Dissonant but lyrical: composer and educator Ulysses Kay
ULYSSES KAY
Fantasy Variation - Umbrian Scene ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
Arthur Fagen
The Arts Desk
August 8, 2020
William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony, Ulysses Kay: Fantasy Variations, Umbrian Scene ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Arthur Fagen (Naxos)
William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony
was, briefly, a roaring success after Leopold Stokowski gave the first
performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, and it should have
made Dawson a household name. Instead, he returned to his teaching post at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, heading its School of
Music until retiring in 1955. Dawson continued to compose and arrange
spirituals and achieving recognition as a choral conductor, and that he
didn’t write more orchestral music is a huge shame, as this symphony is
an impressive work. Its three movements share a recurring theme which
Dawson described as representing “the link that was taken out of a human
chain when the first African was taken from the shores of his native
land and sent to slavery.” It’s heard at the outset, a brooding horn
solo which sets the tone for much of the work. Dawson does use
traditional melodies but they’re used as source material instead of
being quoted directly. The music’s extroversion and rhythmic snap is
tempered with a sense of continual unease: sample the slow movement’s
brooding coda.
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Ulysses Kay was a pupil of Hindemith who became another prominent
teacher, combining composing with a professorship in New York. His Fantasy Variations and Umbrian Scene
are fascinating. Kay’s dissonant but lyrical idiom is compelling, and,
as with Hindemith, the dense thickets of notes can unexpectedly
rearrange themselves into juicy major chords. The Fantasy Variations’
theme only appears at the work’s close, the variations merely hinting
at it. Kay spent several years studying in Rome, composing his Umbrian Scene
in 1963 after a commission from industrialist and philanthropist Edward
Benjamin, whose “Edward R. Benjamin Award for Restful Music” encouraged
budding composers to write music which appealed to his perception of
musical beauty.
