Thomas Wilkins
By Richard S. Ginell
February 19, 2019
Thomas Wilkins can usually be found in L.A. backing various pop and
rock acts as principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, whose
role in the great outdoors has been marginalized in recent summers. He
deserves a better showcase, and over Presidents Day weekend, he got it —
two programs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Walt Disney Concert
Hall of mostly underperformed music that was related to the Harlem
Renaissance.
While the Phil shouldn’t have to use Black History Month as an excuse to program music by William Grant Still,
Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin indoors, we’ll take it and hope
that it leads to more performances from this repertoire elsewhere on the
regular calendar.
***
With Still’s Symphony No. 4 (“Autochthonous”), which follows a similar template as his more famous Afro-American Symphony
— traditional four-movement symphony with a soulful slow movement and a
jaunty Scherzo delivering the strongest jazz influence — we see that
Still may have been the most faithful follower of Dvořák’s advice. The
Czech composer urged his American counterparts to develop their own
classical music from African-American and Native American sources, and
Still was only too happy to use both here. Everything cohered in
Wilkins’s concept, right to the optimistic chorale at the end. There is a
catalogue of about 290 Still pieces in many genres — some with very
provocative titles — begging to be played and, again, we shouldn’t have
to wait for Black History Month to hear some of them.
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