The Morning Call: Upper Valley Duo in William Grant Still's 'Suite for Violin and Piano' Sun. Oct. 12, 2014, Unitarian Universalist Church, Bethlehem, PA

  Africa: Piano Music of William Grant Still 

 Koch 3 7084 2H1 (1991)

[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]

The Morning Call

October 8, 2014

Steve Siegel, Special to The Morning Call

Violinist Tim Schwarz, assistant professor of music at Kutztown University, has been crossing musical borders for most of his professional career. In 1995, for example, he brought American music to the Middle East for a nine-week tour, the result of his winning the Artistic Ambassador Competition in Washington, D.C.

Schwarz, joined by pianist and longtime musical associate Daniel Weiser, will cross borders again Oct. 12 at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethlehem. The Upper Valley Duo, as the two call themselves, will present a concert exploring the contrasts between American and British music. The program features music by Bernstein, Copland, Still, Walton and Elgar, and opens this season's Second Sunday Concert Series presented by the church.

The two met while studying at the Peabody Conservatory and have been playing together since the mid-1990s. Interestingly, Weiser came to Peabody by way of the Harvard School of Law. He studied there for a year (in fact was in the same class as Barack Obama), decided law was not for him, and ended up earning master's and doctoral degrees in music from Peabody.
The works on the program are mostly 20th century and are all "extremely tonal and melodic," Schwarz says, "although the Walton is probably the most challenging to listen to and to play." Walton's Sonata for Violin and Piano is a two-movement work commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin in 1947 and completed in 1949. The second movement is particularly interesting, with a set of variations, each one a semitone higher than its predecessor. Other than a reference or two to Schoenberg, the piece is firmly tonal.
"Salut d'amour" is one of Elgar's best-known works and has inspired numerous arrangements for widely varying instrumental combinations. The duo will present its original scoring for violin and piano, composed in 1888. 

Not nearly as widely known is William Grant Still's Suite for Violin and Piano of 1943. Still was an African-American composer born in Mississippi in 1895. Each of the work's three movements was inspired by an African-American sculpture: "African Dancer" by Richmond Barthe, "Mother and Child" by Sargent Johnson, and "Gamina" by Augusta Savage. The work is rich in bluesy, syncopated violin lines and stride piano, with a strong boogie-woogie flavor in the third movement.

Comments by email:

1) Thanks, Bill--I am so glad to know about this.  I will forward it to Lisa for the Archives.  Hope you are well.  [Judith Anne Still]

2) Bill - Thank you for your kind note! I remember being in touch many times with Judith Still when I first starting performing her fathers Suite back in the early 90's. I have since performed it hundreds of times, and it always receives a wonderful response.  Tim  [Timothy Schwarz www.TimothySchwarz.com ]