0:00

I'm John Panther and this is

0:02

Classical Breakdown. From W.E.T.A. Classical in

0:04

Washington, we are Your Guide to

0:06

Classical Music. In this episode, I'm

0:09

joined by W.E.T.A. Classical's Evan Keeley,

0:11

and we're exploring the life and

0:13

music of American composer Ollie Wilson.

0:16

He passed away in 2018 but

0:18

left behind a tremendous legacy. From

0:21

his pioneer work in early electronic

0:23

music, decades of teaching and important

0:25

work in the field of musicology.

0:28

We explore three of his works

0:30

and show you what to listen for. And

0:32

we look at what kind of teacher and

0:34

person he was through his students. Be

0:39

curious, think critically. That is what I

0:42

hope people really come away with as

0:44

we talk about Ollie Wilson. It seems

0:46

like that was the foundation of his

0:48

work in music, not just in composing,

0:51

but also as he explored music historically

0:53

and his musicology work. And we're going

0:55

to explore Evan, aren't we? Three of

0:57

his works and also some of his

1:00

musicology work that might really change how

1:02

we hear music. Really, to understand Ali

1:04

Wilson's music, you know, you can just

1:06

listen to it and appreciate it. He's

1:09

very creative, really a fascinating composer, but

1:11

the more you dig into his thinking, he

1:13

had a lot to say and a lot

1:15

of his students are still living. He died

1:18

in 2018 and lots of folks wrote about

1:20

him after he died as well. So we

1:22

know a lot about how he thought he

1:24

was a teacher for many years as we'll

1:27

get into John. And he was thinking very

1:29

deeply about music on a number of different

1:31

levels and it's really fascinating to listen to

1:33

his music to hear what he has to

1:36

say and to integrate all that. And we're

1:38

going to be reading from a

1:40

couple of things and we'll put

1:42

links on the show notes page

1:45

at Classical Breakdown.org. from a student,

1:47

as you mentioned, Trevor Weston wrote

1:49

in New Music USA after Ollie

1:51

Wilson's death in 2018. Trevor Weston

1:53

wrote this. There is a tendency

1:55

to separate morality and music instruction.

1:57

Music instruction usually focuses on the

2:00

notes or the historical facts. Wilson's

2:02

lessons, by contrast, were holistic. After

2:04

my first encounter with Ollie Wilson,

2:07

I realized that I had entered

2:09

into an artist apprenticeship with a

2:11

master artist. His teaching humanized the

2:14

learning experience in numerous ways. Music

2:16

composition lessons with Ollie Wilson were

2:18

humanistic. By that, I mean he

2:21

assessed my music by, one, what

2:23

I actually wrote, two, what I

2:25

perceived to be its musical intention.

2:28

Three, how an audience will perceive

2:30

it, and four, and whether or

2:32

not there was a disconnect between

2:35

those three previous concerns. This may

2:37

not seem so obviously humanistic, but

2:39

connecting the human reaction to the

2:41

music with the construction of the

2:44

music and the musical concept was

2:46

a unique approach to me. already,

2:48

Evan, we're seeing so much

2:51

from this student in terms

2:53

of, you know, where were,

2:55

where Ollie Wilson's coming from.

2:58

Yeah, he's really thinking about

3:00

music in terms not only

3:03

just, you know, the theoretical

3:05

relationship between different pitches and

3:07

rhythms and so forth, but

3:10

the social and moral functions

3:12

of music and not just

3:15

the aesthetic quality. of it.

3:17

And we're also going to

3:19

learn about his studies of West

3:21

African cultures and music. It's really

3:23

interesting how it all comes together,

3:25

but Evan, let's look at his

3:28

early life. Where was he born?

3:30

Where did he go to school?

3:32

Holly Wilson was born in St.

3:34

Louis, Missouri, September 7, 1937. And

3:36

when it comes to his studies,

3:38

he went straight through. You and

3:40

I were talking about this, John.

3:42

He had a rather remarkable career,

3:44

the likes of which you don't

3:46

see a lot of today. He

3:49

graduated with his bachelor's from

3:51

Washington University in St. Louis.

