Hurricane Benefit Recording ::: Gulf Coast

In Memoriam:

Dismayed and in deep compassion we
 became aware of the death of
Lucius R. Weathersby.
We all can not believe the tragedy and
we want to declare our deep sympathy.

We lost a true humanitarian and good person, who found many friends during
his visit in Germany.

In Sorrow.
 

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Download of a radio report about the benefit recording.

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Three Impromptus, Op 78                                             Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 ?1912)

Numbers 1 and 2

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born on August 15, 1875, in Holborn, England (a suburb of London). His mother was English and his father, Daniel H. Taylor, was from Sierra Leone.  Daniel Taylor studied medicine at Taunton College, Somerset and Kings College. After becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons he obtained a license from the Royal College of Physicians.  Due to many issues, mostly involving race, Dr. Taylor returned to Sierra Leone early in the life of his son, Samuel.

Studying violin and singing in the choir at St. George’s Church choir in Croydon served as the basis of young Samuel’s music training.  His talents were noticed by Colonel Herbert Walters who became his benefactor and provided funding for his formal education in music at Royal College. While at Royal College, Sir George Grove arranged for Taylor to study composition with Sir Charles Stanford.  This laid the foundation for him to receive a fellowship in composition in 1893. 

As a composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s best known work is Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast of 1898; the first of three works based on the poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Taylor’s organ works can be described as musical gems.  The Three Impromptus, Op. 78, are works that one would hear composed for organ during the latter part of the 1800’s in England.  The three works are late Romantic miniatures typical of that period. 

Prelude to Our American Cousin                                                            Eric Sawyer (b. 1962)

Prelude to Our American Cousin is a realization for organ of the orchestral overture to an opera that concerns Lincoln’s assassination at the theater.   The Prelude aims to evoke a background of recently won peace and hovering violence present on that evening.  It sets in motion materials central to the opera’s musical development, including a rippling descending figure near the opening that breaks off with a dual suggestion of forgiving and forgetting.  After building to a martial outburst, the Prelude resumes the contemplative mood with a treatment of the Civil War melody “When This Cruel War Is Over?and a quotation of an aria in the opera in which one of the actors recounts a dream of meeting a friend on the battlefield. - Eric Sawyer

Improvisation                                                                                             Lucius R. Weathersby

Theme: Seht, neuer Morgen in unserer Nacht
            Mein sch?ste Zier und Kleinod bist

Three Works                                                                              William Grant Still (1895 - 1978)
                             Revere
                             Elegy
                             Bayou Home

William Grant Still, known as the “Dean of African-American Composers? wrote many works for orchestra and voice, as well as full operas.  His compositional output was great, but in the area of organ compositions, he only composed two works for organ: Elegy and Revere.  Both works are meditative and harmonically interesting. Bayou Home was arranged by Hutchins B. Coleman from a vocal work bearing the same name.  The original work was composed in 1941, with lyrics written by his wife Verna Arvey.

Variations on Nettleton                                                            Undine S. Moore (1904 ?1989)

Referred to in reverence as the “Dean of Black Women Composers,?Undine Smith Moore was born August 25, 1904, in Jarratt, Virginia.  At the age of seven she began piano lessons with Lillian Allen Darden.  In the fall of 1924 she received the first scholarship from the Julliard Graduate School to study music at Fisk University.  Graduating in 1926, she began working toward her Master of Arts degree at Columbia University. She completed her degree in 1931.  Having started work at Virginia State College in 1927, she continued to teach there until her retirement in 1972.

Variations on Nettleton was composed for a student at Virginia State University during the 1970’s.  A student asked Moore if she would compose a work for her senior recital.  The composition takes the tune of the familiar hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing?and works it through a number of variations.

Iowa Winter Suite                                                                      Lucius R. Weathersby (b. 1968)
                             I.    First Snow
                             II.   Hard Freeze
                             II.  1:00 AM 20  Degrees Below Zero
                             IV. Third Week of March 

Iowa Winter Suite was a graduate college composition. Originally from the southern part of the United States, I moved north, namely to the state of Iowa, for my graduate studies.  The winters were unlike any that I had experienced in Louisiana.  My composition professor saw how the winters affected me and suggested that I compose a work that gave others the opportunity to share my dismay at and discomfort in extremely harsh weather.

Retrospection                                                                                Florence Price (1887 ?1953)

Florence Beatrice Smith Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on April 9, 1887.  Her mother was a piano teacher and father was a dentist.  She learned to play the piano at an early age.  She later attended the New England Conservatory of Music and received a degree in organ and piano.  She taught music at Shorter College in Little Rock from 1907-1910 and from 1910-1912 at Clark University in Atlanta, Georgia.

After her 1912 marriage to Little Rock attorney, Thomas J. Price failed, Florence found herself and her two children in a difficult financial situation.  During this time, she found shelter in the home of one of her students, Margaret Bond, in Chicago.  Although her situation was, at times, bleak, nothing could thwart her love of performing and composing or dissuade her from continuing to do both.

Price’s musical output is extensive - from orchestral works, concertos, vocal and choral works to organ and piano music, she can be described as prolific. 

Retrospection or Elf on a Moonbeam  and A Pleasant Thought  are short organ works that are rich in jazz harmonies typical of the time.  

Joshua Fit De Battle Ob Jericho                                                  Fela Sowande (1905 - 1987)

Fela Sowande is recognized as the father of modern Nigerian Art Music.  Born in Abeokuta, Lagos, to a church musician and Yurubian priest had a defining influence on young Sowande’s early musical development. His father, Emmanuel Sowande, introduced him to the music of the Yurubian tradition, while Dr. TK Ekundayo Phillips, a composer, organist and choral director introduced him to the works of various composers of European origin.

Sowande attended music schools in London earning a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of London and became a Fellow at the Trinity College of Music.  His musical composition output is large and diverse, including many works for the pipe organ.  These works vary from African thematic inspired works to African-American spiritual inspired compositions.  An example of the latter influence is Joshua Fit De Battle Ob Jericho.  His wealth of tone color, varied rhythms and command of orchestral tone color is ever present in his organ compositions; one is never free of variety.  His special talent for utilizing musical material of a set culture and allowing it to dictate compositional form, harmonic language and fusing that material with both classical and jazz idioms is exemplary.

 

Improvisation                                                                                             Lucius R. Weathersby

Theme: Lobt Gott Ihr Christen alle gleich

New Orleans Suite                                                                                     Lucius R. Weathersby

New Orleans Suite is dedicated to the people of the Gulf Coast Region ?those who escaped and those who did not escape the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.  The suite sets out to musically capture the traditional New Orleans Jazz Funeral.  In this idiom, the Suite begins with the slow, mournful sounds of the hymn Nearer My God to Thee and Just a Closer Walk with Thee and concludes with an outburst of joy and hope, expressing that everyone - rich or poor - will experience rapture in the after life.