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, twelve-tone, neo-romanticism, and avant-garde. Two of his works, Eclogue 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 and recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; Articulations, written for the San Francisco Symphony. Wilson is also the composer of the one-act whimsical opera, Æthelred the Unready, based on the exploits of the ill-advised Saxon king, Æthelred II of England.
He classified the three types of irregular resolutions of dominant seventh chords.[3]
Critical responseedit
Wilson has been praised by 21st Century Music as a "splendidly talented and highly accomplished composer whose music rewards seeking out" [4] and by the New York Sun 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, Andrew Porter called his String Quartet No. 3 a "richly wrought and unusual composition,"[5] while the New York Times has deemed it "a work of substance and expressivity ... [that] merits a place in the active repertory."
In a review of a recent concert, the New York Times wrote, "Richard Wilson's Diablerie[6] stood apart, contemporary in its vocabulary and grammar but pursuing always the long, lyrical, sometimes operatically expressive lines and Romantic-era concerto writing."[7] A review in Strings Magazine heralded the same composition as "another gem in Wilson's mélange of solo pieces."
[8]
(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 choiredit
(1968) A Dissolve[80]
(1968) Can[81]
(1968) Light in Spring Poplars[82]
(1968, 1972) In Schrafft's[83]
(1969) Soaking[84]
(1970) Home From the Range[85]
(1971) Elegy[86]
(1972) Hunter's Moon[87]
(1976) August 22[88]
(1995) Poor Warren[89]
(2013) Fables: Three Poems of Ennis Rees after Aesop
Operaedit
(1994, 2001) Aethelred the Unready[90]
Concert bandedit
(1981) Eleven Sumner Place[91]
(1987) Jubilation[92]
Selected discographyedit
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
Referencesedit
^ abWierzbicki, James (2001). "Wilson, Richard". Grove Music Online. Revised by Mary L. Frantz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.43065. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^"Archive from Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - Concerts to celebrate the work of retiring music professor and composer Richard Wilson (12/10, 12/11) - News - Info - Vassar College".
^
Richard Wilson (March 8, 2011). "Irregular resolutions of one dominant seventh into another" (PDF). EUNOMIOS. Retrieved April 17, 2011.
^David Cleary (April 1, 2001). "Affirming Richard Wilson" (PDF). 21st Century Music. Retrieved July 20, 2008.
^"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 10, 2008. Retrieved July 21, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 9, 2008. Retrieved July 21, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^Bernard Holland (June 26, 2006). "Piano Performances Stand Out at Mannes College Festival". New York Times. Retrieved July 20, 2008.
^Jennifer Caine (July 1, 2008). "Diablerie for Solo Violin". Strings Magazine. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2011.
Sourcesedit
"Archive from Tuesday, November 29, 2016 - Concerts to celebrate the work of retiring music professor and composer Richard Wilson (12/10, 12/11) - News - Info - Vassar College".
International Who's Who
"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 linksedit
General
Official website
Vassar College-- Richard Wilson, bio
Peermusic Classical: Richard Wilson Composer's Publisher and Bio
Discography
Interview with Richard Wilson, April 22, 1991
Performances of Wilson's works
Wilson and Genualdi play Wilson's Mixed Signals on YouTube
Wilson and Genualdi play Wilson's Three Interludes on YouTube
DECODA performs Wilson's Clarinet Quintet on YouTube
DECODA performs Wilson's String Quartet No. 2 on YouTube
Patrick Connolly sings Wilson's Psalm 42 on YouTube
Blustine, Shao, and Wilson play Figuration on YouTube