About two weeks ago (November 8, to be exact), I had a lot of fun presenting a lecture-recital that featured three suites by 20th-century American women composers. It was fun for a lot of reasons: one, the music was goofy and unlike anything I'd ever performed before; two, I got to work with our fabulous collaborative pianist, Amanda Arrington; and three, it was a big step forward for my playing after eight years of recovering from various injuries and illnesses. Looking on the bright side, if not for the enforced time away from playing, I never would have created this anthology!

I had found Audrey Call's Canterbury Tales Suite during anthology research, and even though it's in a jazzy style unnatural to me, I wanted to play it. Then I received an email last year asking me if I knew about Susan Dyer's An Outlandish Suite. The fine folks at interlibrary loan found it for me, and I loved how unusual and quirky it was. All I needed was one more piece of Americana to round out the program, so I went back to my roots and brought out a work from volume one, the Kansas Memories Suite by Hannah Bartel (now Hannah Groening). It made for a very light-hearted little recital!

Hannah Bartel Groening (b. 1985) was born in Cimarron, Kansas, growing up in the country with many siblings in a musical family. She was a composition student at Kansas State and graduated with a B.M. in 2008. Violin is her primary instrument, and she was a delight to work with. Hannah is married now and lives in Dodge City, Kansas, with her husband and young son. She teaches violin and piano, composes, and is an avid gardener. Last year was apparently a bumper crop for tomatoes!

I commissioned this suite from her for the first volume of the anthology. She writes wonderfully for strings, and has a natural gift for melody. Each movement captures a moment from her childhood, and focuses on a different technical aspect of violin playing: string crossings, pizzicato, legato, and perpetual motion. The pieces are not only useful for teaching, but are really fun to play! Below are links to sound files for the first and third movements:

"Rainy Daze" 
https://app.box.com/s/jt7bqa8ydihjxpq43obe

" 'Lil Blue"
https://app.box.com/s/tn0crpr1yf2xhzutpnl6

The next composer on the program was Audrey Call (1905-2001), who grew up in Marion, Indiana (also the birthplace of James Dean). Call began violin studies at age three and appeared as a prodigy from age eight into her teens. Graduating from high school in 1923, she began studying at the Sherwood Music School in Chicago. Call won two violin competitions in 1926, and mdd her debut with the Chicago Symphony in 1927. From there, it was off to Paris for "finishing" at the Paris Conservatoire, where she earned the "Premier Accessit de Violon" in 1928.

On her return to America, Call got involved in radio broadcast work. She was the violin soloist for the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio show for several years, and married the show's orchestra conductor, Ulderico Marcelli, in 1937. Call also played on the radio shows of other luminaries of the day, including Dennis Day, Imogene Coca, and Ronald Coleman. She was also a staff violinist for both NBC and CBS. The 1930's also saw her turn her hand to composition. Call wrote a number of "novelty solos" for violin and piano in a jazzy/blusey/big band sort of style popular at the time (The Witch of Harlem is one, which you can find in volume four of the anthology). Her style has been compared to that of Joe Venuti, though I'm not sure how apt that comparison may be.

Call had one son with Marcelli, and the marriage was a long and presumably happy one. She continued to compose and play, and was a dedicated violin teacher in Sunland, California. After her death, a music scholarship was established in her name at Santa Rosa Junior College. Call played a Gagliano violin, which is now owned by the concertmaster of the Cologne Philharmonic, Geoffrey Wharton.

The Canterbury Tales Suite is in three movements, each of which seems to present a character from the stories. Full disclosure-- I've never read the book so I am guessing at the correspondences based on an internet synopsis. Sorry! Please correct me if you know better. The first movement, "To a Lady from Baltimore," I'm guessing to be related to the Wife of Bath, a fun-loving, risqué, scarlet-dress-wearing woman of five marriages. The music is seductive, interrupted in the second part by a march and a sinister take on "Here Comes the Bride." Call makes use of whole-tone scales (perhaps a French influence?), upbow staccato, glissandi, and harmonics.

"To a Lady from Baltimore"
https://app.box.com/s/sledq46b1ap5q4xzgyhp

The other two movements, in my humble and uninformed opinion, depict the Friar and the Knight, respectively. The second movement starts with rather furtive music, and later launches into a jazzy, somewhat disguised version of the snake-charmer tune. The Friar was a slime-ball; he dressed like a beggar to get money, pretends he has a lisp for sympathy, calls the poor scum, and carries little presents for pretty girls. I'm stretching terribly for the third movement. The Knight went on many crusades, and the opening sounds like a meandering horse's gait. The piece then launches into stereotypical "Asian" music-- lots of double stop 4ths and 5ths-- indicative of travels in the east. And then somehow it all becomes train music, with "all aboard" glissandi and chugging. Lots of fun!

Lastly, a composer who was totally new to me! Susan Hart Dyer (1880-1922) was a dedicated violin teacher and composer with a very colorful upbringing, especially for her time. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, Dyer's father was a Navy Commodore who took his family with him on his travels. They spent considerable time in Guam, where her father was governor, and also in the Philippines. Dyer entered Peabody Conservatory in 1897, and received her teacher's certificate in 1902. She later studied composition at Yale with Horatio Parker, and received her degree as well as the Steinert Prize for composition in 1914. While in New Haven, Dyer taught music at the Neighborhood House Settlement School, where she was devoted to the welfare of the poverty-stricken students. Hand-written notes in the school records show the interest she took in each individual. For one student, she wrote, "Came over and over again to inquire about violin lessons. At that time said his mother wouldn't buy him a fiddle and we had none to lend. Now there are two idle and would advise looking him up, as it would be a very good thing for him to come to the school; he needs it."

