Joseph Baber
Appearance
Joseph Wilson Baber Jr. (September 11, 1937 – March 19, 2022) was an American composer, violist, and composition teacher living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Life
[edit]Baber was born in 1937 in Richmond, Virginia, and died in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a Professor of Theory and Composition at the University of Kentucky from 1971 to 2021, and the longtime principal violist of Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra.[1]
Selected works
[edit]- Op. 1: Duos for Violin and Viola
- Op. 2a: Longfellow Songs
- "It Is Not Always May"
- "The Aftermath"
- "Serenade"
- "The Rainy Day"
- "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls"
- "Snow-flakes"
- Op. 2b: Emersonian Hymns
- "The Informing Spirit"
- "Compensation"
- "Thine Eyes Still Shined"
- "Thought"
- "Terminus"
- "To Ellen"
- "Nature"
- Op. 3: Miscellaneous Instrumental (1960)
- Op. 4: Wise Men And Shepherds, Christmas cantata (1951)
- Op. 5: Instrumental Works for Winds
- Sonnet for Solo Oboe, Flute and String Orchestra
- Meditation for Solo Bassoon
- Sketches for Flute and Piano
- Op. 6: Cavalier Lyrics (1960)
- "Song (Sedley)"
- "Why So Pale and Wan" (Sir John Suckling)
- "Take, O Take Those Lips Away" (Shakespeare)
- "The Constant Lover" (Sir John Suckling)
- "To a Lady Asking Him How Long He Would Love Her" (Sir George Etherege)
- "Of the Last Verses in the Book"
- "To Blossoms" (Robert Herrick)
- Op. 7: Serenade for String Orchestra
- Op. 8: Serenade for String Trio (1975)
- Op. 9: Shakespearean Madrigals
- "Fie on Sinful Fantasy"
- "Tell Me Where"
- "I Am Gone, Sir"
- "Who Is Sylvia?"
- "When Icicles Hang By the Wall"
- "Weep No More, Ladies"
- " Mistress Mine"
- "It Was a Lover and His Lass"
- "Under the Greenwood Tree"
- Op. 10: Overture to As You Like It
- Op. 11: Kingdom of the Heart's Content for Piano (Seasonal Sketches)
- Op. 12: American Songs (1957)
- "Words" (John Hay)
- "The Dying Lover" (Richard Henry Stoddard)
- "The Dark Hills" (Edwin Arlington Robinson)
- "Nancibel" (Bliss Carman)
- "To a Golden Haired Girl in a Louisiana Town" (Vachel Lindsay)
- "(Mysteries)" (Emily Dickinson)
- "Terminus" (Emerson)
- "Evening Song" (Sidney Lanier)
- "The Runner in the Skies" (James Oppenheim)
- "Force" (Edward Rowland Sill)
- Op. 13: Bagatelle-Preludes (for piano)
- Op. 14: Incidental Music (Michigan)
- Music for the play Tiger at the Gates (Jean Anouilh)
- Music for the play Our Town (Thornton Wilder)
- Honor's Concert Prize piece, Music for String Orchestra
- Castelnuovo-Tedesco Variations for Piano
- Sketchbooks: impressions in shorts score of mid-western scenes
- Preludes for Piano, written for Virginia Bodman (1959–1962)
- Op. 15: Two Sonatas for Viola and Piano
- Op. 16: Twelve American Pastorals for SSA and Cello Ensemble (Harmonium)
- Afternoon on a Hill (Edna St Vincent Millay)
- On a Dayward Height
- Valley Song (Carl Sandburg)
- (Indian Summer) (Emily Dickenson)
- Wind in the Sunlit Trees (Conrad Aiken)
- Former Barn Lot (Mark Van Doren)
- Wild Peaches (Elinor Wylie)
- A Winter Piece (William Cullen Bryant)
- Daisies (Bliss Carman)
- The Road (John Gould Fletcher)
- Meadowlarks (Sara Teasdale)
- The Spice Tree (Vachel Lindsey)
- Op. 16a: Five Pastorals for Soprano and lower strings