3:53

He got a master's from

3:55

the University of Illinois, from

3:57

the University of Iowa in

4:00

1964. Immediately after that he

4:02

starts teaching at Florida A&M

4:04

and Oberlin Conservatory, which was,

4:06

by the way, the first

4:08

to admit black students. And

4:11

in 1970, he starts to

4:13

teach at the University of

4:15

California, Berkeley. He remained there

4:17

until retiring in 2002. That

4:19

is quite remarkable, going right from your

4:22

bachelor's, through to your doctor, walking into

4:24

a teaching position, as you said. That

4:26

is really hard to accomplish today. And

4:28

a lot of his work is within

4:30

the university, and I think it was

4:33

Ollie Wilson, maybe it was someone else,

4:35

but I think it might have been

4:37

him talking about how the university is

4:39

the composer's patron today. You think of

4:41

Beethoven's patrons who pay him to write

4:44

the music that they like to hear

4:46

in their own. concert halls and their

4:48

own parlors for composers today. A lot

4:50

of that is the university. Yeah, no

4:52

Prince Razumovsky's today, but yeah, that's an

4:55

interesting point where, you know, where is

4:57

really some of the most exciting music

4:59

making happening? It's happening at institutions of

5:01

higher learning. So we have a couple

5:03

of works to mention as we talk

5:06

about Wilson. The first is a city

5:08

called Heaven. And he also wrote extensive

5:10

program notes on most of his music

5:12

too, so we're going to be reading

5:15

these to give you a better idea

5:17

of the composer. So I want to

5:19

read some of what he wrote for

5:21

this piece. The title of the composition

5:23

is taken from a traditional black American

5:26

spiritual whose principal theme serves as the

5:28

musical inspiration for the central slow movement

5:30

of the piece. The chorus of this

5:32

spiritual has the following text. Sometimes I

5:34

am tossed and driven. Lord, sometimes I

5:37

don't know where to roam. I've heard

5:39

of a city called heaven. I'm trying to

5:41

make it my home. And we should say,

5:43

Evan, there's no text within the actual piece.

5:46

There's no singing. Yeah, this is not a

5:48

vocal work. So he's invoking this spirit, this

5:50

idea. without words. And going into the

5:52

first movement, he writes, the composition

5:54

contains three movements in a fast,

5:56

slow, fast arrangement, each of which

5:58

is in spite. by different genres

6:01

of African-American music transformed by

6:03

my own contemporary musical language.

6:05

The first movement is based

6:07

on a reinterpretation of a

6:10

blues riff, a short definitive

6:12

melodic motive which, in traditional

6:14

practice, is repeated against a

6:16

changing harmonic background. The piece opens

6:19

with a somewhat rhetorical statement of

6:21

a riff, whose inherent swing

6:23

qualities gradually take on greater

6:26

importance as the piece progresses

6:28

as the piece progresses. The

6:30

movement utilizes a great deal

6:33

of unison writing, cross rhythms

6:35

and blues-like melodic patterns that

6:37

collectively create a composed realization

6:39

of an abstract blues improvisation.

6:42

After the first movement builds

6:44

to a climax, there is

6:46

a short, contrasting, harmonically static

6:48

section before the return of

6:51

an altered version of the opening

6:53

blues riff. Program notes, they explain

6:55

so much, don't they, evident? It makes

6:57

me think he's also writing these in

6:59

the same way that he's composing. He's

7:01

thinking about the words he's writing, their

7:03

effect, their intended effect, and then their

7:05

actual effect. We can almost reconstruct the

7:08

piece based off of what he wrote

7:10

here. and you really see even in

7:12

that in those program notes and as

7:14

you listen to this music the the

7:16

social implications the historical implications of what

7:18

he's doing he's drawing on these old

7:20

traditions but reinterpreting them in a new

7:22

way he's thinking about relationships of different

7:25

communities and different strands of history

7:27

and of course being a black

7:29

composer he's really There's a lot

7:31

of pride and there's a lot

7:33

of fascination and ingenuity with drawing

7:35

on these different distinctive traditions in

7:37

black music traditions, especially black American

7:39

traditions, but not only American, we'll

7:41

get into that more as we

7:43

talk more John. And he's really

7:45

thinking very deeply about all these

7:48

things. And again, as I was

7:50

saying before, if you never read

7:52

the program notes, you could still

7:54

just enjoy and appreciate the music. But as

7:56

you read what he has to say about

7:58

the music, you would enjoy... on so many

8:00

different levels and layers. One thing

8:02

I like about this movement is

8:04

I've never thought of a blues

8:07

riff like this or really thought

8:09

this was kind of possible. It

8:11

sounds like the ensemble is the

8:13

improvising instrument itself. It's almost like

8:15

sculptures you see on the beach

8:17

that's got like a million moving

8:19

parts and it's just kind of

8:21

crawling along in the wind. Yeah,

8:23

I just love how the whole

8:25

thing is an instrument itself in

8:27

that gradual. the gradual swing quality

8:29

coming out too is, I love how it does

8:31

that much. And

8:37

you know, there's various very technical things

8:39

that he plays with in fascinating

8:41

ways. So repetition, for example, is a

8:44

very important component of the blues.

8:46

I mean, even the stereotype of the

8:48

blues, bump, bam, bam, bam, bam,

8:50

kind of happens over and over again.

8:52

So that's a, that's an essential

8:54

element to the blues, and it's congenial

8:57

to Wilson's compositional style as well.

8:59

He knows how to use repetition in

9:01

interesting ways, and we really here

9:03

in this movement, in this movement, how

9:05

he loves to take. these short

9:07

phrases, these sort of musical aphorisms,

9:10

these terse bits of thematic material

9:12

and repeats them, but he repeats

9:14

them in different ways each time,

9:17

and so we're propelled forward by

9:19

this rediscovery of the familiar. He

9:21

introduces an idea, we get the

9:24

idea on our heads, and then

9:26

he brings it back again and

9:28

again, it's familiar, but it's different

9:31

each time. So there's this potent

9:33

use of repetition, also these triplet

9:35

rhythmsms in this first movement, really

9:38

very reminiscent of the blues. A lot

9:40

of blues is in this kind of

9:42

triple time, kind of rhythm, and

9:44

he's really drawing on that in

9:46

an interesting way. Okay,

9:50

so let's go into the

9:52

second movement. What did Ollie

9:54

Wilson right here? The second

9:56

movement seeks to evoke the

9:59

character and... disabilities associated with

10:01

the original spiritual in a

10:03

new musical context. After a

10:05

brief introduction featuring the clarinet,

10:07

there ensues a series of

10:10

short sections, which while sharing

10:12

similar musical ideas contrast with

10:14

each other in character, texture,

10:16

and tempo. There gradually emerges

10:18

an altered version of the

10:20

first line of the spiritual,

10:23

stated Kantabile in the viola

10:25

and violin. This music is

10:27

then commented upon, expanded and

10:29

modified by the entire ensemble.

