US
Composer / Conductor of Classical
Ralph Shapey (Philadelphia, March 12, 1921 – Chicago, June 13, 2002) was an American composer and conductor. He is well known for his work as a composition professor at the University of Chicago, where he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players. Shapey was a MacArthur Fellow in 1982. Although Shapey's style is characterized by Modernist angularity, irony, and technical rigor, his coincident concern for sweeping gesture, frenetic passion, rhythmic vitality, lyrical melody, and dramatic arc recall Romanticism. Shapey was dubbed by critics Leonard Meyer and Bernard Jacobson as a "radical traditionalist," which pleased him immensely—he held a deep respect for the masters of the past, whom he regarded as his finest teachers.[citation needed] The French-American composer Edgard Varèse was among Shapey's most important influences. Both composers shared a fascination with unusual sonorities, counterpoint masses, and the outer extremes of pitch space. The coordination of static "sound blocks" in Shapey's music also reminds one of another great French composer, Olivier Messiaen, though Shapey reportedly found Messiaen's music saccharine and maudlin. Shapey also studied with Stefan Wolpe.[citation needed] Although comparisons are useful, Shapey's compositional voice is undoubtedly personal and distinctive. Many listeners would call his music[weasel words] "atonal," but Shapey himself denied the label. He considered himself a tonal composer, and indeed his work, though couched in a highly dissonant harmonic idiom rich in interval classes 1 and 6, does adhere to certain organizational features of tonal music, including pitch hierarchy and object permanence.[citation needed] In 1992 the Pulitzer Prize for Music jury, which that year consisted of George Perle, Roger Reynolds, and Harvey Sollberger, selected Shapey's "Concerto Fantastique" for the award. However, the Pulitzer Board rejected that decision and choose to give the prize to the jury's second choice, Wayne Peterson. The music jury responded with a public statement stating that they had not been consulted in that decision and that the Board was not professionally qualified to make such a decision. The Board responded that the "Pulitzers are enhanced by having, in addition to the professional's point of view, the layman's or consumer's point of view," and they did not rescind their decision. Shapey created a body of over 200 works, many of which have been published by Presser. Presser also offers his textbook A Basic Course in Music Composition, written after over fifty years of teaching the subject. Recordings of Shapey's music are available on the CRI, Opus One, and New World labels. Shapey's works have been catologued by Dr. Patrick D. Finley in A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Shapey, published by Pendragon Press His students include Gerald Levinson, Robert Carl, Gordon Marsh, Michael Eckert, Philip Fried, Matt Malsky, Lawrence Fritts, James Anthony Walker, Frank Retzel, Jorge Liderman, Jonathan Elliott, Deborah Drattell, Ursula Mamlok, Shulamit Ran, Terry Winter Owens, and a very broad and exceptional list of others. The composer Robert Black was particularly influenced by him, and as a conductor he also premiered Shapey's Three for Six.
Track list and 30sec audio provided by
Title | Artist | Year | Type |
---|---|---|---|
More Music By Ralph Shapey | Ralph Shapey, Miranda Cuckson, Blair McMillen | 2010 | Album |
Sessions & Shapey | Roger Sessions & Ralph Shapey | 2007 | Album |
Music By Ralph Shapey | Ralph Shapey, Miranda Cuckson, Blair McMillen | 2007 | Album |
Shapey • Riegger • Piston • Crumb • Sollberger • Berger | Paul Zukofsky / Ralph Shapey • Wallingford Riegger • Walter Piston • George Crumb • Harvey Sollberger • Arthur Berger | 2002 | Album |
Songs of Life | Ralph Shapey | 1999 | Album |
New Music For Virtuosos | Leslie Bassett, Ralph Shapey, William O. Smith, Harvey Sollberger, Robert Erickson, Andrew Imbrie, Robert Hall Lewis, Robert Morris | 1998 | Album |
The Covenant; Rituals; Incantations | Ralph Shapey | 1995 | Compil. |
Works By Bresnik, Powell, Roseman, Shapey | New York Woodwind Quintet / Martin Bresnick, Mel Powell, Ronald Roseman, Ralph Shapey | 1991 | Album |
Works By Faye-Ellen Silverman And Ralph Shapey | Faye-Ellen Silverman, Ralph Shapey With Aspen Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Stephen Mosko, David Shostac, Joel Krosnick, Gilbert Kalish, The Contemporary Chamber Players Of The University Of Chicago, Ronald Anderson | 1987 | Album |
Hidden Sparks | Maryvonne Le Dizes - Elliott Carter, Tod Machover, John Melby, Ralph Shapey | 1986 | Album |
Epitaph / Sonata / Three Songs / Adagio Sostenuto / Legend | James Ostryniec - Witold Lutoslawski / Ralph Shapey / Ruth Crawford Seeger / Charles Ives / Otto Luening | 1984 | Album |
Apprehensions / Three For Six | Shulamit Ran / Ralph Shapey | 1984 | Album |
Encore | Wanda Maximilien - Ralph Shapey / Gerald Chenoweth / Robert Moevs | 1984 | Album |
The Covenant | Ralph Shapey | 1982 | Album |
Music For Oboe (La Bocca Della Verita / Diaphonic Suite No. 1 / Rhapsodie / Trio / Wave Canon / Work) | James Ostryniec - George Rochberg / Ruth Crawford Seeger / Ralph Shapey / Gunther Schuller / Joseph Julian / Lawrence Singer | 1980 | Album |
Fromm Variations (31 Variations For Piano) | Ralph Shapey, Robert Black | 1980 | Album |
String Quartet #VII | Ralph Shapey | 1978 | Album |
Ben-Zion Orgad: Dialogues On The First Scroll / Jacob Gilboa: The Beth Alpha Mosaic | The Contemporary Chamber Players Of The University Of Chicago, Ralph Shapey | 1977 | Album |
Praise | Ralph Shapey | 1976 | Album |
Rituals / String Quartet No. 6 / Three Pieces For Orchestra | Ralph Shapey / Seymour Shifrin | 1972 | Album |
Songs Of Ecstasy / Helices | Ralph Shapey / Emmanuel Ghent | 1970 | Album |
Music For 13 Players | Ralph Shapey, John Macivor Perkins | 1964 | Album |
Serenade / Evocation | Yehudi Wyner / Ralph Shapey | Album | |
The Cat And The Moon / Requiems For The Party-Girl / Cantus Commemorabilis I | Thomas Putsché / R. Murray Schafer / Henry Weinberg - The Contemporary Chamber Players Of The University Of Chicago, Ralph Shapey | Album |