GEORGE FREDERICK Mckay Violin Concerto Sinfonietta No
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AMERICAN CLASSICS GEORGE FREDERICK McKAY Violin Concerto Sinfonietta No. 4 Brian Reagin, Violin National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine John McLaughlin Williams George Frederick McKay (1899-1970) Violin Concerto Suite on Sixteenth Century Hymn Tunes Sinfonietta No.4 Song over the Great Plains George Frederick McKay, known as the Dean of teacher, with students including William Bolcom, Earl Northwest Composers and revered Professor of Music at Robinson, John Cage and Goddard Lieberson. He died the University of Washington for 41 years, from 1927 to in 1970 at his home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. 1968, was born to a pioneering family in the small In 1941 George Frederick McKay entered his wheat-farming community of Harrington, Washington recently composed Violin Concerto in the Heifetz on 11th June, 1899. He spent most of his childhood in Competition, newly established by Jascha Heifetz and Spokane where his father worked as a farmland surveyor the music publisher Carl Fischer. By 1940, when he for a local bank, and began composing orchestral music wrote his Violin Concerto, McKay was an established as early as his high school years. His father did not composer who could point to many performances and approve of a career in music, and he was encouraged to broadcasts by some of the great musicians of the day. enroll at Washington State College at Pullman to earn a His position at the University of Washington in Seattle, business degree. In 1919, weary of this, he transferred to however, far removed from the musical centres of the the University of Washington, Seattle, where he began northeast, meant that he was still seen as an artist of seriously studying music and composition with Carl largely local significance. McKay, like other competitors, Paige Wood. Two years later a scholarship allowed him hoped that success would give his work the kind of to study composition with Christian Sinding and Selim broad national exposure that only a world famous artist Palmgren at the Eastman School of Music at Rochester, could give it. Though McKay’s work received an New York, earning the first composition degree awarded honourable mention and was praised by Heifetz, it failed there. His first published compositions were written and to capture the top prize, which went to Gail Kubik’s published during this time. Violin Concerto No. 2. McKay’s concerto shares strong After his graduation from Eastman in 1923, McKay formal affinities with Max Bruch’s famous Violin embarked on a teaching career that included posts in Concerto No. 1 in G minor, a rather operatic first North Carolina, South Dakota, and Missouri and finally movement, an inward and poetic slow movement and at what became his permanent professorship at the rhythmically vigorous finale, all written to lie well on University of Washington, Seattle. There he became the instrument while sounding extremely virtuosic. Like recognized over the span of four decades as an the Bruch, McKay’s work is in one movement divided outstanding teacher, composer and leader in the into three sections that correspond to the standard fast- propagation of American music. His works were widely slow-fast scheme of romantic concerti. Unlike Bruch’s performed and broadcast under some of the most concerto, the first movement is actually a three-themed distinguished conductors. He was the recipient of many sonata-arch form. The character is declamatory and lyrical. honours during his lifetime, including his twice holding It begins with a brief orchestral introduction of the first the Alchin Chair at the University of Southern California theme, followed by the solo violin stating the second, (1938-39). He received important commissions from primary theme in double stops. After much recitative- national orchestras, and was awarded national prizes for like interplay by orchestra and soloist, the ravishing harp, woodwind, piano, organ and symphonic third theme is played by a soaring solo violin, compositions. McKay was equally successful as a underpinned by undulating triplets in the winds. The 8.559225 2 middle section is both development and cadenza, after nothing is heard of him after 1560. which the recapitulation reveals the movement’s arch McKay’s homage to Bourgeois was composed for form by returning the themes in reverse order. Another organ in 1945 and shortly thereafter cast for string cadenza serves as a bridge to the second movement. This orchestra, a version first performed in 1946 in a benefit movement is the intimate heart of the concerto. A solo concert for refugees of the Spanish Civil War, featuring oboe gives a four-bar introduction and the violin enters six of McKay’s works, all conducted by the composer. with a soulful melody resembling a folk-tune. In 1962 he transcribed the work for two string Throughout, the violin spins an endless