10:31

In a broad sense, the

10:33

entire movement is a contemporary

10:35

reflection on the original spiritual.

10:48

So it seems to me, you know, this

10:50

this introduction really explains, it gives us

10:52

a roadmap of what we're hearing. There's

10:55

this introduction, it's about two minutes, and

10:57

then we get into the expositional, discursive

10:59

part of the movement with the violin

11:01

and the viola, and then there's this

11:04

kind of, as that continues, the flute

11:06

and the clarinet, exemplify this call and

11:08

response idea that is so important to

11:10

Wilson's music. And the call in

11:12

response, it's not just like... call in

11:15

response like in some music where we

11:17

hear of like Gabrieli or even Tchaikovsky

11:19

and like Romeo and Juliet, some of

11:22

that cross arguing in a piece. It

11:24

happens on so many different levels and

11:26

also in fragments as well. Yeah, and

11:29

these echoes that aren't quite echoes, that's

11:31

another Wilsonian kind of quality where you

11:33

have response that's, you can tell it's

11:36

a response, but it's also introducing something

11:38

new, so it keeps our interest in

11:40

that way. I

11:51

like what he does at the end of this

11:53

because we have this line that is tonally. It

11:55

feels like we're kind of just floating along,

11:57

floating in the air, but they're not

11:59

random. notes. And then for

12:02

the typical listener, for

12:04

the first, for these

12:06

low notes, that just anchor,

12:09

and it feels like it

12:11

holds the whole thing down,

12:13

and then for the

12:15

typical listener, for the

12:17

first time listening, the

12:19

piece, the movement, it's

12:21

over now. It's over

12:24

now. It's over now.

12:26

It's over now. It's over

12:28

now. It's over now. there is

12:30

something else, a little tag where

12:32

we have the opening two notes

12:34

played again almost uncomfortably that closes

12:37

out the movement in a way

12:39

that is familiar from centuries past

12:41

but also completely different in the

12:43

way that it's coming out

12:45

I guess emotionally. It's very

12:47

interesting. I wonder why he did

12:50

that. Yeah, there's a sense

12:52

of intentionality and as we

12:54

were saying earlier, John, this

12:56

idea of repetition with variance,

12:58

that's a real style, it's

13:00

a real important component of

13:03

Wilson's style. Looking

13:06

at the last movement, here

13:08

is what Ali Wilson wrote

13:10

for this. The last movement,

13:12

which opens with an aggressive

13:14

percussion solo, is dominated by

13:16

virtuoso passages for the piano

13:18

in the lower register and

13:20

percussion. The basic musical gestures

13:22

associated with these two prominent

13:24

instruments are inspired by rhythmic

13:26

dynamism of the African-American music

13:28

genre boogie-woogie. The entire ensemble,

13:30

beginning with pizacato strings, shares

13:32

in the development of this

13:34

basic musical material that leads to

13:36

several episodes whose distinct musical ideas

13:39

grow out of previous sections. Ultimately,

13:41

a series of duets between the

13:43

percussion and piano, culminate in a

13:46

riff-like ensemble statement that brings... to

13:48

the movement. When I first heard

13:50

this, Evan, I didn't actually see

13:52

the program notes for this third

13:55

movement and had not thought of

13:57

boogie-woogie, that style, but as you

14:00

listen to this, you hear it in

14:02

so many parts of this, and in so

14:04

many ways, very obvious, very much in the

14:06

background, maybe just a quick response to something.

14:09

I love how he's doing that.

14:11

And you were saying earlier, John,

14:13

about the way the whole ensemble

14:15

is like the improvising instrument. and

14:17

that really, there's a clarification of

14:19

that here as we begin this

14:21

final movement. Percussive writing, even not

14:23

just for percussion instruments, but percussive

14:25

writing is something that's very important

14:28

in Wilson's music, so we really

14:30

hear that in this third and

14:32

final movement. Obviously the percussion instruments

14:34

come to the four from the

14:36

very start, but even the non-precussian

14:38

instruments have that emphatic percussive quality

14:40

of this movement, and it's a

14:42

deliberate contrast. from the two movements

14:45

that preceded. So movement one, you

14:47

have this blues with this rollicking

14:49

rhythm in three, call in response,

14:51

second movement, you have the spiritual,

14:54

you're quoting this black spiritual, but

14:56

there's also that meditative lyrical quality

14:58

of what the spiritual evokes, and

15:00

then in this third movement, the

15:03

final movement, there's this percussive dynamic

15:05

driving force, and you definitely hear

15:07

the boogie-woogie effect. I'm not sure

15:09

I would have noticed it had

15:11

not read the program notes, but

15:13

once. those things with Ollie Wilson's

15:15

music, once he points it out

15:17

to you, you're like, how could

15:19

I have not heard this, you know?

15:31

He also talks about in an essay

15:33

in 1983, he wrote an essay

15:35

black music as an art form,

15:37

and he talks about the fusion

15:39

of Western ideas, Western musical ideas,

15:41

and African musical ideals. And one

15:44

of the things he says is,

15:46

one is concerned here not with music

15:48

as an abstract object of art,

15:50

but as an agent which causes

15:52

something to happen. So I think

15:54

it's a very provocative comment. I'm wondering

15:56

what is it that he's

15:59

causing to happen. especially in this

16:01

final movement. It does feel like it's

16:03

intended to affect some change or to

16:05

make us move in some way. What

16:07

you're getting to there is really explained

16:09

in that essay you mentioned black music

16:11

as an art form. I highly recommend

16:14

everyone read it and what's great is

16:16

it is I mean it's from a

16:18

scholar like it's from a journal so

16:20

it's very academic and it's writing but

16:22

I think anyone can read this and

16:25

understand just be patient. I'm reading and

16:27

I find myself referring back to, oh

16:29

wait, what was this on this page

16:31

that he mentioned? How does it fit

16:33

in with this? It's really wonderful. If

16:35

you can follow the conversations on classical

16:38

breakdown, you can certainly read that

16:40

Ali Wilson essay and not get

16:42

lost to the academia. It's definitely

16:44

very intellectually rich, but it's not

16:46

just intended for a very specific

16:48

academic audience. It's something everyone can

16:50

really appreciate and I highly recommend

16:52

reading it. Right. And actually on

16:55

that essay, we'll jump into a

16:57

little bit. of that because of

16:59

significant part of Ollie Wilson's legacy

17:01

is his musicology work. He received

17:03

a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1971 and

17:05

he studied language and music in

17:07

West Africa. And again, just a

17:10

couple sentences from that student

17:12

of his Trevor Weston who

17:14

said, a thorough discussion of

17:16

West African culture in the

17:18

opening week of the course

17:20

was followed by Ollie Wilson

17:22

explaining his six conceptual approaches

17:24

to creating music that links

17:26

sub-Saharan West African music to

17:28

African-American music. So we're going

17:30

to go into these points now

17:32

and Trevor Weston's right up of

17:34

Wilson after he died He mentions

17:36

these too, but they're they're paraphrase

17:38

so we're going to the essay

17:40

by Wilson for the full points

17:43

here. The first one says this.

17:45

The approach to the organization of

17:47

rhythm is based on the principle

17:49

of rhythmic and implied metrical contrast.

17:51

There is a tendency to create

17:53

musical structures in which rhythmic clash

17:55

or disagreement of accentsins is the

17:58

ideal. Cross rhythmm and metrical am- are

18:00

the accepted and expected

18:02

norm. For this, I'm thinking

18:04

this is not just like,

18:07

oh, when you have moments

18:09

of rhythmic clash, like in

18:11

three against two, like in

18:14

Chekovsky, but the entire structure

18:16

of the music here invites

18:18

the very idea, not just

18:20

invites, but expects that there

18:23

to be this creative expression

18:25

in terms of rhythm

18:27

and metrical contrast. And

18:29

ambiguity, that's another thing which

18:32

I find really fascinating. And

18:34

as you listen to Wilson's

18:36

music, there's that metrical ambiguity,

18:38

but there's also ambiguity in

18:40

other levels. It's music that

18:42

makes you think, music that

18:44

makes you curious. And it's not ambiguous

18:46

in the way of, oh, here is

18:49

a stormy ambiguous moment. Who knows what's

18:51

going on? But rather, it is something

18:53

that can be in the entire work

18:55

itself, not something like, oh, look at

18:58

this weird thing here. What's the

19:00

second point, Evan? There is a

19:02

tendency to approach singing or the

19:04

playing of any instrument in a

19:07

percussive manner. a manner in which

19:09

qualitative stress accents are frequently used.

19:11

So I was talking about this

19:14

earlier in that third movement of

19:16

City called Heaven and the use

19:18

of percussive sounds in all of

19:20

the instruments and you really see

19:23

that tendency in Wilson's music and

19:25

his way of integrating sub-Saharan African

19:27

music traditions and black American music

19:30

traditions. You really get a sense

19:32

of him exploring that in a

19:34

very deep way. And

19:38

for musicians, this is not something

19:41

you generally see, you know, pre-20th

19:43

century, like when I play Tchaikovsky

19:45

or Brooklyn or any of these

19:47

composers, there's very few times where

19:50

I am making a sound that

19:52

is quite percussive and blasting in

19:54

nature, but more contemporary music, there

19:57

is that. The third point he writes is, there

19:59

is a 10. to create musical forms

20:01

in which antifenal or call-and-response

20:03

musical structures abound. These antifenal

20:05

structures frequently exist simultaneously on

20:07

a number of different architectonic

20:09

levels. On different levels, I

20:11

think that's very important here

20:13

because it's not just the

20:15

obvious call-in response like in

20:17

a Gabrielli work for brass

20:19

that we played today, like

20:21

a kensona. Rather, it is

20:23

kind of like the first

20:25

point, it is the expected...

20:27

norm and it appears

20:29

in so many different ways,

20:32

not just the very obvious

20:34

colon response I think.