Dyer moved with her parents to Winter Park, Florida, and taught at Rollins College from 1914-1922 (serving as director of the conservatory from 1916). She resigned from Rollins to become the Director of the Greenwich House Music School Settlement, but sadly died within a few months of taking the post.

Dyer was known for her keen sense of humor, which is readily apparent in An Outlandish Suite. I didn't know what to expect from such a title, but I think it relates to the idea of "outliers"-- people from the fringes of society at that time. The original program notes for the posthumous premiere stated, "Under this title Susan Dyer grouped together some of the musical impressions and reactions of years of travel. Through all her voyages and varied sojourns as a naval officer's daughter, she kept her sharp ears open to whatever music was wafted her way; and this suite is her vivid response to the musical color and emotional temper of races black and red and white and yellow." The first movement, "Ain't it a Sin to Steal on a Sunday," is subtitled "Negro Song." There were many versions of this tune, from "Ain't it Grand to Live a Christian" to "Ain't it a Sin to Beat Your Wife on a Sunday." This version was used as an encore in the 1922 musical Shuffle Along, the first all-black cast Broadway show. Movement two, "Florida Nightsong," bases the piano part on the birdcall of the chuck-will's widow (which you can hear here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chuck-wills-widow/sounds). This movement was performed and recorded by Heifetz. The unusual third movement is a Seminole ceremonial dance, the chicken dance (no, not the one you do at weddings). The piano part gets more and more insane as it goes along, with Amanda describing it as a "robot chicken on fire," and me to say, "this chick has issues." The "Panhandle Tune" is a cowboy song adapted by Dyer with beautiful simplicity. Lastly, the fifth movement is "Hula-hula," to be played "Not too fast, but with savage rhythm" yet "insinuatingly." The violin has many quick slides meant to suggest steel guitar. This quirky suite is very violinistic in writing and full of surprises!

"Florida Nightsong"
https://app.box.com/s/8rendp3yy1ylkkldcabm

"Chicken Dance"
https://app.box.com/s/miua9l0q34edf361j2cr

Getting to talk with composer and pianist Marga Richter has been one of the most delightful experiences to come out of creating the anthology. This feisty, 80-something-year-old is an active woman of strong opinions and great humor. Our phone conversations since 2008 have covered moving to a new house (after being on the roof fixing the old one), many forceful and entertaining political discussions, worry for a bassoonist friend’s recovery from Bell’s palsy and talk about her latest compositions. She is an inspiration who has come to be known as “Aunt Marga” to said bassoonist and I.

Professionally, Ms. Richter has had a career marked by honors and successes both in America and abroad. Her work in the 1950’s and 1960’s, notable in itself, also helped pave the way for later women composers such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Joan Tower. She has received grants, awards and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, the National Federation of Music Clubs, Meet-the-Composer and ASCAP.  Her 1964 ballet, Abyss, was commissioned by the Harkness Ballet and performed in most of the major cities of Europe and North and South America during the next few years. It has since been added to the repertoires of the Joffrey and Boston Ballet Companies. Ms. Richter’s compositions have been played by over 45 orchestras throughout the world, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Milwaukee and Atlanta Symphonies, and the London Philharmonic. She has written of her work, “Visual experiences and nature are the primary inspirations for Marga Richter's music. Sources as varied as the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, a New England winter scene and the exotic landscape of Tibet have all served to trigger the composer's creative responses.” Her music has a unique sound, frequently dissonant and always intriguing. You can find much more information, including a works list, at www.margarichter.com.

Richter studied piano with Roslyn Turek, and composition with Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma at Juilliard, receiving a Master’s Degree in 1951. In a lovely note she sent me dated September 26, 2008, Richter wrote, “I arrived in Manhattan, NEW YORK, 65 years ago today, after a Greyhound bus trip from Robbinsdale, MN. It was a glorious sunny day and like stepping into a whole new world, with mother, brother, dog and Steinway upright in tow!” The whole family relocated so that Marga could pursue her dreams halfway across the country. Her life is now the subject of a full-scale biography by Sharon Mirchandani, published by the University of Illinois Press. 

In our first conversation about the Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, she first blurted out, “Where on earth did you find that thing?” Richter had written the work during the Kennedy administration, after hearing that Kennedy’s press secretary (Pierre Salinger) had a young son who played violin. She thought he might like to play something different, so wrote it and sent it off. Other than receiving a letter of thanks on White House stationary, nothing more happened with it for forty or so years. I found it listed in the New England Conservatory library, the manuscript presumably donated by the Salinger family. In that same 2008 note, Richter wrote, “[I] am very happy that my Three Pieces will see the light of day.” Happy to oblige!

I really wanted to include a piece that would be a great introduction to more contemporary harmonies and mixed meters before the last volume of the anthology. The Three Pieces are largely playable in first and third position, but feature asymmetrical and mixed meters (the first movement mostly alternating 7/8 and 4/4 measures) and dissonance. The violin part is quite fun to play, especially the driving first movement with a somewhat primal eighth-note brush stroke motif. One word of warning—the piano part is very difficult! In particular, the third movement necessitates a slower tempo than the violin part seems to indicate. The pianist is generally twice the speed of the violinist, with a great deal of chromaticism and tricky rhythms.

As a challenge to that brainy kid, and an ear-opening first exposure to “mid-century modern” music, check Marga Richter’s Three Pieces for Violin and Piano. You’ll be glad you did!