February 1998 - Volume 4, No. 2
Bach, Beethoven, and Burleigh
Are you looking for something out of the ordinary to add interest to an upcoming recital? Are you hoping to include some Wisconsin music on your program in this Sesquicentennial year? If so, you are in luck! The Mills Music Library has a large special collection, the Wisconsin Music Archives, which contains little-known but often excellent pieces of music by state composers.
While the Archives holds thousands of published compositions, its manuscript collections offer an interesting glimpse into the scope of music and styles available for an adventurous programmer. A sampling of these collections is offered below, in no particular order.
Edna Frida Pietsch (1894-1982) a Milwaukee composer whose music was twice performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, wrote large pieces - numerous orchestral works, a symphony, a piano concerto, a viola concerto - as well as chamber works, solo piano pieces, and songs.
Charles Mills (1873-1937), chair of the School of Music from 1914 until his death, wrote pieces for chorus and for orchestra.
Joseph Webster (1819-1875) was born in the east but eventually settled in Elkhorn, spending the last twenty years of his life in Wisconsin. While over 400 of his songs were published during his lifetime, he is most widely remembered today for writing the hymn In the Sweet By and By and for a song often associated with the Civil War, Lorena.
Dave Peterson (b. 1935) has composed musical shows built around Wisconsin themes. His shows have been performed over 3000 times in the United States and Europe.
Olive Endres (1898-1995) of Madison composed sacred choral music and pedagogical piano pieces.
Annetta Rosser, another Madison composer, penned many accessible art songs.
Cecil Burleigh (1885-1980), in the tradition of MacDowell, composed dozens of character pieces for both violin and piano. This collection, donated to the library by Burleigh's widow, contains only published editions. His manuscripts, however, are available at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
The library is also home to the Wisconsin Alliance for Composers score repository which presently contains an eclectic mix of nearly 500 compositions by fifty contemporary Wisconsin composers. Like the resources mentioned above, these are mostly unpublished scores.
If you want to spice up your recital and simultaneously pay homage to Wisconsin's musical heritage, come visit the Wisconsin Music Archives and discover the wide range of musical choices associated with the state.
Purcell, Prokofiev, and Pietsch?
Mendelssohn, Mahler, and Mills?
From art songs to pop songs, solos to symphonies, angst to humor, all this can be found here.