20:37

Right, the ways we

20:39

were talking about, for

20:42

instance, repetition with variants

20:44

or echoes that aren't

20:46

quite echoes, a lot

20:49

of that in Wilson's

20:51

music. And what is our

20:53

fourth point? There is a tendency

20:55

to create a high density of

20:57

musical events within a relatively short

20:59

musical time frame. A tendency to

21:01

fill up all of the musical

21:03

space. I mean, that's a fascinating phrase.

21:06

Fill up all of the musical space.

21:08

I read that like eight times. What

21:10

does he mean by this? But you

21:12

really hear it in his music. This

21:14

idea that there's a lot going on

21:16

in a way, how do you do

21:18

that as a composer that doesn't just

21:21

overwhelm or confuse the listener? He's really

21:23

thinking very deeply about that. As a

21:25

composer, as a musicologist, and this humanistic

21:27

way of approaching music, Trevor Weston writes

21:29

about. He's really inviting us to think

21:31

deeply about a lot that. going on

21:34

in any given moment, filling the

21:36

musical space and the ways in

21:38

which that's an African musical idea,

21:40

the way that the black American

21:42

musical ideas are really, I'm really

21:45

challenged and fascinated by that whole

21:47

concept. I too read it a

21:49

bunch of times because while music fills

21:51

time and also a physical space that

21:53

you're that you're in, but a musical

21:55

space is different or can be different

21:58

than those things too. To think of it... in

22:00

relation to something else, like an

22:02

art, I think of like 19th

22:04

century Korean or Japanese paintings, in

22:06

which the background might be just

22:08

like almost like it looks like

22:11

it's white, and the emphasis is

22:13

on the line and the action

22:15

or the movement in the foreground,

22:17

I think of that where you

22:19

have this very focused point here,

22:22

compared to maybe a very detailed

22:24

painting that's got like all the

22:26

way to the way to the

22:28

canvas with endless details. The

22:30

fifth point is this. There

22:32

is a common approach to

22:34

music making in which kaleidoscopic

22:36

range of dramatically contrasting qualities

22:39

of sound, timbre, in both

22:41

vocal and instrumental music is

22:43

sought after. This explains the

22:45

common usage of a broad

22:47

continuum of vocal sounds from

22:49

speech to song. I refer

22:51

to this tendency as the

22:53

heterogeneous sound ideal tendency. continuum,

22:58

I think that's a point here,

23:00

where with the instruments in which

23:02

you're exploring musically, you're exploring every

23:04

aspect of it, not just the

23:06

eight or 12 notes you can

23:08

play. And this fifth point to

23:10

me really is a good corollary

23:12

to the fourth point, this idea

23:14

of filling the musical space, filling

23:16

it with what, with the whole

23:18

continuum of possibilities. If you think

23:20

of like string quartets, for example,

23:22

if you think of hide in

23:25

string quartets and Mozart, a lot

23:27

of them do sound very similar.

23:29

Some might say they all kind

23:31

of sound the same. There's a

23:34

point to that in that it

23:36

was a standardized form and everyone

23:38

was writing for it, but that

23:41

doesn't mean that you can't apply

23:43

these same points to those instruments

23:45

as well because people do that

23:47

as we hear today. So I

23:50

think it's it exists on

23:52

multiple levels and also

23:54

in places where it's

23:56

super standardized like a

23:58

string quartet. as a

24:00

tendency to incorporate physical

24:02

body motion as an

24:04

integral part of the

24:06

music-making process. Wow, I mean, you

24:08

know, this is, again, this is a

24:10

very provocative remark. Now, you could also

24:13

see this, how this is a function

24:15

in Western music, especially in the Baroque,

24:17

you know, so much of that is

24:19

dance music, you know, those sweets that

24:21

Bach wrote, for instance, and a lot

24:23

of the musical forms come from those

24:25

dance, those dance styles, but, you know,

24:27

even as this music of Wilson Where,

24:29

we're just sitting at a concert hall

24:32

listening to it, there's a sense of

24:34

motion, physical motion. that goes with the

24:36

music. And again, had I not read

24:38

that, had I not read this essay

24:40

in which Wilson is talking about this

24:42

principle, I don't know that I would

24:44

have thought about it on that level,

24:47

but once I'm exposed to this idea

24:49

and I listen to Ali Wilson's music,

24:51

I can't un-hear it. I can't unfeel

24:53

it in my body as I'm feeling

24:55

the sense of physical motion listening to

24:57

his music. And I think

24:59

it can encompass several different things like

25:02

using your entire body in music if

25:04

we think of the the juba dances

25:06

that are in Florence Price's symphonies, which

25:08

comes from the juba dance where you're

25:11

using your whole body as a percussion

25:13

instrument and getting all this tension out.

25:15

Yes. So these six points really.

25:17

come together in a way that

25:19

I think Trevor West and his

25:21

student again describes well. I consider

25:24

these concepts to be the Rosetta

25:26

Stone of Black musical analysis. It

25:28

is the key to understanding the

25:30

organization of music in the African

25:32

diaspora. And Evan, we're also talking about

25:35

like decades of research and teaching like

25:37

at universities and we've been here for

25:39

like 10 minutes. So this is just

25:41

a glimpse. We're not getting into we're

25:44

not able to really explain all of

25:46

that because I don't claim to know

25:48

all of this stuff either that I

25:50

can't really fully embody that Wilson's writing.

