Richard Edward Wilson (born May 15, 1941) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and pianist. Rejecting

serialism In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

, to some extent Wilson engages in

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...

, though often with the use of considerable chromaticism. His ''oeuvre'' includes

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

tic,

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

, and

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

among other genres.

Life and career

Wilson was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, where he was at a young age drawn to the concerts of

George Szell George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century's greatest condu ...

and the

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Sev ...

. In 1963, Wilson graduated ''magna cum laude'' and

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he studied with

Robert Moevs Robert Walter Moevs (2 December 1920 – 10 December 2007) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was known for his highly chromatic music. Career Moevs was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and served in the United States Army ...

and

Randall Thompson Randall Thompson (April 21, 1899 – July 9, 1984) was an American composer, particularly noted for his choral works. Career Randall attended The Lawrenceville School, where his father was an English teacher. He then attended Harvard University, ...

. He later received an MA from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

. From 1966 to 2016, he taught at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

, where he was Mary Conover Mellon Professor of Music. Since 1992 he has been composer-in-residence with the American Symphony Orchestra.

Music

Richard Wilson's compositions are marked by a stringent yet lyrical atonality which often sets him apart from the established schools of modern American music:

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

twelve-tone The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

, neo-romanticism, and

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

. Two of his works, ''

Eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...

'' for solo piano, and his String Quartet No. 3, are considered high points of twentieth-century American music. His large-scale orchestral works include the Symphony No. 1, premiered by the

Hudson Valley Philharmonic The Hudson Valley Philharmonic (abbreviated HVP) is a symphony orchestra based in Poughkeepsie, New York in the United States. It began in 1932, and it serves the Hudson Valley region. The Philharmonic offers a series of concert performances in t ...

and recorded by the

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Wellington, New Zealand. The national orchestra of New Zealand, the NZSO is an autonomous Crown entity owned by the Government of New Zealand, per the New Zealand Sympho ...

; ''Articulations'', written for the San Francisco Symphony. Wilson is also the composer of the one-act whimsical opera, ''

Æthelred the Unready Æthelred II ( ang, Æþelræd, ;Different spellings of this king’s name most commonly found in modern texts are "Ethelred" and "Æthelred" (or "Aethelred"), the latter being closer to the original Old English form . Compare the modern diale ...

'', based on the exploits of the ill-advised

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

king, Æthelred II of England. He classified the three types of

irregular resolution In music, an irregular resolution is resolution by a dominant seventh chord or diminished seventh chord to a chord other than the tonic. Regarding the dominant seventh, there are many irregular resolutions including to a chord with which it h ...

s of dominant seventh chords.

Critical response

Wilson has been praised by 21st Century Music as a "splendidly talented and highly accomplished composer whose music rewards seeking out" and by the

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

as "possessed of a hard-won idiom that has grown and developed over the years into a probing blend of wit, classic form, modern harmony, and impressionistic color." Writing in the

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * ''The New ...

, Andrew Porter called his String Quartet No. 3 a "richly wrought and unusual composition," while the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' has deemed it "a work of substance and expressivity ...

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

merits a place in the active repertory." In a review of a recent concert, the

wrote, "Richard Wilson's Diablerie stood apart, contemporary in its vocabulary and grammar but pursuing always the long, lyrical, sometimes operatically expressive lines and Romantic-era concerto writing." A review in Strings Magazine heralded the same composition as "another gem in Wilson's mélange of solo pieces."

Honors

In 2004 Wilson received an Academy Award in Music from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

, from which he previously received the Walter Hinrichsen Award. Other recent honors include: the

Stoeger Prize The Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is an international music prize for composers of chamber music. The US$25,000 cash award is given every two years in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music r ...

from the

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is an American organization dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music in New York City. It is the largest organization of its kind in the country for chamber music. CMS's home is ...

; a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

; the Cleveland Arts Prize; residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation and the Bellagio Center in Italy; and commissions from the Koussevitsky and Fromm Foundations,

Chamber Music America Chamber Music America (CMA) is an American non-profit organization that provides small ensemble professionals with access to a variety of professional development, networking, and funding resources. CMA's regular initiatives include grants, awards, ...

, the

Chicago Chamber Musicians (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, and the San Francisco Symphony.

Works

Source:

Orchestra

* (1970) ''Initiation'

* (1979) Violin Concert

* (1983) Bassoon Concert

* (1984) Symphony No.

