JAVS Spring 2013

Conclusion

3 Luigi Dallapiccola, Dallapiccola on Opera: Selected Writings of Luigi Dallapiccola (London: Toccata Press, 1987), 47. 4 David Isadore Lieberman, “Schoenberg Rewrites His Will, A Survivor from Warsaw , Op. 46,” in Political and Religious Ideas in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg , ed. Charlotte M. Cross and Russell A. Berman (New york: Garland, 2000), 212. 5 A 2008 New York Times article written by Matthew Gurewitsch indicates that Rzewski’s compositions have tackled subjects beyond war and protests against dictatorships; one work recollects the Attica prison riots of 1971. See Gurewitsch, “Maverick With a Message of Solidarity,” New York Times , April 27, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/arts/music/2 7gure.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 6 At a March 2008 concert in Rochester, New york, dubbed Irate on Iraq (marking the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War), I performed the movement based upon Amendment IV, having to do with search and seizure, with soprano Marielle Murphy. The piece can be well received in both its entirety and with the performance of individual “Amendments.”

There are many other composers out there who have devoted their energies to writing works that are meant to spark debate among audiences, and I am certain that there are a myriad of violists who seek to perform pieces that promote change. What Anthony Green, Gilad Hochman, and George Lam have done is take secular texts, sacred parables, and primary sources and reimagine them for the modern world, with contemporary complexities in mind. Their works for viola can encourage listeners to question the nature of the world we live in and how we can go forward in the future. The sheet music for Two Pages for Kara and Movement VII of Dona Nobis Veritatem by Anthony Green and Akeda by Gilad Hochman can be found at: http://americanviolasociety.org/resources/scores/javs scores/. Sheet music for The Love Song for Mary Flagler Cary by George Lam can be found at: http://www.gtlam.com/portfolio/mary-flagler-cary/. 1 When examining Charles Ives’s book of 114 Songs published in 1922, it is interesting to note the nature of some of the titles and texts. Among them, Songs 49, 50, and 51 hint at Ives’s internal divisions over World War I. Titled In Flanders Field , He Is There , and Tom Sails Away , these three songs show the contradictory forces of Ives’s strong patriotism and despair over the casualties war brings. 2 In Joan Peyser’s Bernstein: A Biography , she men tions how a young Leonard Bernstein brought Marc Blitzstein’s work to Harvard in May 1939, having staged, directed, and performed the work on piano. She notes how the work, when first per formed in 1937 and directed by Orson Welles, pit ted Blitzstein against the Works Progress Administration, which funded the project. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to intervene and state that the show could not go on as planned. See Peyser, Bernstein: A Biography (New york: Billboard Books, 1998), 42. Notes

7 Anthony R. Green, e-mail message to author, August 12, 2012.

8 Ibid.

9 The piece is dedicated to the memory of Kara Lynn Williams, who passed away in 2010 at the age of seventeen. She was the younger sister of the author of this article, Gregory K. Williams. Two Pages for Kara was premiered on April 5, 2012, in Elebash Recital Hall at the CuNy Graduate Center, in New york.

10 http://www.giladhochman.com/.

11 Christopher Nielsen, “New Creative Paths,” Deutschland Magazine , January 15, 2009.

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