This issue of Contemporary Music Review marks the first attempt by scholars to provide a comprehensive survey of the music of the American composer, Ralph Shapey (1921–2002). Shapey was one of the leading figures in American music for fifty years. He was a prolific composer, with a catalogue of over 170 works, and a distinguished teacher of composition. He was also considered one of the finest American conductors of new music in the 1950s and 1960s. Shapey was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1964 to 1991. During his tenure in Chicago, he founded and directed the Contemporary Chamber Players (CCP). Among the composers he championed as conductor of the CCP were Stefan Wolpe, Edgard Varèse, Luigi Dallapiccola and Roger Sessions.
Shapey's career as a composer may be divided into several periods. He formed his style and technique under the tutelage of Stefan Wolpe during the 1940s. During the 1950s and 1960s he incorporated some of the compositional procedures of Varèse into his music. Shapey's later works display a gradual stylistic retrenchment. Beginning in the 1970s, he reincorporated some of the neo-Schoenbergian techniques of his youth into his music. In his post-1980 works, Shapey employed his own individual adaptation of serialism, which he labeled the ‘Mother Lode’.
This project was initiated by Frank Abbinanti. His broad vision of Shapey's achievement had a decisive influence on the conception of the Shapey CMR special issue. The wide spectrum of topics treated in the articles represent an attempt to survey all facets of Shapey's compositional activity, from his early studies with Wolpe to the works of his final years, in order to create a coherent historical narrative for his career. Austin Clarkson discusses Shapey's apprenticeship with Wolpe, while Carol K. Baron provides excerpts from the marathon interview that she conducted with Shapey in 1975 about his relationship with Wolpe. Lynne Rogers examines the Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Group of 1954. Barry Wiener assesses the impact that Varèse had on Shapey in the late 1950s. Andrew Mead presents an analysis of String Quartet No. 6. Ramon Satyendra examines Seven, for piano four-hands. Amelia S. Kaplan discusses Shapey's use of the Mother Lode in his late works, and Frank Abbinanti traces his protracted and ultimately unsuccessful quest to complete an opera on the subject of Moses.
A project of this scope could not have been undertaken without the extensive assistance of many people. The editors wish to thank Theodore Presser Co., particularly Judith Ilika, Director of Performance Promotion, for the loan of scores and recordings to the participants in the Shapey project. In addition, we would like to thank Tara Mulvaney, Administrator of Licensing and Copyright at Carl Fischer, for providing permission to reproduce excerpts from Shapey scores published by Theodore Presser, and Bob Kessler, Managing Editor of Pendragon Press, for his permission to reproduce an excerpt from Patrick Finley's A catalogue of the works of Ralph Shapey. Thanks also to Reinhard Flender of Peermusic Classical, Hamburg, and Paul Sadowski of McGinnis and Marx, New York, for permission to reproduce excerpts from scores by Stefan Wolpe.
Thanks to the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, for permission to reproduce documents and score excerpts from the Shapey Papers. We are very grateful to the staff of the Special Collections Research Center for their extensive assistance at all stages of this project. We would like to acknowledge the following members of the staff of the Special Collections Research Center: Daniel Meyer, Associate Director and University Archivist; Eileen Ielmini, Head Processing Archivist; Julia Gardner, Reference/Instruction Librarian; David Pavelich, Reference/Instruction Librarian; Christine Colburn, Reader Services Manager; Barbara Gilbert, Reading Room Coordinator; Allyson Stark, Administrative & Reader Services Assistant; and Judith Dartt, Digital Specialist.
Thanks to Professor Joseph N. Straus of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, who edited the essay by Barry Wiener. Barry Wiener edited all of the other essays, except for the work of co-editor Frank Abbinanti. Thanks to Carol K. Baron for making available to the other writers her new, complete transcription of her 1975 interview with Shapey, and to the University of Chicago for permission to reproduce the photographs of Shapey.
Barry Wiener
Frank Abbinanti