ARTHUR SHEPHERD (1880-1958) selected
works
Piano Quintet (1940) (Abramyan Quartet) 29.00
songs (JoAnn Otley - soprano; Rhoda Vaun Young - piano):-
25.13
Matin Song
He Came All So Still
The Lost Child
Nocturn
Solitude
Where Loveliness Keeps House
Piano solos (Grant Johannesen - piano) 16.43
Two-Step
Exotic Dance No. 1
From a Mountain lake
Gigue
Fantasque
Abramyan Quartet , JoAnn Otley
- soprano; Rhoda Vaun Young -
piano
TANTARA TCDO 39808HS
[69.56]
www.tantara.byu.edu
Arthur Shepherd is, for me, one of those names at the periphery. I seem to
recall having heard some of his songs in a BBC Radio 3 broadcast but they
did not register at all strongly. No surprises there as at that time I was
far more interested in the orchestral music of the Americans of the 1920s
to 1950s.
Tantara Records was established with an endowment to record the works of
Latter-Day Saint composers. The 'most prominent' Mormon composer is Leroy
Robertson (and I review the Tantara CD of Robertson elsewhere). Shepherd
takes a different route from Robertson. Where Robertson's very considerable
strengths lie in romantica, Shepherd can draw on a much more oblique approach.
Pianist, conductor, writer and teacher, he was born in Paris, Idaho. In turns
he illuminated the academic and musical lives of three American cities: Salt
Lake City, Boston and Cleveland. He revived the Salt Lake City SO (later
to become the Utah SO), in 1910 he moved to Cleveland and after war service
he uprooted to Cleveland. His Ouverture Joyeuse won the Paderewski
Prize. In 1926 came his Horizons (a three movement orchestral work).
He counted these works among his most important alongside the Triptych
for soprano and string quartet (1925), the violin sonata (1916-1920 - a work
about which I am very curious as it may well reflect his Great war experiences
in 1918) and the only chamber work on this disc, the Piano Quintet.
Shepherd's oblique approach is rife in the Piano Quintet. The work is
determinedly Bartókian with a serious and heroic first movement which
at the close finds refuge in beauty. The central movement is a dark eclogue
(rather similar to Bartok Piano Concerto No. 1). The finale achieves more
repose, being songful (at 1.45 over a densely decorated harmonic gauze) with
a nicely resiny fugue (3.29). The passionate tone of the cello and (at 5.40)
the solo violin achieve a moving simplicity of expression for which the other
two movements do not prepare you. The work is not especially in American
in feel. The premiere was given by the composer with the Roth Quartet at
the 1941 Brigham Young University Summer Festival.
The songs. Matin Song is an odd mix. You think it is going to be simple
but soon the expressionism of early Schoenberg (think Gurrelieder
and Das Buch Der Hangenden Gärten) enters. Austerity continues
in the He Came All So Still but here we can also think of late Holst.
Going back forty years The lost child (1908) is mellifluous, showing
great concentration and integrity. Nocturn (1907) is so-so - fairly
conventional. A year before that produced Solitude which can be liked
to Frank Bridge in his coldest realms (from that point of view well ahead
of its time). Where loveliness keeps house is an approachable summer
idyll.
Grant Johannesen (a name well known to record collectors) contributes the
piano solos. The Two-Step (1939) is a sly, light jangle of notes,
impressionistically loose of limb: Debussy out of Joplin out of Medtner.
Exotic Dance No. 1 (1928) offers eastival shade - comfort deep and
velvety. From a mountain lake is the longest of the four: musing
impressions of bells, dankly clouded, leading to an andante placido in
which Shepherd proves himself a spinner of high mountain magic. The
Gigue is busy and even its softer finale is built of emotionally
unyielding material.
A recommended collection. I hope that Tantara are able to record Shepherd's
other music. I would like to hear all the works listed above. There are four
string quartets (1933-55), two symphonies (1927 and 1938), a violin concerto
and many other choral and orchestral works.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
KMB Music Office
PO Box 24498
Provo UTAH UT 84602-4498
info - 801 378 2563
order
1-800-879-1555
tantara@byu.edu
www.tantara.byu.edu
