[ABOVE: Seven Traceries sheet music, with William Grant Still on cover. BELOW: Along
The Western Shore;
Althea Waites, pianist; Althea Waites and Mark Uranker, duo-pianists;
Cambria CD-1141 (2003)]
On
Dec. 18, 2011 AfriClassical posted: “MusicUNTOLD: Althea WaitesPiano Recital, Long Beach Public Library-Main Library Auditorium onFebruary 4, 2012.” It began, “MusicUNTOLD will present an Althea
Waites piano recital at Long Beach Public Library-Main Library
Auditorium on February 4, 2012. See http://altheawaites.com/”
We
have long had a copy of Black
Diamonds: Althea Waites Plays Music By African-American Composers;
Cambria CD-1097 (1993). The program includes works of Florence
Price, William Grant Still, Margaret Bonds and Ed Bland. Price,
Still and Bonds are featured at AfriClassical.com. The biographies
on Florence Price and Margaret Bonds include paragraphs excerpted
from the liner notes of the Black
Diamonds, along
with the cover art. When John Malveaux of MusicUNTOLD.com told us of
the Long Beach recital by Althea Waites, we arranged an interview for later this month.
We
also wanted to hear the other CD of Althea Waites, also on the
Cambria label, Along
The Western Shore (2003).
The
recording bears the same title as the first work, a world premiere,
by Elinor Remick Warren. Althea Waites tells us in the liner notes:
“Elinor Remick Warren (1900-1991) ranks among the first women in
music history to receive international distinction in the field of
composition.” Another world premiere is Five
Pieces for Piano by
Richard Samuel Saylor (1926-2009) a Professor Emeritus at California
State University, San Bernardino. A world premiere by Lloyd Rodgers
closes the program. It is Etcetera
Variations For Two Pianos, BWV
1087. Althea Waites and Mark Uranker are the duo-pianists for the
work. At 21:35, it is the longest piece on the CD.
The
work which drew our attention to Along
The Western Shore is
William Grant Still's Seven
Traceries. Althea
Waites writes in the liner notes:
“WilliamGrant Still (1895-1978), another American symphonic composer, lived
in California from 1934 until his death. He wrote few works for the
piano but his Seven Traceries,
a lyrical
suite fashioned after seven poems, is a work of abstractions bearing
the imprint of mysticism.”
William
Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which
features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de
Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com
Here
is the entry on 7
Traceries:
7
Traceries,
for piano (1939). New York: J. Fischer & Bro., 1940 (Fischer
edition, 7632; #7632-24).
24p. 1.
Cloud cradles
[dedication: Helen and Allan]; 2.
Mystic pool [dedication:
Josephine Harreld Love]; 3.
Muted laughter
[dedication: Jessie, Marge, Adrian, and Charles]; 4.
Out of the silence
[dedication: William Duncan Allen]; 5.
Woven silver
[dedication: Kay Swift]; 6.
Wailing dawn
[dedication: Militza and James]; 7.
A bit of wit
[dedication: Florence and James]. Duration: 17:00. Library: Library
of Congress (LC 53-43), Spingarn.
Sheet
music for Seven
Traceries
is available from www.WilliamGrantStill.com,
which gives this description of the work:
“Suite
for Solo Piano
William
Grant Still: Seven Traceries
- Features
Still's SEVEN TRACERIES, his second most significant work for piano,
with explanatory essay by Dr. Richard Crosby and commentary by
Judith Anne Still, the composer's daughter." Sinfonia.org writes of
Dr. Crosby: “In addition, his new edition of William Grant Still’s
'Seven Traceries' has been published by William Grant Still Music.”
Althea Waites has constructed a program of works which are not often heard but which form a cohesive program in spite of their very different origins. Although our primary focus was on Seven Traceries, we have enjoyed the other works as well. We are pleased to have expanded our awareness of Still's compositional output with these impressionistic pieces on this disc. - Disclosure:
A
review copy of this CD was provided by William Grant Still Music.
Comment by email:
Thanks Bill, I remain baffled as to why there are not a lot more CD’s by Althea Waites. It is well worth also mentioning Althea’s earlier CD Cambria 1097 which is definitive http://altheawaites.com/cds/index.html. It includes Still’s ‘Three Visions’ and works by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and Ed Bland and is very well performed and recorded. I look forward to ‘Along the Western Shore’. Mike
[Michael S. Wright]
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