25:52

I'm still learning too. Well, and bear

25:54

in mind, he went to Africa. He

25:57

got a Guggenheim in 1971. He went

25:59

to Africa. He was there on

26:01

the ground experiencing those relationships and

26:03

hearing these sounds and seeing people's

26:05

bodies in motion and integrating those

26:07

experiences into his thinking and into

26:09

his composing and into his teaching

26:11

and into his scholarship. So sitting

26:14

here having a podcast episode conversation

26:16

about it is just the beginnings

26:18

of an understanding. And as you

26:20

say, John, you and I are

26:22

both still learning and I hope

26:24

our listeners are also really interested

26:26

in learning more about these really

26:28

fascinating ideas. to put a

26:30

point in maybe an applicable way to

26:33

think about these things is also thinking

26:35

of the word jazzy that is a

26:37

word that thankfully is used a lot

26:39

less these days but that was thrown

26:41

around a lot and you still do

26:43

hear it today. I've never heard someone

26:45

use it dismissively about something, but when

26:47

you're using it, it's often, it is

26:50

very dismissive. It's used to describe music

26:52

that's vaguely related to either black American

26:54

music, it's got some blue notes in

26:56

it, you know, it's jazzy, I'm doing

26:58

jazz hands for everyone right now. So

27:01

when I say that to mean, like

27:03

when I hear that word, you know, let

27:05

a notification in your brain go off,

27:07

or hold on a second, you know,

27:09

be curious and think critically critically for

27:12

a second. What is the thing that

27:14

is making this quote, jazzy? Is it

27:16

something like in the rhythm? Is it

27:19

something harmonically? Is it the instruments being

27:21

used? And from that, you can think

27:23

to the next point. Well, is this

27:26

a caricature or is this something

27:28

authentic? Because I think you can

27:30

go both ways there. And I

27:32

think with that and thinking critically,

27:34

you can start to appreciate this

27:37

music even more. So these are things

27:39

you can hear in his music,

27:41

especially in a chamber work like

27:43

we heard, a city called Heaven,

27:46

since the music is distilled into

27:48

fewer parts. But we also hear

27:50

it in his symphonies, one of

27:53

which we'll hear a little bit

27:55

later, but we have an

27:57

electronic work to look at right

27:59

after this. Music is brought

28:02

to you by WETA

28:04

Classical. Join us for

28:07

the music any time,

28:09

day or night at

28:12

WETA Classical.org, where you'll

28:14

also find educational resources

28:17

like Take Note, the

28:19

WETA Classical playlist, and

28:21

our blog, Classical

28:23

Score. Find all that and

28:26

more at WETA Classical.org. is that

28:28

he was a pioneer in electronic music

28:30

in the 1960s and the 1970s and

28:32

this is despite the fact that he

28:35

only wrote a few works in electronic

28:37

music but some of them they are

28:39

still played today even recently we hear

28:42

it multiple times on my Monday evening

28:44

show Front Row Washington so one we're

28:46

going to look at right now is

28:48

called sometimes it's a work for tape

28:51

and for singer and Evan this is

28:53

when he actually did not write so

28:55

much in terms of program notes

28:57

didn't he? Right, he said very little about

29:00

this. This is a brief comment he

29:02

made. The electronic tape was prepared at

29:04

the University of California, Berkeley, Electronic Music

29:06

Studio. The recorded voice sounds on the

29:09

tape were derived from the singing of

29:11

William Brown who passed away in 2004

29:13

sometimes is dedicated to my parents who

29:16

through love and patience taught me how

29:18

to sing. So you know here's someone

29:20

who is often in the habit of

29:22

giving us very detailed descriptions of his

29:25

music and here he's maybe being a

29:27

bit cryptic almost giving us this very

29:29

technical aspect to how the tape

29:31

was created and of course he

29:33

mentions his parents in that way

29:36

that's very moving but what's going

29:38

on in this. You know, and

29:40

it's a genre, you know, we

29:42

don't really hear music that's written

29:44

for something, thumping, and tape in

29:46

the 21st century. This was kind

29:48

of a thing in that era,

29:50

the 60s and 70s, using a

29:52

pre-recorded track to go with a

29:54

live performance that was a real

29:56

trend in that era. So it

29:58

feels, you know, it... Could feel a little

30:01

dated, but because Wilson's such an interesting

30:03

composer, I think it stands the test

30:05

of time. But it definitely sounds like

30:07

it's music from another era. I don't

30:09

say that dismissively, I hear Bach and

30:11

it sounds like another era, because it

30:13

is. But this is definitely a genre

30:15

that we don't see a lot of

30:18

now. And the way in which the

30:20

tape is prepared has had certain period

30:22

piece kind of quality to it. But

30:24

boy, I just find this music really

30:26

exciting and interesting. I would also love

30:28

to say to Ollie Wilson, maybe back

30:30

then, or maybe like 10 years ago,

30:32

you wrote an essay for your piece of

30:34

City called Heaven. You gave me two

30:37

sentences here for sometimes. I need more.

30:39

Tell us more, please. But thankfully, you

30:41

also found a video performance, which includes

30:43

a score, which includes a lot of

30:46

information that I guess the audience wouldn't

30:48

see, but our audience I think would

30:50

like to see in terms of, there's

30:52

like a key, because... Well, as you

30:54

hear the singer sing, it's not a

30:57

typical singing. There's different notation for that

30:59

and how it fits in with the

31:01

tape and also there's a physical aspect.

