George Walker’s Sonata for Cello and Piano: first movement

This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum.

https://youtu.be/IjXhgKlFSOc

George Walker (1922–2018) was the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music (Scott Joplin’s posthumous award in 1976 notwithstanding). Walker won in 1996 with Lilacs, for soprano and orchestra. He also was the first Black instrumentalist to solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Walker first studied piano and organ at Oberlin, and after graduating went to Curtis, where he studied piano, chamber music, and composition. He was the first Black musician to graduate from Curtis, receiving his Artist Diplomas in piano and composition in 1945.

He later studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger on a Fulbright Fellowship and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. Jeffrey Mumford recalled, “[Boulanger] was so impressed with his musicianship that she waived the regular requirements she made of students. He could bring anything he wanted to show her at lessons.” His compositional style is quite eclectic—sometimes reminiscent of Classical and Romantic works, sometimes jazz, sometimes folk songs and spirituals—but, as Mumford put it, always “always characterized by a great sense of dignity, which is how he always comported himself.”

In 1987, Walker said in an interview: “I've benefited from being a black composer in the sense that when there are symposiums given of music by black composers, I would get performances by orchestras that otherwise would not have done the works. The other aspect, of course, is that if I were not black, I would have had a far wider dispersion of my music and more performances.” Well, it’s way past time for Walker’s music to receive that “far wider dispersion.”

Walker’s program notes for his Sonata for Cello and Piano say this about the first movement: “The principal theme of the first movement emerges from the ostinato figure in the piano accompaniment. Double stops in the cello part introduce the lyrical second theme. A vigorous closing section follows. A development section precedes a recapitulation of the expository material. The coda completes the classical sonata form evident in this movement.” Emmanuel Feldman considered this cello sonata to be “one of the lesser-known masterpieces of the American cello repertoire.” Jan Swafford says, “Ultimately, the Walker Cello Sonata escapes categories of American or African-American, Romantic or Modern. It is simply and memorably itself.” The recording that I am sharing today is performed by Italo Babini (cello) and Walker (piano).

My classical music post for today is the first movement of George Walker’s Sonata for Cello and Piano.