John Beall — About

Biographical sketch

John Beall, former Composer in Residence at West Virginia University (1978-2014) and currently professor emeritus, is a native Texan. The son of a Baptist minister, he grew up in Belton and Beaumont and obtained his first degrees from Baylor University, a leading church-related institution. In those years Beall absorbed a deep classical musical culture; before college, he had become a capable pianist and string player, both double bass and cello, with a precocious knowledge of their literature. Further, he gained a profound love and knowledge of the hymns and choral pieces to which he was daily exposed. After serving four years in the United States Air Force, he attended the Eastman School of Music for his doctorate (PhD, 1973), obtaining the Louis Lane Prize and the Howard Hanson Prize, two of Eastman’s highest composition honors. His principal teachers were Samuel Adler at Eastman, and Richard Willis and Charles Eakin at Baylor.

John Beall married Carol Jean Allen in 1967. Carol Beall is a pianist and was a fellow student at Baylor. She has performed much of John Beall’s chamber and solo music for piano. Their children include Katherine, b. 1970 and a ceramic artist and librarian; and Stephen, b. 1975 and a professional performer and teacher of violin and viola. Katherine and her husband James Simpson have two children.

John Beall’s first academic positions were at Southwest Texas State University (later Texas State University) and Eastern Illinois University, before he accepted the West Virginia position. During those years, like many of his teachers and peers, he made extensive use of the twelve-tone serial idiom, though with a personal and humane predilection for singable melodies. (For him it was never serialism.) The Sextet for Piano and Winds, composed on commission for Penn State University in 1976, provided the first indication of his turn toward pre-existing material, in this case the gospel tune Amazing Grace, in the second movement, a variation set based on a serial recast of that melody. In the succeeding years, even after his relocation to West Virginia, several of Beall’s outstanding works, such as the Piano Fantasy and the Anglican Mass, continued to utilize serial materials and techniques; but there was a definite trend toward a more tonally-centered, yet still highly individualized harmonic and melodic syntax. Hymn and folk material, and the drive to communicate their emotional essence, played a large role in this transition. Even the Anglican Mass used the great Latin hymn Divinum Mysterium. More recently, the otherwise highly abstract Piano Sonata of 1994 had as its finale a variation set on the medieval folk tune L’homme armé.

An unmistakably Appalachian orientation is felt in Beall’s music as early as 1981, in the quartet for piano, violin, cello, and clarinet On Chestnut Ridge. John Beall credits the late Patrick Gainer, professor of English at WVU, and his book Folksongs from the West Virginia Hills, for opening to him the treasury of Appalachian folk material. On Chestnut Ridge utilized Fair Charlotte and Lover’s Lament from Gainer’s book. At the same time Beall was becoming more deeply acquainted with the scenic wonders of his adopted state, its mountains, gorges, and whitewater, as well as its people. Often his chosen hymn tunes have a strong flavor of folk music. In his Cello Sonata, 1984, he used the tune Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling. His Symphony No. 1 in 1985 used the hymn Dunlap’s Creek; and the orchestral Mountain Music, 1987, used Am I a Soldier of the Cross, as well as Beall’s own version of a barn-dance fiddle tune. In more recent work, the opera Ethan Frome (1997) uses a New England fiddle tune, Soldier’s Joy, and his Symphony No. 2, “Spruce Knob” (2003), quotes the folk song, Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies. In Wondrous Love (1999) he composed variations for viola and piano on that beloved hymn; in the Piano Quartet of 2001, material is based on the tune Sourwood Mountain; in Vandalia Suite for piano, the finale is based on the fiddle tune Cacklin’ Hen.

Context

The nature of Beall’s work is the composition of musical works in what is generally known as “classical” style, i.e. derived from the traditions of Western European and American art music. We have called specific attention to his music that utilizes Appalachian folk music or hymn tunes as source material. As the twentieth century wound down through the 1980’s and ‘90’s, many American composers of classical music turned away from the abstract and experimental styles that arose immediately post-World War II, and moved toward a more familiar language based on the past, a tonally-based language nevertheless new and progressive. This revisionism of style in new music can be attributed to many factors, but especially to the nationwide ease of access represented by institutions like National Public Radio and its classical programs; compact discs that can be easily copied and shared; and most recently, sound files that can be directly downloaded from the Internet. Classical music has been democratized to a certain extent, and the preference of influential academics for the avant-garde has been cast aside in favor of eclectic inclusiveness.As stated above in the biographical sketch, since 1981, John Beall has based a considerable number of his compositions on hymn tunes and folk tunes of the Appalachian region. Composers in the traditions of Western European Art Music have for centuries incorporated folk music and church music of various kinds into mainstream musical works. Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Antonin Dvorak, Igor Stravinsky, and Bela Bartok are a few major European figures that can be cited. During his sojourn in America in the 1890s, Czech composer Dvorak was quoted in the press with a statement advising American composers to seek out the folk music of America, which he believed was “negro melodies.” Quoted in the New York Herald in 1893 he said,

“I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States…. [Negro melodies] are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them…. In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music…. I did not come to America to interpret Beethoven or Wagner for the public…. I came to discover what young Americans had in them and to help them to express it.”

