The Michigan Daily-Soturday, October 15, 1977-Page'S'
. r
Black lieder
Burlap, paint, bronze
characterize Vickers
By JEFFREY QUICK
Can a black female composer win
fame and fortune writing art songs?
Thursday night's recital of songs by
black women answered the question
with a resounding "maybe." While
the three composers represented
turned out a passable evening of
music, I was left with the feeling that
the chief importance of the works
was the color and sex of their
creators, not the music itself, an
attitude supported by the format of
the concert.
It's a sad commentary on our cul-
ture that such a segregated program
should be thought necessary, but it.
also says something about the com--
posers. These three at least avoided
the risks of moving into the main-
stream of American musical life,
preferring instead to hide behind the
lingua franca of American Art Song
1930-50 and write respectable, acces-
sible European-derived music. Iron-
ically, the most original and effective
songs were those closest to the black
folk heritage.
After a poorly organized address
by a sequinned Etta Moten Barnett
on "The Role of the Black Female
Art Songs by Black Female Composers
Rackham Auditorium
October 13,1977
recital
Jaqueline Paige Green's sensitive
singing was firmly supported by
Charles Lloyd, pianist, and Mary
Jane Porter, pinch-hitting on violin
for ailing Diane Bischak.
There followed two songs by Flor-
ence Price (1888-1953), the first
recognized black woman composer.
Night and Songs to a Dark Virgin,
though well shaped, were hindered
by late-Victorian harmony. They
were well performed by Prof. Willis
Patterson, bass, with Sylvia Olden
Dorothy Rudd Moore.......... Sonnets on Love,
Rosebuds, and Death
Florence Price .......Night, Songs to a Dark Virgin
Margaret Bonds .................. Dream Portraits
Dorothy Rudd Moore.............Weary Blues
Jacqueline Paige Green, soprano;
Willis Patterson, bass
Kermit Moore, cellist.
Composer", the recital opened with
Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and
Death, for soprano, violin, and piano,
by Dorothy Rudd Moore, the young-
est of the three women. The title is a
misnomer, since only half of the eight
poems by blacks (anonymous in the
program) are sonnets. The whole
cycle is nicely shaped, clumaxing on
Song for a Dark Girl, the fifth of the
eight, in which the demonic fiddle-
style violin weaves around a folksy
text about lynching.
However, , the individual songs
often lack a clear sense of direction,
and some of the stilted rhymes of the
sonnets call forth appropriate har-
mony. The entire evening was a labor
of love for the performers. Here
weak
Lee at the piano.
The Dream Portraits by Margaret
Bond (1913-72) are three settings of
Langston Huges, whose consciously
black poetry consistently led to
consciously black music. Here jazz-
derived turns of harmony were
seamlessly woven into the otherwise
c o n v e n t i o n a. I accompaniment
played again by Charles Lloyd.
Soprano Claritha Buggs' clear,
spine-tingling, pianissimo high notes ,
added interest.
*
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Bing Crosby dead of
heart attack at 73
By KAREN BORNSTEIN
They disturb, they confuse, they
frighten and even may disgust, yet'
despite these unpleasant traits there
is a basic underlying power and
appeal to Robert Vickers' Paintings,
Drawings and Bronzes, now on
exhibit until October 30 at Gallery
One. W
Robert Vickers, born in New York
in 1924, studied at New York State
University College and Columbia
University. After graduation he trav-
eled through Europe and in 1967
settled as an artist-in-residence at
Vicenza, Italy. He is presently an
associate professor of art at Hope
College in Holland, Mich.
For any positive feelings toward
Vickers' creations to evolve, it is
necessary to examine his work
chronologically. Unfortunately, the
exhibit is not set up in this manner.
Instead, his earliest works are
interspersed with his most recent,
and the viewer is confronted with a
chaotic conglomeration of individual
pieces.
His earliest work such as Meta-
morphosis consists of a massive
canvas horizontally divided in half.
One half is painted gray, the other
half white. On the bottom portion is
glued an array of coarse, thick,
heavy and torn burlap, crumbled and
haphazardly folded.
This rough-textured cloth does not
lie flat against the canvas but instead
has sharply jagged edges that jut out
menacingly at the viewer. Extreme-
ly thick white, black, brown and gray
paint has been poured onto this mass
of burlap, seeping into its every pore.
Drops of the paint have crystallized
on the canvas. In contrast to the
earth-tone colors, bright red paint is
smeared over the, configuration.
At first glance, the assemblage
resembles an ugly creature with
drops of blood oozing from open
wounds. It appears sinister, frighten-
ing, and too much like an animal to
be the abstract landscape Vickers
intends it to be. However, after
studying the upper half of the canvas,
which consists of a two-dimensional
painted replica of the bottom assem-
blage, new and interesting things
begin to occur.
Surprisingly, this painted repro-
duction of the burlap creature,
although still disturbing with its thin
snake-like edges and harsh red pitted
against the subtleties of beige,
actually develops into a landscape
after closer inspection. Vickers'
three dimensional burlap forms be-
come flat when painted, and are
juxtaposed much closer to one an-
other. They fit like puzzle pieces,
-hr -
only separated by a thin black
outline.
Vickers positions these large rec-
tangular forms in a manner that re-
flects the depth and space found in,
the hills and valleys of a countryside.
Vickers further develops his land-
scape technique by making paintings
similar to those of the burlap clumps.
However, he moves away from first
creating an actual model from
various media. He utilizes the same isI;.
disturbing colors, but the actual
painting is less realistic. Edges tend - %" //
to blur and forms begin feeding into -#
one another.
