In the first half of his career, however, atonalism was the ruling orthodoxy. Or there can be two or more tonal centers with conflicting magnetic pulls. In the broadest sense Mayer’s music is tonal though tonal centers are often merely suggested. Louis production of A Death in the Family, 1986 Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 1984.
Harold Prince presenting Mayer with Award for “Advancing American Music Theater” at John F. Standing on the deck of his newly built studio in Weatherfield, VermontĬonductor José Serebrier with Mayer after premiering Eight Miniatures and Two News Items at Guggenheim Museum, 1968. “The revelation,” wrote The New York Observer, “is Inner and Outer Strings it juxtaposes the throbbing warmth of a string quartet with the indifferent chilliness of a string orchestra.”Īt the MacDowell Colony in 1969, embarking on his opera A Death in the Family Commissioned by Howard Shanet for the Mendelssohn String Quartet and his group, String Revival, it was later recorded by Gerald Schwarz on an all-Mayer album. In Inner and Outer Strings opposing textures are the defining element. “This instrumental sextet was written to memorialize a young family member,” wrote John Rockwell of the New York Times, “and its blend of pain, joy and acceptance is very moving.”Īmerigrove takes special note of Mayer’s use of contrast. Such is the case with Dream’s End, his most widely performed chamber work. Throughout the wide range of his work – Mayer has written symphonic works, operas, oratorios, ballets, chamber music, songs and solo compositions – one often finds witty and buoyant sections alternating with lyrical ones. Eleanor Roosevelt served as narrator for his and Susan Otto’s orchestral voyage, Hello, World! and Mayer has carved his own libretto for his opera, A Death in the Family, which American Record Guide deemed “One of the best, most poetical librettos ever.” The opera itself was cited at Kennedy Center as the outstanding musical theater work of 1983.Įleanor Roosevelt records the narration of Hello, World! with Mayer, Susan Otto and friends. In 1971 Leopold Stokowski (at the age of eighty-eight) conducted Mayer’s eight-movement piano concerto, Octagon, at Carnegie Hall with William Masselos as soloist. The composer has had a distinguished and exciting career – and certainly a diverse one. Fanfare, for example, observes that “Mayer has written superbly lyrical music, and is still doing so.” It is this lyric vein that is most often singled out. “William Mayer’s work sings out with real beauty,” wrote the New York Times on the occasion of the composer’s sixtieth birthday. “Quiet Rebel : Mayer at Seventy” - from interview by Zeke Hecker for Institute for Studies in American Music
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