* (1986) Symphony No.

* (1991) Piano Concert

* (1991) ''Articulations

* (1994) ''Agitations

* (1994) Triple Concert

* (1995) ''Pamietam

* (1997) ''A Child's London

* (1999) ''Intimations

* (2003) ''Peregrinations

* (2003) ''Silhouette with Revelry

* (2004) ''Four Love Songs

* (2006) ''Chamisha Tehillim

* (2008) ''The Cello Has Many Secrets

* (2010) Symphony No. 3 * (2010) ''Soundcheck'' * (2021) ''Bravado''

Works for mixed ensemble

* (1963) ''Suite for Five Players

* (1964) Trio for Oboe, Violin and Cell

* (1965) ''Fantasy and Variations

* (1967) ''Concert Piece

* (1969) ''Music for Violin and Cello

* (1969) Quartet for Flutes, Bass, and Harpsichor

* (1974) Wind Quinte

* (1978) ''Serenade: Variations on a Simple March

* (1979) ''Deux pas de Trois

* (1980) ''Figuration

* (1981) ''Short Notice

* (1981) ''Gnomics

* (1982) ''Character Studies

* (1982) ''Dithyramb

* (1983) Suite for Wind

* (1984) ''Line Drawings

* (1988) ''Contentions

* (1989) Sonata for Viola and Pian

* (1990) ''Affirmations

* (1996) ''Three Interludes for Violin and Piano

* (2000) ''Motivations

* (2001

* (2003) Piano Tri

* (2005) ''Brash Attacks

* (2005) ''Senza Furore

* (2011) ''Speculation'

* (2011) ''Mixed Signals for Violin and Piano'' * (2012) * (2014) * (2015) ''Reed Actions,'' for clarinet and bassoon * (2015) ''Add Hocket,'' for percussion ensemble * (2016) ''Outswappings,'' for clarinet quartet * (2021) ''Not a Waltz,'' for flute and piano * (2021) ''The World As It Is,'' for flute and piano * (2021) ''Drastic Measures,'' for mixed ensemble

Works for string quartet

* (1969) String Quartet No.

* (1977) String Quartet No.

* (1982) String Quartet No.

* (1998, 2001) String Quartet No.

* (2008) String Quartet No. 5 * (2018) String Quartet No. 6

Works for solo piano

* (1963) ''Three Short Pieces for Piano

* (1974) ''Eclogue

* (1979) ''Sour Flowers'' * (1984) ''A Child's London

* (1985) ''Fixations

* (1986) ''Intercalations

* (2009) ''Mnemonics'' * (2013) ''Charades'' * (2017) ''Mimesis'' * (2018) ''Disclosures''

Works for solo instruments

* (1971) ''Music for Solo Cello

* (1972) ''Music for Solo Flute

* (1980) ''Profound Utterances

* (1985) ''Flutations

* (1987) ''Lord Chesterfield to His Son

* (1988) ''Music for Solo Viola

* (1989) ''Intonations

* (1992) ''Civilization and Its Discontents

* (1995) ''Touchstones

* (2000) ''Ironies

* (2004) ''Diablerie

* (2003) ''Organicity

* (2006) ''Gravitas

* (2010) ''Lullaby for Sonya,'' for solo clarinet * (2002/2017) ''Aethelred's Exit,'' for solo bass clarinet * (2020) ''Four Solitudes for Solo Flute'' * (2020) ''Four Solitudes for Solo English Horn'' * (2020) ''Four Solitudes for Solo Violin'' * (2020) ''Four Solitudes for Solo Viola''

Works for voice

* (1975) ''The Ballad of Longwood Glen

* (1980) ''A Theory

* (1984) ''Three Painters

* (1988) ''Tribulations

* (1990) ''Persuasions

* (1991) ''The Second Law

* (1992) ''On the Street

* (1995) ''Five Love Songs on Poems by John Skelton

* (1996) ''Lights on the River

* (1996) ''Transfigured Goat

* (2000) ''Three Songs on Poems by John Ashbery

* (2005) ''Visits to St. Elizabeth's'

