MUSIC BY COMPOSERS OF COLORFOR VIOLIN AND PIANOCORA COOPER, VIOLIN AMANDA ARRINGTON, PIANOProgram Notes by Cora Cooper

In addition to traditional program notes, the organizers of IDEALL Week have

asked performers to include an explanation of the importance of the music and to

describe my connection to the pieces. In all cases, but in many different ways,

each piece on this program reached out and grabbed me emotionally, demanding

to be played. I was not looking for music written by a particular race or gender of

composer; every work stands on its merits and it was only coincidence that I

realized I had a ready-made program for this event.

The music was recorded in three sessions between June 2020 and January 2021. I

hope you enjoy listening as much as Amanda and I enjoyed playing.

Florence Price (1887-1953), The Deserted Garden

Biography: http://www.florenceprice.org/new-page-1

Price was an original American voice, who sought a mixture of western Classical

tradition and form with traditional sounds of the American South, particularly as

heard in spirituals. She was the first black female composer to have a symphony

performed by a major American orchestra, when the Chicago Symphony

performed her Symphony No. 1 in E minor on a concert in 1933.

This short piece sounds so much like a spiritual that I searched online to see if it

was an arrangement of a pre-existing song (it is not). It uses the Dorian mode

(white key notes on the piano starting on D) and a pentatonic (5 note) scale

instead of the traditional scales found in western art music. The violin plays in the

lower register, reminiscent of the contralto range of Price’s friend Marian

Anderson. I found this piece printed in an Etude magazine from 1933, during an

afternoon’s research session at Hale Library when I was gathering material for my

Violin Music by Women anthology. It is particularly dear to me because of that

moment of joy one experiences on unearthing a gem buried in stacks of material.

Price’s music collection is housed at the University of Arkansas.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges (1745-1799): Sonata No. 1 in Bb

major

I. Allegro

II. Rondo gracioso

Biography: https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2019/03/15/chevalier-saint-

georges-france-fencing

Saint Georges led an extraordinary life by any measure. A brilliant violinist (as can

be surmised by the virtuosic concertos he wrote for his own use), top-notch

fencer, darling of the aristocracy, and later fighter against them in the French

Revolution, his life was the stuff of a Dumas novel. History has often

condescendingly referred to Saint Georges as “the Black Mozart.” Indeed, the

two were both living at the Baron von Grimm’s palace (yes, of the fairy tale

Grimms) during the 22 year-old Mozart’s 1778 stay in Paris, and surely had some

encounters. In fact, it was Saint Georges’ mastery of the French symphonie

concertante (a concerto for two or more soloists, which often had an

element of one-upmanship between the soloists) that inspired Mozart to write

his contribution to the genre, K. 364, in 1779.

Saint Georges wrote three violin and piano sonatas around 1770. The tradition in

Classical period sonatas at this time was that the piano would be the dominant

voice, and the violin or other instrument would accompany. Young women of

means learned to play keyboard instruments to be competitive in the marriage

market; many, including Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Patsy, were expected to

practice three hours a day. Instruments like the violin and flute, with their

asymmetrical positioning, were considered deforming and thus avoided like the

plague by women with hopes of brilliant marriages. Their brothers, however, could

play them but generally had better things to do than practice—so their parts were

simpler and less exposed. Saint Georges’ sonatas are far simpler than his

concertos. However, the violin does get the melody frequently, and there are

occasional moments of brilliance in runs, as though he could not help himself.

I wrote my doctoral treatise on Saint Georges’ sonatas, and used them for my

required lecture-recital as well. My main criteria in choosing a topic for both was

that it should not be boring. A fencing violinist soldier who dueled transvestite

spies (see the link), and wrote good music, too, certainly fit the bill.

Jessie Montgomery (born 1981): Peace

Biography: https://www.jessiemontgomery.com/biography

Montgomery is an accomplished violinist and composer born, educated, and

working in New York City. She began her career as a violinist at the Third Street

Music School Settlement, eventually moving on to Juilliard. Her association with

the Sphinx Organization began as a violinist, winning the Sphinx Competition

twice and in later years receiving commissions from them for her compositions.

