Neville Young, Reporter
It says in my notes that Patricia and her excellent pianist Valerie Floeter have been working together for more than five years, and now have four CDs out together. Well, you really can tell: this duo gave us a lecture recital which impressed not only with its interesting musical and historical content but with their superb working rapport. Every little nuance, every touch of rubato – which this music so demands – was nicely judged and sounded like two musical minds working as one.
Backhaus spent years of doctoral study investigating this repertoire and the people who played it. From her knowledge of hundreds of works, she shortlisted about sixty to play through for consideration, and then narrowed the program to seven pieces, chosen to show the development of the art form from its early beginnings right down to the immediate post-WWII period. Along the way she told her audience a bit about how the music developed, and who played it. One point she made is that the music, and the knowledge of the performers, which has come down to us today, is just the tip of the iceberg: we know a relatively few tunes and a few performers but the world of the bands, and the cornet soloists who were such an important feature of them, was much larger than you would now think. Performers were stars who could command large salaries and were idolised by the public – the rock stars of that era, perhaps? The artists we heard about today were a big influence on classical music in the US and on the development of cornet playing world-wide.
The recital started with a Fantasia, My Creole Sue, by Gussie L. Davis. Like many of the earlier composers Davis was not a cornet player: in fact he was not originally a musician but picked up his musical knowledge listening to classes at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he was employed as a floor sweeper. From such an unusual beginning came this lovely piece – an initially simple tune which is developed by way of some lively variations and a gorgeous minor key interlude in which Patricia’s cornet positively sang, before ending in a flurry of triplets. Next we heard Silver Threads Among the Gold by Hart Pease Danks, a prolific composer whose work extended to church music and opera.
Backhaus speculated on a causal link between the publication of this song in 1909 – essentially, a celebration of one’s wife’s greying hair – and the separation, about a year later, of Mrs Danks from Mr Danks. It may not have been the most tactful approach to a discussion about ageing but it makes a terrific theme and variations (really more of an altered rondo with cornet obbligato). The tune’s simple, moving statement is succeeded by increasingly busy versions before ending with a flourish. In order to perform a particularly nice variation in this set the duo had had to reconstruct its entire piano accompaniment which was simply missing. I’m glad they bothered.
The recital continued with two polkas by W. Paris Chambers, The Pearls and Navassar. The first of these, a piece with dramatic contrasts of style and range, boasts a lovely singing 6/8 section near the start and a later slow section which was performed with great humour and poise. The second was the earliest in this programme with an extended triple-tonguing section of the sort we now often expect in big solo cornet pieces. Patricia explained that this stylistic element only crept in as the art form became more established and composers more specialized, often being themselves solo cornet players as was the case here – in fact W. Paris Chambers was the leader of the Keystone Cornet Band while still in his teens, the start of a busy career which led him to write music for, amongst others, Buffalo Bill and railway Pullman trains!
The Caprice In The West by Joseph Gustat is a charming piece. Gustat was principal trumpet in the St Louis Symphony Orchestra in the 1920s. Even then he was viewed as a trumpet teacher, a sign perhaps that the cornet was starting to lose its early dominance. In The West is a piece of many contrasts – perhaps too many, Patricia intimated in a comment on its slight lack of structure – but is great fun to listen to. It starts with a dramatic, perhaps Spanish moment but moves through a summery, relaxed popular song style into a sort of soft-shoe shuffle, all of it played with great aplomb by the duo. There were moments that this English listener would identify as almost Cockney-pub-style before a splendid cadenza and an unusual ending, lacking the usual vivo or presto, and instead concluding with a simple and very charming statement of the main theme.
Walter B Rogers, the composer of The Harp of Tara, was Herbert L. Clarke’s “ideal cornet player” – in fact Clarke used to visit the theatre where he worked time and again to watch him play. Interestingly Rogers was also at Cincinnati, perhaps listening inside the lecture rooms at the same time as Gussie Davis was outside. He was later a record company director and opera conductor, who once even sang an operatic bass part for a recording when the booked singer hadn’t shown up for the session. From this versatile man comes an atmospheric piece, painting a picture of Ireland with its beautiful, uncluttered melody, and quaint national touches. If you imagine a version of Danny Boy but more spacious and without the over-familiarity, played with warmth and style on the cornet, this is it.
The last piece was The Adirondacks Polka by Ernest S Williams, “The Chief”. He was the founder of a music school in Brooklyn and a summer school in the Catskills, and later dean of the Ithaca Band School. Harmonically and in compositional technique he was often ahead of his time, and this interesting work received a well-rounded, precise performance this afternoon. One of its main themes is like a sad popular song, or something from light opera, and I was particularly taken with Patricia’s thoughtful, almost introspective rendition of this selection.
A lecture recital like this could have been dry as dust but the friendly and knowledgeable presentation coupled with some great playing made it a really enjoyable musical experience as well as a very enlightening insight into this period of cornet history. I hope that this duo’s fifth CD will cover this repertoire, because the recital left me wanting to hear more.
