Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)
By Laurence Vittes, 25 March 2021
It was a night in America like so many others, the day after a mass
murder. It would have thrown a pall over any public event, especially
over a concert given by an orchestra with as strong a community bond as
the Buffalo Philharmonic. A spokesperson, perhaps music director JoAnn Falletta,
would have addressed the audience and the scheduled music might have
been adjusted to fit the occasion. In fact, just a few days before, the
orchestra had issued a statement condemning anti-AAPI violence in the
wake of the Atlanta spa shootings. And Ulysses Kay's Pietà, in what may have been its first performance since 1958, provided an opportunity to reflect on beauty and the soul of a nation.
In 1958, Kay along with William Schuman, Roy Harris and Roger Sessions
traveled to Moscow to represent the United States as guests of the
Soviet Union Composers' Union. He was the first African-American to
receive the Prix de Rome and wrote his eight-minute Pietà in
1950 during his stay in the Eternal City, perhaps referring to
Michelangelo's sculpture, as a work for English horn and piano dedicated
to Pietro Accoroni. It was played in the composer's exquisite
orchestration for a small chamber ensemble with a sense of inner
reflection blooming into sound by Anna Mattix who had found and
championed the piece. A moody introduction led to intertwined themes of
yearning and a little phrase that unavoidably and not unpleasantly
recalled the Serenade movement in Berlioz's Harold in Italy.
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