Bill McGlaughlin's 'Exploring Music' Airs Adolphus Hailstork's 'Epitaph For A Man Who Dreamed'

[Adolphus C. Hailstork (b. 1941) is featured at AfriClassical.com.  Hailstork composed Epitaph: For A Man Who Dreamed, In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), the title work on African Heritage Symphonic Series Volume II, Cedille Records CD CDR 90000 061 (2001).  Paul Freeman conducted the Chicago Sinfonietta in this recording.]
Dominique-René de LermaMonday,10 September.NPR's Fresh air isbrilliantly hosted by Terry Gross, who seems extraordinarily comfortable withany variety of subjects in which her guests are specialists.  The show ratheroften concludes with terse reviews by others of recent recordings.  Those onjazz and novels are penetrating, while those on pop culture understandablyavoid any notice of the music itself, traditionally lacking anything ofsubstance,  and seem so profoundly out of place on broadcasts then not rarelyincluding respectable works of art.  This program discussed pop recordings fromNashville as if discography earned the city the title of Music City U.S.A.  Isent an e-mail to remind the producers that justification came about in theprevious century by the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University.  A kind, politestock reply was the reaction, probably the end of it.This was followed by BillMcGlaughlin's stellar Exploring music, given this week to the pupils ofNadia Boulanger. This is a suitable time to cite her African American students,none of whom might not make it to  this week's agenda: Vada Butcher, DonaldByrd, R. Nathaniel Dett, Adolphus Hailstork, Eugene Haynes, Nora Holt, RaymondJackson, Quincy Jones, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Kermit Moore, Julia Perry, HowardSwanson, Leon Thompson, and particularly George Walker (who was one of her fewprivate students).Then came a documentary on theproduction of Wagner's Ring, whose four operas were to care for theremainder of the week.  There may be those who greatly dislike Wagner (likeStravinsky), but this is a giant whose music and art cannot be ignored -- northe monumental production of the Metropolitan Opera.  He expects -- no,demands! -- that those who come to him have the obligation to study his scoresin great depth before his colossal genius and shameless audacity can begun tobe understood -- and, for that matter, any aspect of 19th-century Germanmusic.  Being unequivocally German, his operas do not open the door fornon-German performers -- a position that cannot be thought prejudicial.  Evenso, Grace Bumbry broke the mold in the sacred halls of Wagner's ownFestspielhaus in Bayreurth in 1961 when she was engaged for Tannhäuser,just  as Simon Estes did with Der fliegende Holländer in 1978.  Thenthere was Jessye Norman, superbly cast in the Met's last production of the Ring,while Gwendolyn Killebrew had made her mark  at the Met and in Germanproductions in the past.  I initially feel at least a little discomfort to findBlack singers in the role of villains, but everyone in the Ring is avillain, but for Brünnhilde and those swimmers in the Rhine River, so EricOwens has been able to shine as the sinister Alberich.The subject of this tetrology isthe downfall of the gods and their lust for gold.  I don't suggest the Met'sscheduling has a relationship to the current American presidential election.
------------------------------------Dominique-Renéde Lermahttp://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com
Additional CommentProf. Dominique-René de Lerma subsequently informed us: "Before the week ended,Bill McGlaughlin included the Elegy of Adolphus Hailstork, with Paul Freeman conducting the Chicago Sinfonietta on the recording."  The work is on the CD pictured above.