Dawn Wohn: Unbounded: Music by American Women
Delos

Unbounded provides a sterling account of violinist Dawn Wohn's artistry in featuring consummate renderings of works by Amy Beach (1867–1944), Dorothy Rudd Moore (1940–2022), Irene Britton Smith (1907–99), and Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962). Partnering with pianist Emely Phelps, Wohn presents a compelling case on behalf of the composers with performances marked by finesse and sensitivity. The release makes for a natural sequel to her premiere album Perspectives and its similar focus on female composers, a work by Beach on that 2019 release establishing a through-line to the new one. Whereas the earlier set championed composers from around the world, Unbounded concentrates on American artists. Just as Perspectives features pieces by Florence Price, so too does Unbounded include material by African-American composers Moore and Smith.

A graduate of Juilliard, Yale, and Stony Brook, Wohl's performed around the world at many a prestigious venue. When not recording or performing, she's a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Mead Witter School of Music. Like the violinist, Phelps attended Juilliard and Stony Brook and is currently Artist-Teacher of Piano at Ohio University and the head of its graduate collaborative piano degree program. She's also performed widely in North America and Europe and is an in-demand recital partner and soloist. Recording Unbounded in August 2022, the violinist must have felt right at home given that the hour-long set was captured at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Collins Recital Hall.

As a second generation Korean-American woman operating in a classical milieu still dominated with works by male composers, she feels a strong connection to the female artists on the two albums. It's no secret that, historically, they've struggled to have their voices heard. Thankfully, curators today, Wohn among them, are doing their part to bring attention to the work Clara Schumann, Florence Price, and so many others created without receiving the recognition they deserved. In a commentary included with the release, Wohn notes that Beach, for example, was deprived of composition lessons and a performing career for much of her life as such activities were deemed improper for a married woman of her time, and needless to say the challenges female Black composers faced were considerable given the classical world's resistance to non-white composers. The violinist ends her text by stating, rightly, that in a perfect world no consideration of race or gender would arise in the programming of works for a recording or concert, but even though progress is being made we're not there yet. With that message commendably delivered, Wohn turns her attention to the performances, which are fine indeed.

Written in 1896 when she was twenty-nine, Beach's Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Minor, Op. 34 was premiered by Franz Kneisel, the Boston Symphony's concert-master, with Beach at the piano. Wohn's pristine tone and precision are evident from the first moment of the lyrical opening movement, as is the attentive support of Phelps. The players imbue the singing scherzo with an irresistible playfulness, the largo with yearning, and the effervescent allegro joy. Beach's writing is harmonically complex yet its heartfelt expressiveness makes it also instantly accessible.

After graduating from Howard University, Moore ventured overseas to study composition with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France and eventually taught music herself at the Harlem School of the Arts, New York University, and Bronx Community College. Composed in 1967, her Three Pieces for Violin and Piano are concise in the extreme—the longest two minutes and one aptly titled “Vignette”—but striking nevertheless for their mix of lighthearted and dramatic tonalities. While they're not serial works, their brevity and austerity call Webern to mind. The winner of three Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer, Higdon's represented by a short piece, but the rhapsodic character of Smoky Mountain Air (2021) serves as a memorable expression by this justly celebrated composer. Double-stops amplify the piece's rustic character, while the ruminative execution accentuates its contemplative dimension. The timeless feel of the piece is also bolstered when Wohn performs alone.

Of African American, Cherokee, and Crow descent, Smith taught in the Chicago public school system for over four decades whilst also managing to study part-time at the American Conservatory of Music and during a sabbatical from teaching Juilliard; like Moore, Smith studied with Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Her neoclassical-styled Sonata for Violin and Piano, which she composed in 1947 while at Juilliard, entices with folk-inflected charm and youthful innocence in the acrobatic allegro, tenderness in the andante, and exuberance in the closing “Vivace.” An unpublished piece by Smith, Reminiscence (1941), ends the album on a lovely note with five minutes of gentle, poignant melodies.

November 2023