Adolphus Hailstork: Chamber Works
Navona Records
Other releases featuring Adolphus Hailstork's music are available—the Virginia Symphony Orchestra's recording of An American Port of Call was issued by Naxos in 2012 and a recording of his Piano Concerto No. 1 appeared on the same label in 2023, to cite two—but this latest presentation featuring works performed by The Harlem Chamber Players and, on one of the two, baritone Kenneth Overton offers an ideal portal into the composer's world. In pairing a piano quintet with a concert aria, two facets of Hailstork's music are accounted for and flatteringly so when the performances are as inspired as they are here.
His reputation precedes him. Hailstork earned his doctorate in composition at Michigan State University after studying at the Manhattan School of Music, the American Institute at Fontainebleau, and Howard University, with David Diamond and Nadia Boulanger among his teachers. He's composed symphonies, chamber works, and pieces for solo voice, piano, and organ. Recent works include A Knee On the Neck (George Floyd Requiem) and Piano Concerto No. 2, the latter commissioned by Lara Downes. Born in 1941, Hailstork was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023.
As the Floyd piece intimates, Hailstork sometimes draws for inspiration from events of sociopolitical importance. The vocal work included on this release, Nobody Know (2018), was commissioned by The Harlem Chamber Players to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first Black enslaved people's arrival to America. Personal experience also enters into the composer's creative process, as shown by 2018's Piano Quintet “Detroit,” which namechecks the city that helped him advance professionally during the early and middle parts of his career. His music exemplifies a solid grounding in classical music's twentieth-century traditions, but African-American idioms are also part of the mix. Consequently, it's not uncommon for elements of folk, blues, jazz, and gospel to find their way into a Hailstork piece.
The 2008-founded Harlem Chamber Players executes the material with excitement and conviction, whether it be violinists Ashley Horne and Claire Chan, violist William Frampton, and cellist Wayne Smith partnering with pianist David Berry on the “Detroit” setting or with Overton on Nobody Know. A hint of mournfulness seeps into the opening movement of the Piano Quintet, “Detroit Grit,” but it's for the most part a strong-willed expression of resilience and determination that, along with the third movement, “Detroit Rise,” alludes to the city's recovery from the economic collapse and social decline that brought the city down in the early part of the century. The forlorn second part, “Detroit Nocturne,” is perhaps Hailstork's plaintive rendering of the city at its lowest; even here, however, vestiges of hope are audible in the insistence with which its blues-tinged themes are delivered. Following a subdued intro, “Detroit Rise” leaps triumphantly to attention with joyous affirmation and jazzy dance gestures. Dedicated to the memory of Brazeal Dennard, who was a mentor to Hailstork and directed the Brazeal Dennard Chorale, the “Prayer” that closes the piece exudes the enveloping warmth and tenderness of a gospel-folk hymn. Berry shows himself to be as passionate a participant as The Harlem Chamber Players on this strong rendering of the work.
Based on a text by American poet Herbert Martin, Nobody Know depicts, his liner notes clarify, “a ‘song from the other cross,' a viewpoint of one of the thieves crucified with Christ on Good Friday [and] who spoke to Christ.” Martin further contrasts the attitude of the first thief, who says, "If you are the Savior, why don't you save yourself and us as well?,” with that of the second thief, a Black individual, who, recognizing that he is guilty of what he is accused, “seeks redemption and salvation because he is in the presence of the Divine.” The poet's conclusion is that “we should all side with the second thief if given the chance.” Calling for mercy and asking that the Lord remember he was “a-seekin' to become a new creature,” the man and his plight are brought vividly to life by Overton and the string players in this heartfelt nineteen-minute treatment. Words of supplication are delivered with humble deference as Hailstork's work patiently advances from its slow beginnings to its animated middle section (“I was a-rollin' through an unfriendly world … I have been robbed of everything, even liberty”) and satisfying resolution. Interestingly, rather than fixating on his own predicament, the man shifts his viewpoint to the other with the words, “Nobody know the trouble he see; see dem nails in his hands.” Anyone else thinking of recording the work will be hard pressed to equal the gripping one presented here.December 2024