31:03

They're moving around on stage. Moving around

31:05

on stage and doing things with the

31:08

voice that aren't just singing. You'll hear

31:10

the singer making these other sounds like

31:12

these percussive sounds with the with the

31:14

lips and the teeth and You know

31:17

it becomes just almost like this other

31:19

world they chant or something And even

31:21

the notation for the tape I mean

31:23

you look at this handwritten score And

31:25

there's just these sort of these squiggly

31:28

lines and so forth that are just

31:30

sort of a symbolic representation as a

31:32

cue to the singer who is live

31:34

while the tape is playing just to

31:37

be aware of what's going on there,

31:39

but yeah a lot of layers to

31:41

this piece and again as he was

31:43

saying John wishing that he had told

31:45

us more but even without the extensive

31:48

program notes you really get a sense

31:50

of a lot of the musical principles

31:52

that we were talking about those six

31:54

ideas in that essay integrating African music

31:56

and African American music and a lot

31:58

of those principles are at work

32:01

in sometimes. This idea

32:03

of fragmentation, this idea

32:05

of percusiveness, this idea

32:07

of filling all the musical

32:09

space, you have a lot of

32:12

these principles at work. And as

32:14

you listen to this piece and

32:16

listen, think about those

32:18

six principles, it really

32:21

becomes this whole experience

32:23

that's really engaging. You're

32:26

right, we hear so many of those

32:28

points, especially the percussive aspects and using

32:30

the full range of the human voice,

32:33

all those points being brought out here.

32:35

I highly recommend everyone listen to this.

32:37

It's such an experience. And I'm also

32:40

going to put a recording of something

32:42

I heard last night on the radio,

32:44

which I still listen to the radio.

32:46

Paul Robeson singing, sometimes I feel like

32:49

a motherless child because that is the

32:51

basis of the basis of the tune,

32:53

of the piece, sometimes. I heard that

32:56

after I had heard this

32:58

several times, a specific arrangement

33:00

that Paul Robeson was doing.

33:03

It was so beautiful and

33:05

it made me appreciate this in

33:07

different ways too. Wilson

33:09

is great at fragmenting

33:12

things. So even the title sometimes. Yeah.

33:14

Not sometimes I feel like a motherless

33:16

child, which is in a way this

33:18

piece is a meditation on that old

33:21

spiritual. but he could have called it

33:23

sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

33:25

You hear all of those words through

33:28

the course of the piece, but they're

33:30

really broken up. There's a lot of

33:32

repetition. You know, mother mother mother is

33:34

this one thing that happens at one

33:37

point. A lot of these principles just...

33:39

really coming to the fore in this

33:41

piece. And again, if you never read

33:43

the essay, if you never knew anything

33:46

about this person, you would just have

33:48

this really interesting experience with this strange

33:50

and compelling music. And the more you

33:52

know about Wilson and what his thinking

33:55

and what his experiences are and what

33:57

his mindset is, the more exciting and

33:59

compelling that. experiences. Yes, and I'm reminded

34:01

again about something one of his students,

34:03

Trevor Weston, said in the beginning how

34:06

Wilson would have him examine what he

34:08

wrote. What was your intent? What is

34:10

the actual effect? What is the audience

34:12

response to that? And I think, how

34:15

does that come into play here? What

34:17

are the questions that Wilson is asking

34:19

or dealing with as he was writing

34:22

something like this? And I keep saying

34:24

his student, Trevor Weston, is a grown

34:26

man, much older than me. He's a

34:28

composer. I'm like 20 years old.

34:30

I keep saying student. I feel

34:33

like that's a little misleading. And

34:35

now we get to his symphonia,

34:37

which he composed in 1984. And

34:39

this is a work that I

34:41

heard. It's the first work of

34:44

his that I heard. It's about

34:46

20 years ago. I mean, I

34:48

was really just getting started finishing

34:50

high school. The Boston Symphony Orchestra

34:52

had recorded it along with another

34:55

symphony that I was playing, which

34:57

is why I bought it. or Kazaa,

34:59

back in the 2000s. So I had the

35:01

CD, but I wish I had someone or

35:03

a podcast to tell me about this music

35:05

because I just didn't quite get it. But

35:08

now I get it so much more. Oddly

35:10

enough, Evan, we just said, you know,

35:12

when sometimes we've got just a little

35:14

mention of a program note here,

35:16

he's got like an essay for his

35:19

program note for the symphony. We can't

35:21

even get into the whole thing. So

35:25

just to grab onto one part

35:27

of it that I think is

35:29

good for us here, he writes,

35:31

the third movement is an attempt

35:33

to capture the essence of a

35:35

stylized dance. A dance whose fundamental

35:37

nature as a derivative of traditional

35:39

Afro-American blues gestures does not become

35:41

apparent until the closing measures of

35:43

the piece. Again, I'm thinking of

35:45

the questions he would ask his

35:47

students, Evan, and like the intent.

35:49

And I wonder what is his

35:51

intent for the closing measures. This

35:54

is like the opposite of a hide

35:56

and symphony where the fundamental part of

35:58

it is that the beginning and then

36:00

it all expands. Here we have like

36:02

a symphony, like a symphony, and then

36:05

it's like at the end, oh yeah,

36:07

here's the thing. And this reminds me

36:09

too of what Trevor Weston was writing

36:12

about Wilson's teaching style as a composition

36:14

teacher and inviting the student to think

36:16

about what is your intent in terms

36:19

of how the audience will receive this.

