Ralph Shapey's Apprenticeship with Stefan Wolpe

Abstract

Shapey studied with Stefan Wolpe from 1939 to 1942 at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and again from 1946 to 1949 in New York. He was Wolpe's assistant at the Contemporary Music School from 1948 to 1950 and became a leading exponent of his music during the ensuing decades. Wolpe in turn regarded Shapey as the most brilliant and accomplished of his students. After Shapey's studies with Wolpe ended, they enjoyed a fruitful collaboration until their relationship soured and they broke off personal communications in the early 1960s. When asked in later years what he had learned from Wolpe, Shapey said that he could not really remember. This article provides an account of Wolpe's pedagogical ideas from his lectures and from accounts of students Eli Yarden, Elmer Bernstein, Eddie Sauter and others. Compositions are discussed that Shapey wrote between 1940 and 1949—the year he left the Wolpe workshop.

Keywords:

• Contemporary Music School
• Settlement Music School
• Pedagogy
• Wolpe, Stefan
• Violin Sonatas (1940, 1950)

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Barry Wiener for his generous assistance in helping this article find its present form. From our first meeting, when we went to the Stony Brook Library to examine the Isaac Nemiroff Papers, his enthusiasm and critical insights have been invaluable.

Notes

[1] Single leaf, pencil, n.d. [c.1942]. Stefan Wolpe Collection, Paul Sacher Foundation. Henceforth SWC.

[2] Wolpe gave two lectures at the Settlement Music School in March and April of 1940: ‘On the Organization of Musical Material’[‘Zur Organisation des musikalischen Materials’] (unpublished) and ‘Modulation as Process’[‘Die Modulation als Prozess’] (Wolpe, 2002, pp. 42–57). The following year he wrote ‘The Musical Event’[‘Der musikalische Vorgang’], which includes a detailed analysis of the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in D major, Op. 10/3 (Wolpe, 2002, pp. 58–102). In 1941 he also wrote lectures on the Bach Passacaglia in C minor (Wolpe, 2002, pp. 103–112) and his own Dance in Form of a Chaconne (Wolpe, 2002, pp. 113–127). The English versions of these lectures, save for a few paragraphs of ‘Modulation as Process’, have disappeared.

[3]The Wolpe class list of the Brooklyn Free Music Society, Inc. Typewritten with handwritten additions by Wolpe (SWC). Below the school name and address is the heading ‘Mr. Stefan Wolpe—Composition’. The list of ‘Students who should receive one hour Composition’ has six names, including Stanley Applebaum and Ezra Laderman. The list of ‘Students who should receive Two Hour Composition’ has 14 names, including Claus Adam, Elmer Bernstein, Kenyon Hopkins, Isaac Nemiroff, Ralph Shapey and James Timmens. The ‘Theory Review Group’ contains four names. The fees were US$7 for one-hour and US$10 for two-hour lessons.

[4] Advertisement in the program booklet of the Lewisohn Stadium Concerts of the New York Philharmonic, week of 18 July 1949, p. 27.

[5] David Tudor studied privately with Wolpe in the mid-1940s and Morton Feldman worked with Wolpe from 1946–1949. For the recollections of Bernstein, Carisi, Feldman, Finegan, Russell, Sauter and Tudor, see Clarkson (2003); see also Clarkson (2002a, 2004).

[6] Published in Music for Any Instruments (New York: Peer).

[7] Wolpe began Battle Piece in 1943 and completed the first four parts in 1944. Irma played the first three parts at one of the Wolpe musicales. For more on the history of Battle Piece, see Clarkson (2002a).

[8]The Ophicleide: A Monthly Newspaper of the Contemporary Music School[Vol. 1, No. 1], pp. 4–6 (SWC).

[9] For comments on Shapey as teacher, see Levy (2003); Mamlok (2003).

[10]The Ophicleide, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 4 (SWC).

[11] The draft is on yellow paper (Box 147, Ralph Shapey Papers, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library (RSP)). Thanks to Barry Wiener for sending me a transcript, and to Judith Dartt of the Special Collections Research Center, who helped decipher certain words. ‘Combustible’ was particularly hard to read.

[12] Letter, Stefan Wolpe to Ralph Shapey, dated Black Mountain College, 15 September 1954 (RSP).