cantilena until orchestras, and it is this version that is here recorded. the winds restate the theme of the introduction. This is The 1962 transcription differs in that the parts for the followed by a striking passage scored only for solo flute second string orchestra are intended for younger players, and solo violin, in which the composer’s love of nature and a celeste is effectively added in the fourth is most evident. This passage is also a seamless bridge to movement, Chœur Céleste. Vilem Sokol conducted the the finale. The third movement is a vehicle for pure Seattle Youth Symphony, using more than a hundred virtuoso enjoyment. Highly rhythmic in a mildly jazzy string players, in the 1963 première of this version. The way, the composer slightly offsets its flow with two score bears the dedication ‘In Memory of Louis dance episodes in irregular metre. The movement ends Bourgeois – 1510’. in triumph after a cyclical return of the first movement’s The Suite is in five movements, given with the main theme combined with the irregular dance motive. Genevan Psalter psalm numbers: The concerto is dedicated to Moritz Rosen, a faculty member of the University of Washington, and was first 1 Méditation (Psalm 6: L’Accueil de Dieu) performed in the fall of 1941 by his son Kensley Rosen 2 Rondolet (Psalm 140 & 42: with the University of Washington Symphony Orchestra, Les Commandements de Dieu) conducted by the composer. Rosen performed the 3 Air varié (Psalm 107: Donnez au Seigneur Gloire) concerto again in 1946 with the Seattle Philharmonic, and 4 Chœur céleste (Psalm 12: Donne Secours) played it many times to other audiences with piano 5 Cortège joyeux (Psalm 118: Rendez à Dieu) accompaniment. It was not performed with orchestra again until its triumphant revival by Ilka Talvi and the The titles of the individual movements, broadly Seattle Symphony in 2001. descriptive of the music, are McKay’s own, given in The Suite on 16th Century Hymn Tunes is based French to preserve the music’s original identity. upon the music for psalms composed by the Frenchman Méditation is reflective, and Rondolet playful and courtly. Louis Bourgeois (c.1510-1561). Bourgeois was a Air Varié offers four highly imaginative variations of a follower of John Calvin, and in 1541 went to Geneva, simple theme, while Chœur Céleste evokes a heavenly where he was charged with bringing order to the chorus. Cortège Joyeux is akin to a recessional, when all Genevan Psalter (hymnal). Showing great flair for this worshipers arise in gladness at the end of a Mass. work, he introduced some unapproved changes to the McKay sometimes varies the original hymns, with an hymns, and was subsequently jailed briefly. He was occasional change of rhythm, or less frequently, a note. released through the intervention of Calvin, who saw the The Suite is put together with the assurance of a master value of Bourgeois’ highly musical adaptations and had craftsman, and the writing for strings is, as always, of a them implemented for the Psalter’s publication. After high order. the Psalter was published, he returned to France, where McKay wrote five sinfoniettas, each preceding 3 8.559225 some further stylistic development realised in a later Symphony on 13th November, 1944, under Carl work. In the case of Sinfonietta No. 4 the work is most Bricken, and revived in 1972 at the Seattle Center Opera certainly a conscious precursor of the true symphony House as part of Seattle’s Festival ‘72, on a day reserved McKay planned to write one day, achieved with the for the memory of the composer. commission of his Evocation Symphony in 1951 (Naxos The Song Over the Great Plains is one of the first 8.559052). His study of contemporary European works of McKay’s maturity, the result of a commission compositional developments had a decisive impact upon in 1953 by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for a the evolution of his late style, and this can first be seen work featuring the piano to commemorate the centennial clearly in his Sinfonietta No. 4. From its opening it is of the Steinway Piano Company. McKay was one of apparent that McKay’s expression has taken on a new four composers commissioned for the occasion; the others astringency. The motives are angular and are based upon were Leo Sowerby, Nicolai Berezowsky and Henry chords of the fourth or tritonal relationships. The overall Cowell. One of McKay’s early teaching assignments orchestral sound has taken on a steely, burnished quality during the 1920s was in the gold-mining town of Lead, and a rough-hewn spareness that will be completely South Dakota. He later explained that the Song was realized in the Evocation Symphony. There is ceaseless based on a meadowlark call he had noted down in the eighth-note (quaver) motion and the brass instruments Dakotas. He often added programmes to his works, and (muted throughout) are used as punctuation, a hallmark on the autograph score of Song Over the Great Plains he of McKay’s late style.