Montgomery’s compositions include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and

more eclectic combinations.

Peace was written in 2020 in reaction to the COVID pandemic, and premiered

by violinist Elena Urioste as the finale of her lock-down concert series on

YouTube, #UriPostePremieres. Montgomery wrote of the work, “I was going to call

this ‘Melancholy’ instead of ‘Peace’, but I didn’t want to be a downer for the

people. I’m struggling during quarantine to define what actually brings me joy.

And I’m at a stage of making peace with sadness as it comes and goes like any

other emotion. I’m learning to observe sadness for the first time not as a negative

emotion, but as a necessary dynamic to the human experience.”

One “benefit” of this crazy year has been a little extra time to explore new

repertoire, and to enjoy the wealth of online concerts provided by fabulous

players at home. When I heard this piece, I was completely smitten and had to

play it. It is the saddest, angriest, and most resigned music, and spoke to

something inside me that I didn’t realize I needed to express. I hope you will find

something you need to hear in it as well.

Reena Esmail (born 1983), Unlikely Stories

I. …what story down there awaits its end? (Acharanga)

II. …in a network of lines that enlace…

III. …without fear of wind or vertigo…

Biography: https://www.reenaesmail.com/bio/

Esmail is one of the most successful young American composers today, in high

demand for commissions and residencies. After a traditional music education at

Juilliard and Yale, Esmail developed an interest in the music of her Indian

heritage and studied it in both America and India. Her music has become a blend

of the two traditions, honoring both and creating new color palettes and forms in

the process.

Dr. Craig Parker brought Esmail to K-State for a residency in 2017. Over dinner

one night she and I explored our mutual passion for violin etudes, and the need

for material to introduce students at earlier points in their training to both

contemporary techniques and music of other cultures. In the forward to these

pieces, Esmail wrote: “Sometimes inspiration comes from going back to the

basics. When I was 24 years old, and already had an undergrad degree from

Juilliard in composing, I decided I would learn the violin…Because I was already a

composer, I wrote for myself as I learned to play. I wrote pieces that I would find

engaging, and that my technique could handle. The last two pieces…are from

that time. The first piece… comes from much more recently, and is an

arrangement of a melody from the sixth movement of my oratorio, ‘This Love

Between Us.’”

Movement titles are taken from chapter headings of one of Esmail’s favorite

books, Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler. There are eleven chapters,

so perhaps I can convince her to add eight more unlikely stories in the future.

While videos of the separate movements of the piece have been shown on

Facebook already, this is actually the concert “premiere” of the work. Amanda

and I are honored to be the first people to perform them.

William Grant Still (1895-1978), Summerland

Biography: http://www.williamgrantstillmusic.com/

Still was a composer of firsts—first American to have an opera produced by the

New York City Opera; first African-American to conduct a major American

symphony orchestra; first African-American to have his symphony performed by a

major American symphony orchestra (1930); and first African-American to have an

opera performed on national television.

“Summerland” was originally a movement of Grant’s work, Three Visions,

for piano. "Three Visions is a suite for piano written by Still for his

wife, Verna Arvey, who first played the composition in Los Angeles in 1936. The

three segments of the suite, 'Dark Horsemen,' 'Summerland,' and 'Radiant

Pinnacle,' tell the story of the human soul after death: the body expires, and the

soul goes on to an apocalyptic judgment. If it is seen that the past life has been a

good one, the soul may enter 'heaven,' or 'Summerland'. After a period of time,

the soul may reincarnate to learn additional earthly lessons on the human

plane. Some souls reincarnate many times in a constant circular progress toward

Godly perfection.” (https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?

item_code=8.559210&catNum=559210&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&lan

guage=English)

This is another piece I discovered and fell in love with during the pandemic,

through a YouTube video by Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Julia Li, put together

remotely with pianist Micelle Cann. The harmonies are jazz inspired, yet somehow

otherworldly. This music portrays the peace that Montgomery’s work does not. It is

a serene, rich, and comforting work that brings a gentle, though somewhat

unresolved end to the program.