Hidden Gems and Hidden Figures...

“Hidden Gems…and Hidden Figures: The Cello Music of African American Composers, Women And Less Visible Artists”

Friday, October 4, 2019, 7:30pm

Recital Hall, Edwards Music Building, North Carolina Central University 

Still Waters Running Deep (1984)                                        Barbara York, b.1949

Melodie (1911)                                                              Frank Bridge (1879-1941)

Seven Variations in E flat Major on “Bei Mannern” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute (c.1795)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Comments on the music

Deep River                                                                   arr. Moses Hogan (1957-2003)

This Little Light Of Mine (1945)                                                John W. Work (1901-1967)

This Little Light Of Mine (2001)                                                James Lee III, b.1975

Troubled Water (1964)                                                               Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972)

About these “Hidden Figures and their Hidden Gems”…

The amended titles and content of this afternoon’s program are both intriguing and a bit misleading. One name is by no means a “hidden figure”; during his lifetime Beethoven was one of Europe’s best-known pianists, composers and larger-than-life characters. His Third Symphony nearly became a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his Ninth Symphony remains a musical metaphor for our yearnings for brotherhood and peace. In contrast, the other composers of this program might appear overshadowed in terms of notoriety; by the close of this program you'll see that Beethoven is rolling in league with some “tough musical competition”!!

The opening work, Still Waters Running Deep of Barbara York possesses both a pastoral and flowing character, evoking several familiar images in its title: “sheep” (human or cloven-hoofed!!) being led by "The Good Shepherd" of the 23^rd Psalm, the depth of thought in human nature (Proverbs 18 & 20), but the depth of this piece lies in the beauty of its melodic line and its harmonic and rhythmic “course”, which resembles a river flowing and cutting deeply through its watershed.

Frank Bridge (1879-1941) lived during two of three crucial national periods of British history, the reign of Kings Edward VII (1901-10) and George V (1910-1936), marked by tremendous industrial, economic, political and military development, turmoil and upheaval. Bridge was a student at the Royal College of Music from 1899 to 1903, and his earliest string music dates from this youthful period. Melodie (1911) was composed for the Felix Salmond (1888-1952), who studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Brussels Conservatory; he was one of the leading cellists in Europe during the years of the Great War (World War I). [It possesses a strong Edwardian sense of dramatic vision that was tragically cut short by the national carnage and sacrifice during the War, which wiped out most of a generation of Britons who believed that “the sun of Britannia would never set”.] Salmond joined the cello faculty of The Juilliard School in 1924, and then the Curtis Institute of Music the next year. He would teach jointly at both institutions for seventeen years (1925-1942). He is one of a host of significant pedagogues who emigrated from Europe, and trained and mentored “an American school” of cello playing. Some of his American students (and “grand-students”!!) are still well-known as performers and pedagogues even today: Orlando Cole, Leonard Rose, Louis Potter, Bernard Greenhouse, Samuel Mayes, Ronald Leonard, and Kermit Moore--Salmond’s only African-American pupil.

The Seven Variations in E flat Major of Ludwig van Beethoven were composed during the early years of Beethoven’s residency in Vienna (c.1795), one that would prove to be life-long. The theme is drawn from the melody (“Bei Mannern welche Liebe fuhlen”) in Act I of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, sung by Prince Tamino’s friend Papageno and Princess Pamina as they ponder and discuss the noble desire to live by the power of love (even though they have yet to find those respective significant companions). This operatic dialogue is effectively translated to the instrumental conversation, and the variation form enhances that dialogue between instruments, flowing with equal interest within each variation. The shifts of tempo, key and mood also further magnify the profundity of that flowing progress.

The remainder of this program continues the mining of “gems most strangely hidden”; the African-American folksong genre called the “spiritual” is a familiar gem with a seeming guise of familiarity, due to its adaptive use in many of the nonviolent protest songs of the Civil Right Movement (c.1951-1968), and the international notoriety gained by the touring activities of the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1873-1878). The themes of water and waterways flow very strongly within and throughout the spiritual folksong tradition; all three works of Moses Hogan, John W. Work and James Lee III are drawn from that vocal tradition.

“Deep River” is one of a host of spirituals arranged for voice and piano by Moses Hogan, a pianist and choral conductor who left us ‘way too soon. The two settings of “This Little Light Of Mine” couldn’t be more complimentarily contrastive in their harmonic and expressive effect. John W. Work was the second of three generations of musicians associated with Fisk University and the historic Jubilee Singers. James Lee III is a nationally recognized “STILL young” composer who studied piano and composition at The University of Michigan. He now serves as associate professor of music at Morgan State University.

“Troubled Water” is the closing movement of the Spiritual Suite for solo piano, composed by Margaret Bonds in 1947-48; she arranged it for cello and piano for the cellist Kermit Moore. Both musicians performed together quite frequently; in addition to being great friends, they also worked under the same artist management as a duo.