* (2006) ''Three Songs on Poems by Paul Kane

* (2006) ''I Walked Through the Medieval Town

* (2009) ''Two Songs on Poems by Eamon Grennan'' * (2009) ''Four Songs on Poems by John Updike'' * (2012) ''With Lullay, Lullay Like a Child'' * (2013) ''Miss Foggerty's Cake'' * (2013) * (2014) * (2014) ''On The Death of Juan Gelman'' * (2017) ''Obviously Quite Easy,'' for soprano and bassoon * (2017) ''Puer Natus Est,'' for tenor and organ * (2017) ''Come, My Celia,'' for soprano and piano * (2017) ''Three Songs for Friends,'' for soprano and piano * (2018) ''Words and Music: An Argument,'' for soprano, baritone, two clarinets and piano * (2018) ''Fugue'' (Phillis Levin) * (2018) ''Talking, Walking, Drifting'' (Sarah Plimpton) * (2018) ''Katya’s Great Romance,'' for bass, cello and narrator (Michael Salcman) * (2018) ''Wait Until Dusk'' (Joseph-Francis Meltzer) * (2020) ''Market Women'' (Karen Swenson) * (2020) ''In the Old School Yard'' (Carole Goodman) * (2021) ''Boogie Woogie'' (Adam Zagajewski)

Works for choir

* (1968) ''A Dissolve

* (1968) ''Can

* (1968) ''Light in Spring Poplars

* (1968, 1972) ''In Schrafft's

* (1969) ''Soaking

* (1970) ''Home From the Range

* (1971) ''Elegy

* (1972) ''Hunter's Moon

* (1976) ''August 22

* (1995) ''Poor Warren

* (2013) ''Fables: Three Poems of Ennis Rees after Aesop''

Opera

* (1994, 2001) ''Aethelred the Unready

Concert band

* (1981) ''Eleven Sumner Place

* (1987) ''Jubilation

Selected discography

''Richard Wilson: Brash Attacks''
Albany Records TROY 1080
''Richard Wilson: Diablerie''
Albany Records TROY 773
''Richard Wilson: String Quartets''
Albany Records TROY 573
''Richard Wilson: Aethelred the Unready''
Albany Records TROY 512
''Richard Wilson: Affirmations''
Albany Records TROY 389
''Richard Wilson: Symphony No. 1''
Koch International Classics/ Peermusic Classical
''Stresses in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Choral Music of Richard Wilson''
Albany Records TROY 333
''Richard Wilson: Chamber Music''
Albany Records TROY 074
''Richard Wilson: String Quartet No. 3, Eclogue, et al.''
CRI/ New World Records NWCR602
''Richard Wilson: Bassoon Concerto''
CRI/ New World Records NWCR575
''Richard Wilson: Piano Concerto''
CRI/ New World Records NWCR618

References

Sources

*

"Richard Wilson and His Music" by Bernard Jacobson
* "Richard Wilson," entry in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (2001), vol 27, p. 425. * "Richard Wilson," entry in ''The New Grove Dictionary of American Music'' (1986), vol. 4, pp. 539–40. * "Richard Wilson," entry in ''Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians'', 5th edition with supplement (1971), ed. N. Slonimsky, p. 254. * "Richard Wilson," entry in ''The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music (1994)'', ed. Stanley Sadie, p. 891. * James Reel: "A Modernist with a Taste for the Premodern: Composer Richard Wilson" ''Fanfare'', xxiv/4 (2001), 93–6, 98. * Ping-Ting Lan: ''New Resources in Twentieth-Century Piano Music and Richard Wilson’s "Eclogue"'' (diss., U. of North Texas, 1974). * Mary Frantz: ''Richard Wilson: The Solo Piano Works'' (diss., U. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992).

External links

;General *
Peermusic Classical: Richard Wilson
Composer's Publisher and Bio
Discography
April 22, 1991 ;Performances of Wilson's works *Wilson and Genualdi play *Wilson and Genualdi play *DECODA performs *DECODA performs *Patrick Connolly *Blustine, Shao, and Wilson ;Performances of other composers *Richard Wilson and Joseph Genualdi play *Wilson and Genualdi play *Wilson, Genualdi, and Shao play *Richard Wilson and Joseph Genualdi *Blanca Uribe and Richard Wilson *Shao and Wilson {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Richard Edward 1941 births Living people Harvard University alumni Rutgers University alumni Vassar College faculty 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers American male classical composers American classical composers 21st-century American composers Musicians from Cleveland 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from Ohio 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians Albany Records artists