Ravinia 2024 Issue 3

1955, and one year later became the first African American musician to earn a Doctor of Musical Arts from that institution. Although his degree was in piano performance, Walker submitted his newly composed Piano Sonata No. 2 as his doc- toral project. He received a Fulbright Fellowship and John Hay Whitney Fellowship in 1957, al- lowing two years of study at the American Con- servatory in Fontainebleau with famed compos- er, conductor, and theorist Nadia Boulanger and pianist Robert Casadesus. After returning to the US, Walker combined his performing career with academic appointments at Smith College (1961–68; the first tenured Af- rican American professor) and Rutgers Univer- sity (1969–92; chairman of the Department of Music), in addition to several visiting profes- sorships. Composition also came to occupy more of his time. In 1996—a half century after writing his first major work, the String Quartet No. 1—Walker became the first African Ameri- can composer to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Lilacs , a cycle of songs for voice and orchestra based on Walt Whitman’s elegy “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.” Countless awards, commissions, and accolades followed over the next two decades. Highlights include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust Award, Fromm Foundation commission, two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Koussev- itsky Awards, Legacy Award from the National Opera Association, two Rockefeller Fellow- ships, and election to the Washington (DC) Music Hall of Fame. Walker turned to ancient Greek mythology in his 2003 orchestral composition Icarus in Orbit , commissioned by the New Jersey Youth Orches- tra in celebration of its 25th anniversary. Ac- cording to legend, King Minos of Crete locked Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth of Crete, and his son Icarus in a tower to guard the lab- yrinth’s secret. During his captivity, Daedalus constructed two sets of wings from bird feath- ers, thread, and wax—one for himself, and the other for Icarus. Before beginning their escape, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low, where the seawater would drench the feathers, The Flight of Icarus by Jacob Peter Gowy (c.1635) or too high, where the sun would melt the wax. As recorded in Ovid’s Metamorphosis , “the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the de- vouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea.” Though Walker did not provide a narrative to accompany his score, one can easily imagine a correspondence between the music and the myth in this vividly orchestrated composition. LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918–1990) Symphonic Dances fromWest Side Story Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, one E-flat, two B-flat, and bass clarinets, alto saxophone, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, a battery of percussion, xylophone, vibraphone, celeste, chimes, harp, piano, and strings West Side Story began as the brainchild of writer Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Rob- bins, and composer Leonard Bernstein. Robbins proposed that this musical adaptation of Shake- speare’s Romeo and Juliet be given a modern, slum setting during Easter/Passover with a vio- lent conflict between Catholics and Jews. How- ever, a struggle along religious lines quickly lost its appeal. The three men dropped the idea and went their separate ways. This was 1949. Six years later, the Romeo and Juliet idea resur- faced during a poolside conversation at the Bev- erly Hills Hotel. In the aftermath of gang warfare in the Mexican community, Laurents and Bern- stein introduced a new spin: a clash between Hispanic and Anglo gangs. Laurents then sug- gested “the Blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York because this was the time of the appear- ance there of teenage gangs, and the problem of juvenile delinquency was very much in the news. It started to work.” Lyricist Stephen Leonard Bernstein Sondheim, the final member of the creative team, joined in 1955. The plot continued to evolve. Several permutations of the title reflect- ed changes in geography and emphasis: first East Side Story , then Gangway! , and finally the fin- ger-snapping West Side Story . The show opened on August 19, 1957, at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, and later moved to Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957, where it ran for 732 performances. Direct parallels with Romeo and Juliet abound. Two battling factions suggest the Capulets and Montagues. A generic Anglo gang, the Jets, defends its turf against the influx of Hispanic youths, the Sharks. The tragic lovers Maria (Ju- liet), a Puerto Rican girl, and Tony (Romeo), a member of the Jets, meet and fall in love at a school dance (the ball). Bernardo (Tybalt), Maria’s brother, kills Tony’s best friend, Riff (Mercutio). Tony exacts revenge by murder- ing Bernardo. In the end, Tony dies in Maria’s arms. West Side Story was nominated for a Tony Award, but lost to Meredith Willson’s The Music Man . A 1961 film adaptation won 10 Oscars, in- cluding the Academy Award for Best Picture. In the same year, Bernstein compiled the Symphon- ic Dances from West Side Story with orchestra- tion assistance from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal (a Chicago native), both of whom enjoyed suc- cessful careers arranging and orchestrating for stage and film. FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809–1847) Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64 Scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani, strings, and solo violin Mendelssohn first mentioned his long-range plan to compose a work for his friend, the vio- linist and composer Ferdinand David, on July 15, 1838: “I would like to write you a violin concerto for next winter. One in E minor keeps running through my head, and the opening gives me no peace.” Unfortunately, the “torment” of these germinating ideas did not spur Mendelssohn West Side Story poster (1958) RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 55