Possibly the best known of American composers who followed Dvorak’s advice, at least in spirit, was New Englander Charles Ives, whose music is filled with American popular songs of the 19th century and many, many hymn tunes. Although he (like Ives) does not utilize African-American melodies, John Beall took Dvorak’s mandate more broadly and has sought out the distinctive hymnody of the Appalachian region where he now lives, as well as the folk melodies of this region, which are mainly from the British Isles; though many of his borrowed melodies are native. Recognition of his leading role in this movement is cited in The American Record Guide, the oldest continuously published journal of classical recording reviews in America. In a review of the music of composer Philip Rhodes, reviewer Jack Sullivan states, “Over the past 30 years, North Carolina native Philip Rhodes has written a series of pieces fusing concert music with folk tunes from the Appalachian South… but other composers are attempting similar fusions, among them John Beal [sic], Wynton Marsalis, and Peter Schickele.”

Significant Venues

Beall’s music has been heard on five continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America), over National Public Radio and other stations with a classical format, Hong Kong, German, French, and Spanish National Radios, and on public television in the United States.His performances have achieved for him an annual Serious Music Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) since 1979.For Beall this has meant a number of performances ranging from fifteen to thirty-five every year.

Beall’s largest work, the 1997 opera in two acts, Ethan Frome, was staged in the Clay Concert Theatre at the Creative Arts Center at WVU by the WVU Opera Theatre as a part of the

Centennial of the WVU School of Music.This event involved all three Divisions of the College, Art, Music, and Theatre/Dance. Furthermore, the opera was videotaped in the hall with full cast and orchestra on days between the performances for broadcast on West Virginia Public Television, a broadcast that was made statewide in November, 1998.Critical acclaim of this work was considerable.Please see pages xx where excerpts of the reviews can be found.A digital video disc (DVD) ofEthan Frome is to be found at the back of this application folder.

In 2003 his Symphony No. 2, “Spruce Knob,” was premiered by the West Virginia Symphony (formerly the Charleston Symphony) as the commissioned work for the opening of the new Clay Center in Charleston, WV. Again, critical reaction in both Charleston newspapers was very positive. David Williams, music critic of the Charleston Gazette wrote, “It is a lyrical piece, soft and mysterious at the beginning and end. The music unfolds at a leisurely pace, like night warming into a bright sunrise. Beall scores with a big statement from the Appalachian folksong ‘Come All Ye Fair and Tender ladies.”

Beall’s music has been programmed by other major ensembles such as the Dallas Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, The West Virginia Symphony (formerly the Charleston Symphony), the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and other university organizations. Many chamber music ensembles and soloists have also performed his work. Please consult the comp.

Beall’s Double Concerto for Violin and Contrabass was premiered in Washington, DC, in March, 2007, by the United States Marine Chamber Orchestra, a division of the famed US Marine Band, with soloists from the ensemble. It was written for a duo styling themselves as “Bridging the Gap,” which consists of violinist Peter Wilson and bassist Aaron Clay.

Publications

John Beall’s first publication was his Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, released by Southern Music Co. of San Antonio, TX, in 1976.He then signed contracts with the major music publishing firm, Carl Fischer, Inc. of New York. While the rental works (orchestra and band scores) remain available, Fischer did not release the smaller works and Dr. Beall eventually transferred most of these works to MMB Music, Inc., of St. Louis, MO, whose catalog subsequently was sold to Lauren Kaiser Music. The Spruce Knob Symphony and Raven Rock works remain in their rental catalog of orchestral works. Six pieces (Fleeting Moments: Preludes, a new work for piano; the Saxophone Trio, the Piano Quintet, the Viola Sonata, the Double Concerto, and the study score of Spruce Knob) are distributed (some in paper, all online) by Theodore Front Musical Literature of Van Nuys, California. These are detailed on pp. xx in the curriculum vitae.

Compact Discs

There are five commercial compact discs, one a two-disc album, of the music of John Beall. Four of the CD releases are composed entirely of Beall’s music.The two discs from Cambria Master Recordings came in the late 1990s.Both of these received excellent reviews in the trade journal, The American Record Guide. The reviewer said of the CD On Chestnut Ridge, “John Beall, composer-in-residence at West Virginia University, uses the Appalachian folk music he hears around him to create an American aesthetic. It is a terrific idea and often yields pleasing results...Whether wearing a European suit or countryboy jeans, John Beall is worth discovering."In the same issue of the ARG, the reviewer wrote of The Piano Music of John Beall, “The piano program demonstrates the international side of Beall’s sensibility. His 1994 Sonata opens with a graceful serial melody, sounding a bit like Berg, explodes into a dizzying scherzo and concludes with charming variations on a French folk tune. One of these is a swingy rag that betrays for a moment Beall’s American origins. In the middle is a somber, neo-impressionist interlude in a style that also permeates Three Summer Pieces.”

The two disc set, Wondrous Love: Appalachian Chamber Music by John Beall, wasalso reviewed in the ARG. Of the title piece, reviewer Mark Lehman wrote, “ The program begins with Beall’s enjoyable 11-minute set of variations for viola and piano on ‘Wondrous Love,’ a hauntingly beautiful melody that Beall evidently enjoys too much to really damage its austere purity in his half-dozen variants.”The other disc, E.R.M. Media’s Masterworks of the New Era, Vol. 1 contains Beall’s orchestra work, Raven Rock; the music was not reviewed.Other reviews can be found on p. xx.

All recordings are still available.