- Op. 17: The Klausli Service (Music for Richard Klausli and the Plymouth Congregationalist Church)
- Op. 18: Songbook: Miscellaneous Uncollected Songs
- Eldorado (Edgar Allan Poe)
- The Traveller (Vachel Lindsey)
- "A Boy's Will" (Longfellow: Stanzas 1 & 2 of My Lost Youth)
- I Will Build a House
- In the Train (Teasdale)
- A Vagabond Song (Bliss Carman)
- The First Snow-fall (Lowell)
- Wood Song (Teasdale)
- Afternoon on a Hill (Millay)
- A Winter Piece (Bryant)
- Meadowlarks (Teasdale)
- Op. 19: Shakespearean Songs for high voice and piano
- Full Fathom Five
- Willow Song
- Take, O Take Those Lips Away
- Under the Greenwood Tree
- Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred
- The Master, The Swabber, The Boatswain
- Take, O Take Those Lips Away (second version)
- It Was a Lover and His Lass
- Blow, Blow, Thy Winter Wind
- Op. 20: Organ Preludes on Protestant Hymn Tunes
- Op. 21: Trio for Violin, Viola and Violoncello
- Op. 22: Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra
- Op. 23: Sonata for Violin and Piano
- Op. 24: Overture: The New Land
- Op. 25: Trio for Oboe, Viola and Piano
- Op. 26: Concerto No. 1 for Viola and String Orchestra
- Op. 27: Psalms for Chorus SATB
- Op. 28: Concerto No. 2 for Viola and Orchestra
- Op. 29: Songs of Love and Loss
- Pity Me Not (Edna St Vincent Millay)
- The Net (Sara Teasdale)
- Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom (Louise Bogan)
- This Quiet Dust (Emily Dickenson)
- Where No Thoughts Are (Anna Hempstead Branch)
- Op. 30: String Quartet
- Op. 31: Incidental Music (Illinois)
- Keyboard Toccatas (for Dwight Peltzer) (1969)
- Scherzo for Viola and Piano (1969)
- Op. 32: Divertimentos
- Op. 33: Songbook: Miscellaneous Uncollected Songs
- Go and Catch a Falling Star (John Donne)
- In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations' (Thomas Hardy)
- The Widow's Song (Pinkney)
- Up-Hill (Rossetti)
- Mnemosyne (Trumbull Stickney)
- Cradle Song of the Infant Jesus for Soprano, Viola and Organ (Old French Noel) (2012)
- Op. 34: Works for Unaccompanied String
- Op. 35: Music from the Kansas College Co-operative Composers Project
- Prelude for Band (1970–1971)
- Scherzo for Chamber Orchestra (1970)
- Carol (SATB)
- Alleluias (SATB)
- To Everything There Is a Season (SATB)
- I Beseech You, Therefore, Brethren (SATB) (1971)
- Op. 36: Three Madrigals on Lyrics by Thomas Campion for Solo Voices
- "I Care Not for These Ladies"
- "Rose-cheek'd Laura, come"
- "Now winter nights"
- Op. 37: Mephisto Rhapsody for Violin and Piano (1971)
- Op. 38: Partita for Keyboard (1975–2008)
- Op. 39: "Fox and Bear" – A Children's Guide to the Orchestra for Narrator and Orchestra
- Op. 40: Frankenstein: Opera in 4 Acts (with John Gardner) (1969–1980)
- Op. 41: Five Fantasias on Finnish Folk Songs for SATB and Piano 4-hands
- Kalliole Kukkulalle
- Minun Kultani
- Lapsuuden Ystavalle
- Ranalle-Istaja Neito
- Rukkaset
- Op. 42: Rumpelstiltskin: Opera in 2 Acts (with John Gardner)
- Op. 43: Landscapes for Soprano and Nine 'Cellos (T. S. Eliot)
- Op. 44: Missa Brevis for Women's Chorus SSA and Organ
- Op. 45: Rhapsody for Two 'Cellos and Orchestra
- Op. 46: Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1979)
- Op. 47: Six Sinfonias for Piano
- Op. 48: Music for St. Michaels (Church of St Michael the Archangel, Lexington)
- Op. 49: Three Fantasias for String Quartet