36:21

And I think Wilson in this third

36:23

movement is really thinking about that in

36:26

terms of waiting until the end of

36:28

the movement to reveal the sort of

36:30

the key to the puzzle as

36:32

it were. And we'll also put

36:34

on the show notes page a

36:36

link to the full program notes

36:38

that he writes. It reads very

36:40

academic, as we've said a couple

36:42

of times, but again, when you

36:44

read it, you read it slow.

36:46

It will guide you through from

36:48

beginning to end. But it's also

36:50

nice to hear it and then

36:52

read the program notes. I like

36:55

doing that too. Yeah,

36:57

I can appreciate too, John, what you

36:59

were saying about hearing this piece for

37:02

the first time as a teenager, and

37:04

it isn't the most accessible music. I'll

37:06

certainly agree with that. Maybe it has

37:08

a certain esoteric quality. Maybe it was

37:11

written in the early 80s, maybe that's

37:13

a factor as well. I really like

37:15

this music though. It's really challenging and

37:18

inviting. And a lot of these principles

37:20

we've been talking about. You can really

37:22

hear in this third movement, for example.

37:25

It talks about a fixed framework. work,

37:27

a varied part played or sung

37:29

over that, this idea of repeated

37:32

patterns, call and response, you really

37:34

hear that in this movement. But

37:36

again, reading his ideas really helps

37:39

me to appreciate the music, filling

37:41

up all the musical space is

37:43

definitely something that I'm contemplating as

37:46

I'm listening to the symphonia. And

37:48

we chose these three pieces specifically because...

37:50

It runs the gamut. We have a

37:52

chamber work, a work for solo voice

37:54

with a tape, and then the full

37:56

orchestra, but despite it all, you hear all

37:58

of those things coming out. And as you said,

38:01

Ollie Wilson, he died in 2018.

38:03

There is so much to explore

38:05

in his music. Much has been

38:07

recorded, much has not been recorded.

38:09

So we're going to put some

38:11

further things to listen to on

38:14

the show notes page, but... It's

38:16

also good to search in in YouTube

38:18

if you just type all you will send

38:20

music You'll get a bunch of stuff that

38:22

was either broadcast at one point or not

38:24

officially released commercially that you that you can

38:27

listen to But for me Evan the last

38:29

thing I have on this composer is he

38:31

makes me feel a certain way and that

38:34

is it reminds me of when I used

38:36

to teach privately. If I had a student

38:38

that was younger and they come in and

38:40

they they play their music, we've been working

38:43

on maybe like a piece in band or

38:45

orchestra, they play all the right

38:47

notes, the dynamics, the crescendos,

38:49

de crescendos, tempo, rhythms, etc.

38:52

And that's when I usually tell them,

38:54

okay, great, now we can get to

38:56

some real work. And oftentimes it's either

38:59

like, well, what are you talking about?

39:01

Or maybe they roll their eyes, I

39:03

don't. is the work. It's not just

39:05

an even crescendo day crescendo every single

39:07

time I would ask what's happening here?

39:09

Who's playing the line here? That affects

39:11

how you crescendo or do anything in

39:14

your music. So I sail that to

39:16

say after 20 years it feels like I'm

39:18

listening to Ollie Wilson's music and he

39:20

has his arms on my shoulder and then

39:22

turns me around and then points over in

39:24

the distance. Oh hey the line to the ride

39:27

starts over there. Like I'm not

39:29

even on the music ride yet.

39:31

Oh, he makes me think. Yeah,

39:33

he makes you think, and he

39:35

really makes me think about relationships.

39:37

This whole question of history, this

39:39

question of geography, and human migrations,

39:42

human relationships, human communities over time

39:44

and over space. He was thinking

39:46

about that very deeply in writing

39:48

about it, in writing prose about

39:50

it, and teaching about it, and

39:52

composing music about it. And this

39:55

whole question of the thinking deeply

39:57

about the thinking deeply about the

39:59

audience. We want the audience to

40:01

have a physical experience. We want

40:03

them to have an intellectual experience

40:05

and not just an oral experience

40:07

of listening, but it's a whole

40:10

body experience and it's an experience

40:12

that encompasses time and space. And

40:14

Ali Wilson is a composer who

40:16

was thinking about that in a

40:18

very creative way. There's an intellectual

40:20

rigor to his approach, and there's

40:22

also a profound, you know, Trevor

40:25

Weston talks about his humanistic approach,

40:27

and you really feel that and

40:29

hear it and experience it, reading

40:31

his prose, thinking about his teaching,

40:33

and of course, above all, listening

40:36

to his music. Beautifully said. Thanks

40:40

for listening to Classical Breakdown,

40:42

Your Guide to Classical Music.

40:44

For more information on this

40:46

episode, visit the Show Notes

40:48

page at Classical Breakdown.org. You

40:50

can send me comments and

40:53

episode ideas to Classical Breakdown

40:55

at WETA.org, and if you

40:57

enjoy this episode, leave a

40:59

review in your podcast app.

41:01

I'm John Banther. Thanks for

41:04

listening to Classical Breakdown

41:06

from WETA Classical.