The first African American recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music was born 100 years ago today.
George Walker was awarded the prize for “Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra.” “The unanimous choice of the Music Jury, this passionate, and very American, musical composition… has a beautiful and evocative lyrical quality using words of Walt Whitman,” stated the committee. That was as recent as 1996.
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1922, Walker was a longtime resident of Montclair, NJ. His father emigrated from Kingston, Jamaica, to study at Temple University School of Medicine; Walker’s mother supervised his first piano lessons. He was accepted into the Oberlin School of Music at the age of 14. He was then admitted to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and later attended the Eastman School. For two years, he studied in Paris with Robert Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger.
Walker’s own academic career included posts with Dillard University in New Orleans, the Dalcroze School of Music, the New School for Social Research, Smith College, the University of Colorado Boulder, Rutgers University (where he served as chairman of the music department), the Peabody Institute of John Hopkins University, and the University of Delaware.
He was the father of two sons, violinist and composer Gregory T.S. Walker and playwright Ian Walker. His sister was the pianist Frances Walker-Slocum. George Walker died in 2018, at the age of 96.
As a composer, he produced an impressive body of work, in a career that spanned some 80 years. By his own assessment, as an artist, he was more interested in building “elegant structures” than in “creating beauty.” Depending on one’s sensibility, it could be argued that he achieved both.
I saw him in person only once, in 2009, when the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the world premiere of his Violin Concerto, with his son, Gregory, as soloist, and Neeme Järvi conducting. On a separate series of concerts that season, the orchestra also performed “Lilacs.”
However, it is for a piece Walker composed while still a student at Curtis that he is probably best-known. The “Lyric for Strings,” dedicated to the memory of his grandmother, is touching in its simplicity. It deserves to be as widely played as Barber’s “Adagio,” although Walker’s is quite a different piece. The tender recollection manages to be moving without spilling over into anguish.
I often wonder if Walker ever got tired of hearing about his resume of firsts. In relation to his skin color, I mean. It was always the first thing you ever read or heard about him (and this post is no different). In addition to his landmark Pulitzer win, Walker was the first black pianist to present a solo recital at New York’s Town Hall (in 1945). He was the first black performer to appear as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra (playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3). He was the first black musician to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music (where he studied with Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Rosario Scalero).
All important achievements. But he was also so much more than a statistic. In an interview given in 2012, Walker commented, “I’ve always thought in universal terms, not just what is black or what is American, but simply what has quality.”
Happy birthday, George Walker.
“Lyric,” in its original version for string quartet:
“Lilacs,” with Faye Robinson (the movements are posted separately, so allow it to play through)
Walker plays his Piano Sonata No. 1
Brief 2012 documentary on Walker, in which he is interviewed, for the occasion of his 90th birthday:
A fascinating interview conducted by Frank J. Oteri. Also includes some great photos!
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