| PIECEWORKS: George Walker's genius is heard on his 80th birthday |
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| Written by WILLA J. CONRAD | |
| Friday, 31 August 2007 | |
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PIECEWORKS: George Walker's genius is heard on his 80th birthday Wednesday, May 14, 2003 BY WILLA J. CONRAD Star-Ledger Staff NEW YORK -- Montclair resident George Walker has been many things: a Pulitzer Prize winning composer, a top academic, a noted concert pianist. Perhaps then it should be no surprise that a retrospective put together by the Composers Guild of New Jersey honoring Walker's 80th birthday similarly revealed a roving and multifaceted musical mind as versatile as it is changeable. One of the most striking aspects of Monday's program at the New York Society for Ethical Culture was Walker's ability to write idiosyncratically for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal combinations. Many composers have the imagination to speak in different timbres and voices, but Walker has the rare gift of grasping the unique character of each instrument. His Piano Sonata No. 1 (1953), for instance, was the strongest piece of the evening: ambitious, sweepingly romantic in feeling, yet also fashioned with a modernist's ear for pitch, color and astringent harmonies. The central movement, originally a stand-alone work called "Variations on a Kentucky Folk Song," revealed Walker's clever inventiveness as well as a penchant for using source materials with American themes. Pianist Joan Forsyth caught the work's explosive intelligence perfectly. In general, the evening broke down into evolutionary categories. There were early works with a through-written, searching lyricism, like the first piano and violin sonatas. Middle works incorporated more harmonic bite and a sometimes foggier sense of architecture, like "Music for Brass (Sacred and Profane)" from 1975; the American Brass Quintet sounded frankly at a loss how to shape the nebulous score. Late works by Walker seemed more concerned with color and pattern than linear progress. "Modus" for Chamber Ensemble is one of the few works commissioned from Walker since his 1996 Pulitzer for "Lilacs," and it revealed a more rigorous manipulation of line and ordering of pitch and time. The Cygnus Ensemble, a collection of two guitarists, woodwind players and string players for whom it was written, played the work with confidence. Another new work, "And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?" (2002), using text by Sir Thomas Wyatt, showed Walker's superb taste in texts; baritone Richard Lalli, joined by Forsyth, offered a lively first performance. Another song cycle, "Poem" for soprano and chamber ensemble, utilized T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men." Walker himself was at the keyboard for the First Violin Sonata, with his son Gregory, concertmaster with the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, as soloist. It was an emotional highlight, though the performance itself was a tad dry. No matter. Organist Trent Johnson offered two works from the late '90s, "Spires" and "Improvisation on St. Theodulph"; it was notable how effortlessly Walker capitalized on the expansive, billowing voice of the pipe organ. In spite of all his accomplishments, Walker's output is virtually unknown to average audiences save for a few large pieces that have worked their way into orchestral repertoire. Taken together at a glance, one could hear both the continuing evolution and consistent craftsmanship of Walker's oeuvre. Perhaps a performance like this will stimulate other explorations. The audience was small, alas, but the effort was worthy. Copyright 2003 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved. |
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