple stops. Orchestral violas and cellos state the mournful E-mi- nor theme, repeated by the solo instrument. Woodwinds exchange phrases with the solo cello in a secondary theme retaining the lilt- ing rhythm. Pizzicato chords build to the skit- tish scherzo theme of the second movement. Elgar displays a marvelous expressive lyri- cism in the succeeding Adagio . Movements like these invariably prompted the composer to assert, “If you cut that it would bleed!” No sooner does Elgar introduce the first theme of the finale (related to the cello chords) than the solo interrupts with a slow cadenza. Re- suming the quicker pace, the broken theme returns complete. Contrasting episodes en- large the dimensions. The final segment is a lengthy elegy containing the final appearance of the cello’s chordal motto. DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47 Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, three clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, bells, xylophone, two harps, celesta, piano, and strings An urgent message came over the New York Times wire in 1937 from Soviet correspondent RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 25