Adolphus Hailstork (born 1941, Rochester, New York)
Friday, October 3, 2025
Neidorff-Karpati Hall, Manhattan School of Music, New York City
Time differences! Another evening-morning calling for yours truly, tension-filled (would I still be awake at midnight-thirty?) for Leonard Slatkin’s latest date at the MSM as “Distinguished Visiting Artist in Conducting and Orchestral Studies” to share his experience and musicianship with the students. With the composer present, first up was Adolphus Hailstork’s Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed (In Memoriam Martin Luther King, Jr.), “… a funeral piece. In the Elizabethan sense — the first Elizabeth, that is — Epitaph is Solemn Music, without flourishes, narcissistic special effects, or exhibitionism…”. Dignified, inward, a suggestion of heading Heavenwards (via a long-journeyed, becoming brighter, prompted by bells, crescendo), and with a possible reference to Mahler’s Das Lied, the ‘Abschied’ (three flutes refraining), Epitaph tied in with the most-recent Slatkin/MSM concert, which included an MLK-related piece by Joseph Schwantner.
Epitaph paired well with Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, commissioned to mark the 2600th-anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire and rejected by the Japanese government (without demanding the composer’s fee be returned) due to the three movements’ Latin titles taken from the Roman Catholic Mass (‘Lacrymosa’-‘Dies irae’-‘Requiem aeternam’) as well as the music being considered “sombre”. Instead the premiere was given on March 29, 1941, by the New York Philharmonic and Barbirolli. (Non-music footnote: On December 7 that year the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor through air-strikes and brought America into WW II.) It’s difficult to hear Sinfonia da Requiem as sombre, certainly not the explosive ‘Dies irae’ (no compromises speed-wise from Slatkin) or indeed the aggressive attack of the arresting opening. Britten’s Opus 20 has long been in Slatkin’s repertoire and discography (London Philharmonic/RCA) and here he led an impassioned and impactful account of confidence (first-rate sax and line-sharing trumpet duo), the final transcendence movingly achieved.
Slatkin is a top-dollar conductor of Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, as demonstrated in Taipei last year, and at MSM he once again shaped an idiomatic account of a Slavonic masterpiece of generous melody and fiery emotion, compactly designed yet with a largesse that extends its scope. With excellent playing inside the spirit of the music, the first movement was quite pastoral until the climax was reached, a conductorial foot-stamp intensifying the moment and going-on to colour the slow one. The dance of the Scherzo was virile, the Trio breathing fresh air, and the Finale, without sectionalising, built to a triumphant ending, anything previously dark powerfully overcome.
Released 1993. Andrew Keener, producer, Mike Hatch & Mark Vigars, engineers.