This podcast we continue our survey of the NYLCC record label catalog. Our main selection comes from the Requiem Mass of Helen Tobias Duesberg. The daughter of a renowned Estonian composer, Duesberg drew from the music of her naive land for inspiration.
We also feature a work from one of Laurel Records' landmark recordings, a collection of piano music by Blind Boone. Nearly forgotten today, this African-American composer was one of the sensations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Boone enjoyed the same degree of fame as his friend Scott Joplin, although his compositions were focussed on romantic classical forms rather than ragtime. The original release generated a renewed interest in the life and work of this American composer.
- Ralph
This program we play:
Duesberg: Requiem, mvts. 1-3
SONORE Choir; RLB Symphony Orchestra; Andrejs Jansons, conductor
NYLCC
Boone: The Last Dream Waltz
Frank Townsell, piano
Laurel Records
Schubert: Moments Musicaux No. 6, D. 780
Allan Krantz, guitar
DTR
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
DCD 020 - An Estonian Mass
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1 comment:
Pandora / MSN music radio introduced me to Mr Townsend, playing according to the style of Scott Joplin. I stopped, thinking, "That playing is special ..." Then, turning to the Pandora Radio, I saw his picture on "Caprice de Concert II" album and written by this Blind Boone -- Wikipedia: John William 'Blind' Boone (May 17, 1864 - October 4, 1927). The piano of Mr Townsend is superb, and so is his sensitivity, which puts more of the human nobility into Ragtime, which at times can otherwise seem mechanical. Here is Blind Boone's Memorial Park, Warrensburg, Missouri, where also his home is restored and his story provenance told: http://www.blindboonepark.org/whoisblindboone.html .
Did you know that during Confederate times, at the capitol, Richmond, Virginia, the coloured African Church was the city's largest auditorium where President Davis and other lumidaries & special performers often presented important events to white and coloured audiences ? The rigid segregation after the war resulted from the terrible abuses of Reconstruction and was abnormal during antebellum times. I am real pleased that the races are reconciling on the basis of mutual excellence, not forced integration, if you will permit the observation which is actually a key to Blind Boone's success since a century ago.
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