Ravinia 2024 Issue 6

to perform, not study. The young organist ac- cepted his first regular position at Old South Congregational Church the following year. Sow- erby encountered his next important mentor, Australian pianist and composer Percy Grainger, in 1916, after Grainger’s solo debut with the Chi- cago Symphony Orchestra. Grainger invited Sowerby to New York City during the summer months for piano lessons, as well as long discus- sions of composition and folk music. Back in Chicago, the thriving young musician received a sensational honor when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra presented an all-Sowerby concert on January 18, 1917. Sowerby enlisted in the US Army the following December. He was stationed at Camp Grant in Rockford, IL, and eventually joined the 332nd Field Artillery band, which de- ployed to Camp de Courneau in France in 1918. Sowerby received an honorable discharge on February 28, 1919. Following the war, he returned to Chicago as organist at the Wellington Avenue Congrega- tional Church and as DeLamarter’s associate organist at Fourth Presbyterian. The wealthy Chicago-born philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned Sowerby to write a trio for flute, viola, and piano for the Second Berkshire Chamber Music Festival, where it premiered on September 26, 1919. Another enormous honor awaited him two years later, when the American Academy in Rome added a fellowship for composers. Dissatisfied with the applicant pool, the jury awarded the fellowship to Sowerby—even though he had not applied. As the first recipient of the Rome Prize in Mu- sic Composition, he spent the next three years (1921–24) in Rome composing voraciously, ab- sorbing contemporary techniques, and traveling widely throughout Europe. Upon returning to the US, Sowerby traveled di- rectly to the Seventh Berkshire Chamber Mu- sic Festival for a performance of his Sonata for Cello and Piano in G major on September 18, 1924. On that occasion, Sowerby accompanied Dutch cellist Hans Kindler, who later enjoyed a Leo Sowerby at the organ of St. James Cathedral, Chicago successful conducting career, giving the world premiere of Stravinsky’s Apollon musagête and founding the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. This “American Program” also featured John Alden Carpenter’s Violin Sonata in G major and Samuel Gardner’s Piano Quin- tet in F minor. Sowerby had composed the So- nata for Cello and Piano in G major in 1920 or 1921 (sources vary), though the work remained unpublished until 1996. He very likely sought technical advice from DeLamarter and per- formed the score with his former mentor. The English-language movement titles convey an “American” quality (“swinging,” “rhapsodical- ly,” and “rhythmically”), though there remains a trace of the modern French music he so revered. Not yet 30 years old, Sowerby already was an acknowledged master musician, with many re- markable accomplishments ahead. He succeed- ed his teacher, Arthur Olaf Andersen, as chair of composition at the American Conservatory in 1924 and remained in that position until 1962. Three years later, Sowerby was named organist and choirmaster at St. James Church (elevat- ed to Cathedral in 1955) and presided over the organ until 1962. He received the 1946 Pulit- zer Prize for Music for The Canticle of the Sun , a choral-orchestral setting of the eponymous poem by St. Francis of Assisi, as translated by Matthew Arnold. Sowerby became a fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in London and a member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters. He left Chicago in 1962 to accept a position as founding director of the College of Church Musicians at Washington National Ca- thedral, a position he held until his death. LERA AUERBACH (b.1973) Suite from Twenty-Four Preludes for Cello and Piano, op. 47 Russian-American pianist and composer Lera Auerbach grew up in Chelyabinsk, an industrial city and administrative center located 133 miles south of Yekaterinburg and east of the Ural Mountains. Auerbach was a precocious child— artistically and intellectually—completing ma- jor compositions in her teens, winning piano competitions, writing poetry and prose, draw- ing, and painting. She embarked on a concert tour of the United States in 1991 at the age of 17 and decided to defect, just six months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Auerbach en- rolled at The Juilliard School for studies in piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition with Milton Babbitt and Robert Beaser. She also re- ceived a diploma in piano from the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover and pursued studies in comparative literature at Columbia University. In 1996, the International A.S. Pushkin Society named Auerbach its Poet of the Year and Novoye Russkoye Slovo (New Russian Word), the largest Russian-language newspaper in the United States, awarded her its Poetry Prize of the Year. During a concentrated two-year period (1999– 2000), Auerbach composed three sets of 24 preludes—op. 41 for piano, op. 46 for violin and piano, and op. 47 for cello and piano—and arranged five of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Twen- ty-Four Preludes, op. 34, for violin and piano. John Neumeier, the Milwaukee-born Chief Choreographer and Ballet Director of the Ham- burg Ballet, based his epic 2003 ballet Préludes CV (“a choreographic sketchbook in two parts”) on Auerbach’s op. 46 and op. 47 preludes. “Don’t try to understand this ballet,” wrote Neumeier, who considers this work an important milestone in his artistic development. “It has no story (that I could tell you)—aside from the many stories that you yourself might sense, remember, or rec- ognize while hearing this music and seeing the accompanying movement images. Surely each of you might suggest very different stories.” The Hamburg Ballet gave the world premiere of Prélude CV on June 22, 2003. Auerbach dedicat- ed the Twenty-Four Preludes for Cello and Pia- no, op. 47, to Neumeier. The Hamburg Ballet recently revived Prélude CV for three perfor- mances on April 30 and May 2 and 4, 2024, in honor of Neumeier’s 51 years (1973–2024) as Chief Choreographer and Ballet Director. Nine years passed between the composition of Auerbach’s Twenty-Four Preludes for Cello and Piano, op. 47, and their first concert per- formance. The composer accompanied cellist Alisa Weilerstein in the world premiere on July 11, 2008, at Caramoor, which had commissioned the score with support from Tom and Vivian Waldeck. Auerbach explained the historical and theoretical context of this collection: “Re-estab- lishing the value and expressive possibilities of all major and minor tonalities is as valid at the beginning of the 21st century as it was during Bach’s time, especially if we consider the esthet- ics of Western music and its travels in regard— or disregard—to tonality during the last century. The Twenty-Four Preludes for Cello and Piano follow the circle of fifths, thus covering the en- tire Western tonal spectrum. Lera Auerbach RAVINIAMAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 76 RANIEROTAZZI(AUERBACH)