LEE HOIBY

Lee Hoiby has written a variety of music, in a long composing career: sonatas, concertos, chamber works, oratorios, operas. Probably his two most acclaimed operas are Summer and Smoke, based on the Tennessee Williams play, and A Month in the Country, based on Turgenev. He has worked with the librettist Mark Shulgasser for many years. Who knows what other operas may emerge from their studio? It is as a song composer, however, that Hoiby is best known, and best loved. He has written about a hundred songs, of which about twenty are included here—making for a fine sampling.

Hoiby was born on 17 February 1926. He was a pianist, studying with (among others) Egon Petri, one of the great players and teachers of the twentieth century (a pupil of Busoni). Hoiby is still a pianist, as this disc makes clear. He practices Chopin Etudes every day. But he long ago gave up a career as a touring pianist in order to compose—this was a calling he could not ignore. His principal composition teacher was Gian Carlo Menotti, at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, but he also worked with others, including Darius Milhaud and Samuel Barber.

While Hoiby was finding his way in the world, a curious thing was happening to music: Atonality was in, tonality was out; severity and formalism were in, beauty and inspiration were out. Hoiby could not swim with this tide. He had no choice but to swim against it, because he had to write the music that was in him. In 1952 he won a Fulbright scholarship, to study at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, but he never made it in: The academy’s bosses insisted that he abandon all “nineteenth-century notions” and compose in their prescribed fashion; he refused. As he likes to say, “I wanted to grow heirloom roses, but they allowed you nothing but cactuses”.

Hoiby has always been a nonconformist, even a rebel. Recently a young composer referred to him as a “maverick”, which tickled Hoiby. Obviously there is a price to be paid for nonconformity: a price in fame, commissions, and general acceptance. Yet Hoiby insists that no one feel sorry for him: “I have had a wonderful life. I have been free to compose as I please, and there have always been people around, mainly singers, who would commission something. I never starved. And I’ve had the privilege and thrill of writing music!”

Important influences on him have been Schubert, Strauss, Mahler, and Barber. When he was a student, Hoiby and a friend would ring in the new year by reading through Schubert songs—on into the night. “It was Schubert who taught me to write songs”, Hoiby says. And he has requested a specific track for his funeral: Schubert’s Im Abendrot, sung by Elisabeth Schumann. As for Strauss, “he was the one, in Capriccio, who gave me the courage to write simple lyricism”. Hoiby will also cite to you a pop artist: Joni Mitchell. She proved that “there is still juice in the tree of melody”. And that juice will never run out, as long as there are people who are open to it.

He had one great champion, the Mississippi-born soprano Leontyne Price. She took Hoiby songs all over the world, and they were a great success for her. She was kind to them; they were kind to her. Often, she would set off a near riot in the hall, after a stirring, passionate Hoiby song. I know, because I was there, several times. Price retired in 1997, and a singular Hoiby voice was stilled. But the songs go on, of course.

Dalton Baldwin, the pianist and accompanist, once paid Hoiby a supreme compliment. On meeting him, Baldwin said, “Your songs are for the ages”. He may well prove right.

View by Role: Classical Artist | Classical Composer | Lyricist

Role: Classical Composer
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