Ralph Shapey (12 March 1921 – 13 June 2002) was 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 def ...

and conductor.

Biography

Shapey was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. He is known for his work as a composition professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, where he taught from 1964 to 1991 and where he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players. Shapey studied violin with Emanuel Zeitlin and composition with Stefan Wolpe. He served in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

before moving to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he worked as a violinist, composer, conductor, and pedagogue. In 1963, he conducted the orchestra and chorus at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

before accepting his position in Chicago."Ralph Shapey, Radical Traditionalist Composer, 1921–2002."
The University of Chicago News Office. 13 June 2002. Web. Shapey was made a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

in 1982. Upon hearing the news via a telephone call, he was skeptical, reportedly asking, "Which of my friends or enemies put you up to this?" and slamming down the receiver. Shapey's style is characterized by

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

angularity, irony, and technical rigor, but his concern for sweeping gesture, frenetic passion, rhythmic vitality, lyrical melody, and dramatic arc recall

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

. He was dubbed by the critics Leonard B. Meyer and Bernard Jacobson a "radical traditionalist", which pleased him immensely—he held a deep respect for the masters of the past, whom he regarded as his finest teachers. The musicologist Ronit Seter, and Shapey's student Shlamit Ran, noted a strong connection to Jewish and Israeli music in several of his works. The French-American composer

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...

was among Shapey's most important influences. Both composers had a fascination with unusual sonorities,

counterpoint In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...

masses, and the outer extremes of

pitch space In music theory, pitch spaces model relationships between pitches. These models typically use distance to model the degree of relatedness, with closely related pitches placed near one another, and less closely related pitches farther apart. Depe ...

. The coordination of static "sound blocks" in Shapey's music is also reminiscent of another French composer,

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

, though Shapey reportedly found Messiaen's music saccharine and maudlin. Many listeners would call Shapey's music "

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

", but he rejected the label, considering himself a tonal composer. Indeed, his work, though couched in a highly dissonant harmonic idiom rich in interval classes 1 and 6, does adhere to certain organizational features of tonal music, including pitch hierarchy and

object permanence Object permanence is the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist. This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addres ...

. Shapey's music in his late period used a structure called the Mother Lode worksheet, a structure that contained a 12-tone row, melodic, and harmonic elements. Shapey's

Concerto for Cello, Piano, and String Orchestra The Concerto for Cello, Piano, and String Orchestra is a composition for solo cello, piano, and a large string orchestra by the American composer Ralph Shapey. The work was composed for the cellist Joel Krosnick and the pianist Gilbert Kalish and ...

was a finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Music and shared the top Kennedy Center Friedheim Award prize with

William Kraft William Kraft (September 6, 1923 – February 12, 2022) was an American composer, conductor, teacher, timpanist, and percussionist. Biography Early life and education (1923–1954) Kraft was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was awarded two Anton Seid ...

for ''Veils and Variations for Horn and Orchestra''. In 1992 the Pulitzer Prize for Music jury, which that year consisted of

George Perle George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theory, music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonality, atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. Th ...

, Roger Reynolds, and Harvey Sollberger, selected Shapey's '' Concerto Fantastique'' for the award. The Pulitzer Board rejected the decision and gave the prize to the jury's second choice, Wayne Peterson's '' The Face of the Night, the Heart of the Dark''. The jury responded with a public statement that they had not been consulted on that decision and that the board was not qualified to make it. The board responded that the "Pulitzers are enhanced by having, in addition to the professional's point of view, the layman's or consumer's point of view", and did not rescind its decision. Shapey wrote over 200 works, many published by Presser. Presser also offers his textbook ''A Basic Course in Music Composition'', written after over 50 years of teaching the subject. Recordings of Shapey's music are available on the CRI, Opus One, and New World labels. Shapey's works have been catalogued by Patrick D. Finley in ''A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Shapey'', published by Pendragon Press. His students include Gerald Levinson, Robert Carl, Gordon Marsh, Michael Eckert, Philip Fried, Matt Malsky, Lawrence Fritts, James Anthony Walker, Frank Retzel, Jorge Liderman, Jonathan Elliott, Terry Winter Owens, Deborah Drattell, Ursula Mamlok, Shulamit Ran, and Melinda Wagner. Ran dedicated her Pulitzer Prize-winning

Symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

to Shapey in 1990. The composer Robert Black was particularly influenced by him, and as a conductor he premiered Shapey's ''Three for Six''.

References

Sources

*Carl, Rober
"Radical Traditionalism"
Liner notes to ''Ralph Shapey—Radical Traditionalism''. New World Records. *Finley, Patrick. ''A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Shapey''. Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1997. Catalogue complete up to 1996. Also contains a biography based on recorded interviews, and a brief analysis of the openings of five of his works with a detailed explanation of his compositional method.

External links

*
Ralph Shapey's page at Theodore Presser Company

Bierce Library at University of Akron: Smith Archives – Composer Profile of Ralph Shapey

University of Chicago News Office – Obituary for Ralph Shapey

Guide to the Ralph Shapey Papers circa 1930–2003
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
May 4, 1987 {{DEFAULTSORT:Shapey, Ralph 1921 births 2002 deaths 20th-century American classical composers American male classical composers Jewish American classical composers Shapeey, Ralph University of Chicago faculty 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews