Notes for: July 31, 2012
George Walker is a prolific, highly honored African-American composer, the first person with that background to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He received the Pulitzer for his work Lilacs in 1996.
Walker was first exposed to music at the age of five when he began to play the piano. He was admitted to the Oberlin Conservatory at 14, and later to the Curtis Institute of Music to study piano with Rudolf Serkin, chamber music with William Primrose and Gregor Piatigorsky, and composition with Rosario Scalero, teacher of Samuel Barber. After studying with Nadia Boulanger in France, he earned his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in 1956.
Walker first won attention as a pianist, soloing with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941; making his recital debut in Town Hall, New York City, in 1945; and touring as a recitalist and orchestral soloist. In the 1950s he turned to teaching – at Dillard University, the New School, Smith College, the University of Colorado, the Peabody Institute, and finally at Rutgers as a full professor.
As a composer, he has produced more than 90 works, including five sonatas for piano, a mass, cantata, many songs, choral works, organ pieces, sonatas for cello and piano, violin and piano and viola and piano, a brass quintet and a woodwind quintet. He has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Walker’s Lyric for Strings, written at the age of 19, was his first major composition. Originally titled “Lament for Strings”, it was written in memory of his grandmother. Walker subsequently used the piece as the second movement, molto adagio, of his first string quartet, and in its original form it became known as an orchestral piece.
The piece is in the unusual and difficult key of F-sharp major – six sharps – which gives the work a dark warmth. Simple in structure, the music is built on a brief motive of five eighth notes followed by a longer note, all within a limited range. This motive weaves its way through the texture. A middle section in E-flat major is a bit brighter, but the original key returns and the work ends in quiet dignity.