Lines are lyrical and the forms that
fit together constructing a mountain
range and horizon seem to gently rollr
into one another. His pure and harsh ,-
whites take on a creamy, almost ..'
beige hue and sensuously blend into
the darker tones and pale gray
background. Even his blood red
becomes a rich, mellow rust. Subtle
black specks are representative of"
distant villages or people.
Robert Vickers' work shows a
steady progression in landscape
development. He forces the viewer to
directly confront the unpleasant, the
uncomfortable, and the confusing,
showing how even the grotesque can
be interpreted as a landscape by A
utilizing different media and ma-Admission free
terials.
Many midwestern colleges and /4,-
museums have purchased Vickers' /,
work for their permanent collection.
Tbi alenuite understandable.rt sanThis drawing is from the program cover of the concert held in Rackham Thursday
nature?
From Wire Service Reports
MADRID, Spain - Singer and
actor Bing Crosby died of a heart
attack Friday while engaged in his
favorite pastime, playing golf. He
was 73.
A spokesman for the Red Cross
hospital to which Crosby was taken
said he was dead on arrival.
The singer collapsed after the 18th
hole of the La Mpraleja golf club on
the outskirts of Madrid. He had come
to Spain primarily for relaxation and
golf, and had been playing with
Spanish champions Manuel Pinero,
Valentin Barrios and Cesar de Zulu-
eta.
Crosby recently completed a tour
of Britain - including a sell-out
performance at London's Palladium
- which he said was a test of his
recovery from a back injury suffered
in a fall from a theater stage in
Pasadena, Calif. That show marked
his 50th year in show business.
Just before his fall March 3 at the
Ambassador Auditorium in Pasa-
dena, Crosby had told his audience,
"I hope it won't be another 50 years
before we can celebrate like this."
Doctors later found he had rup-
tured a disc in the lower part of his
back and would require a long
convalescence.
Variously nick n a m e d "Der
Bingle," "Old Dad," and "The
Groaner," Harry Lillis Crosby began'
Der Bin gle
as a brash young band singer and
ended as an institution.
One of a family of seven childred,
Crosby had seven children himself -
four by his first wife, Dixie Lee, who
died of cancer in 1952 after a
marriage of 22 years, and three b
Kathryn Grant who was 29 years
younger than Bing when they'wed -in
Jackie 0telS
Vik1ing 'bye-bye
First she was "not concerned," then "extremely upset,"
and now Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has quit her job as
an editor at the Viking Press in New York. Apparently the
publication by Viking of Shall We Tell The President, a
fictionalized account of an assassination attempt against
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, convinced her that the
Viking Press was no longer the place for her.
'She was extremely upset at the time and she is upset
now at published reports that she would condone efforts of
any author who would write such a book," Nancy
Tuckerman, an aide to the former first lady, said Wed-
nesday. "She was never consulted on the matter."
The Boston Globe had reported earlier that Thomas H.
Guinzburg, president of the Viking Press, said Mrs.
Onassis did not object to the publication of British author
Jeffrey Archer's book. But now Guinzburg has lost the
talents of possibly his best-known editor.
Jackie 0
r -
- a W ~W .w .w a ___ . B
Piano man Billy Joel shines on 'Stranger'
By MICHAEL BAADKE
It's easy to expect quality music
from Billy Joel; his Columbia al-
bums have all been solid productions
marked by good material and strong
performances. However, his latest
LP, The Stranger (Columbia JC
34987), has far surpassed his pre-
vious releases, and the album vir-
tually glows with an aura of excel-
lence.
This marked improvement is evi-
dent in almost every aspect of the
LP. Although Joel has always been a
masterful songwriter, his-lyrics have
become much more concise, and the
music is consistently well arranged.
Each instrument playsa crucial role
in each song, and Joel's awesome
piano performances stand out above
all.
Joel had a hit a few years back with
Piano Man, a likeable tune about an
£nv1.tn1anted bar musician. and he
mystic body of the song. "The
Stranger" is a song of self-examina-
tion; Joel sees "the stranger" as
being an entity within the self that
each person hides. The entracte
appears again at the end of the song,
and a final time at the end of side
two, shadowing the continuity of the
album.
One tune on The Stranger, Just The
Way You Are, might well stand as
Billy Joel's finest composition ever.
Although the music is low-key, it is
off-set by Phil Woods' sympathetic
sax solo and Joel's emotion-charged
vocals. A swelling background vocal
chorus adds to the tender feel of the
song, and orchestration by Patrick
Williams completes the musical
scene. The lyrics relate Joel's "un-
spoken passion:"
I wouldn't leave you in times of
trouble
wa naarenid h, ragmp this far
The clean precision of his keyboard
performances are nicely accentuated
by the contributions of his back-up
crew, and the production by Phil
Ramone is impeccable. It's hard to
find a flaw on The Stranger, and
there's really no reason to look for
one; any that might exist vanish
when confronted with the quality of
the music that is presented.
Billy Joel's previous albums fore-
shadowed the arrival of The Strang-
er. Although his first LP, Cold Spring
Harbor, was a disappointing effort,
the three albums that followed all
contained material and perform-
ances that were worthy of note.
Since the release of Piano Man in
1973, Joel has grown into a cult figure
of sorts, growing in popularity but
still falling short of overwhelming
success..
Although he has remained stylis-
ti ,,y nnctntills?11'7 haG bee~in
improving with each LP. The end
result is The Stranger, an album of
outstanding music by a performer
who is, above all else, an entertainer.
The University's gamelan-an en-
semble of about 25 musical instruments
played primarily on the islands of Java
and Bali in Indonesia-is 50 years old.
The U-M Gamelan Ensemble regularly
performs on the campus.
NNW"
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
FACULTY CHAMBER CONCERTS
Second Program Music and Dance
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