- Op. 50: Ere We Be Young Again (Robert Louis Stevenson)
- Good and Bad Children
- Looking Forward
- Whole Duty of Children
- At the Seaside
- Singing
- Rain
- Where Go the Boats
- The Swing
- My Bed Is a Boat
- Envoy
- Op. 51: Two Marches in the American Style for Orchestra (1981–1991)
- Op. 52: Samson and the Witch, Opera in 1 Act (with John Gardner) (1995)
- Op. 53: Songs from Shakespeare
- When Daisies Pied
- How Should I Your True Love Know
- Where the Bee Sucks
- Come unto These Yellow Sands
- You Spotted Snakes
- Orpheus with His Lute
- Who Is Sylvia
- Op. 54: Requiescat for Violin and Orchestra (1983) – in memoriam of John Gardner
- Op. 55: 'The Wild Swans at Coole' and other songs on poems of William Butler Yeats (1986)
- The Wild Swans at Coole
- Brown Penny
- Made Quiet
- First Love
- Remorse for Intermperate Speech
- Tom O'Roughley
- To a Child Dancing in the Wind
- Two Years Later
- When You Are Old
- The Lake Isle of Innesfree
- Op. 56: Songs for School Children (c. 1984)
- Some One (Walter de la Mare)
- How Doth the Lowly Crocodile (Lewis Carroll)
- Ariel's Song (William Shakespeare)
- Who Has Seen the Wind (Christina Rossetti)
- Op. 57: Songbook: Miscellaneous Uncollected Songs
- A Lover Pleads with His Friends for Old Friends (Yeats)
- Beloved Rivers (Marjorie England) (1987–1989)
- And That Is Life (Paul Laurence Dunbar) (1990)
- Full Moon (Sara Teasdale)
- The Philosopher (Millay)
- Home-Coming (Léonie Adams)
- Op. 58: 'Dark of the Moon' for mezzo-soprano (Sara Teasdale)
- Winter
- September Night
- Wisdom
- Low Tide
- "She Who Could Bind You"
- Foreknown
- At Tintagil
- The Fountain
- Epitaph
- Op. 59: Symphony No. 2 in D (1987–1991)
- Op. 60: Shiloh, for tenor, horn, and piano[4]
- The Portent
- Misgivings
- Malvern Hill
- Shiloh
- Op. 61: The Shepherd's Calendar, suite for solo English Horn
- Op. 63: Heartland: A Runaway Summer Overture for Orchestra (1990)
- Op. 64: Steel Town, Capriccio for Chamber Orchestra (1990)
- Op. 65: Summer Music: Trio for Flute, Bassoon and Piano
- Op. 66: The Kentucky Suite for Orchestra
- Op. 67: St Louis Suite for Clarinet and Piano
- Op. 68: Fantasia for String Quartet
- Op. 69: Organ Preludes (1995)
- Op. 70: Songs for Our Children
- Op. 71: "Echo" and "The First Spring Day" for Soprano, Flute, Clarinet and String Orchestra
- Op. 72: Two Songs for a Christening for Soprano and Organ or Strings
- Op. 73: Heartland: September Towns[4]
- Op. 74: Madrigals from Shakespeare (1997)
- Under the Greenwood Tree
- How Should I Your True Love Know
- It Was a Lover and His Lass
- Willow Song
- Take, O Take Those Lips Away
- O Mistress Mine
- Op. 75: Songbook: Miscellaneous Uncollected Songs
- Op. 80: An American Requiem (1999–2003)[4]
- Op. 81: Introduction and Allegro for Six Cellos
- Op. 89: Two Movements Concertante for Oboe and Small Orchestra (2003)
- Op. 90: Sonata for Three Cellos and Piano (2006)
- Op. 91: Album of American Ghosts (2006)
- Op. 94: Suite Concertante for flute and string orchestra
- Op. 99: River of Time: An Opera in 2 Acts (with Jim Rodgers) (2009)[5]
References
[edit]- ^ "Joseph Wilson Baber, Jr. obituary". Lexington Herald-Leader. March 24, 2022 – via legacy.com.
- ^ Baber Archive. (n.d.). Opus Catalog and List of Performances. Lexington, Kentucky: Baber, J.
- ^ Hauser, R., McKee, D., & Rumbley, E. (2016). Joseph Baber papers 2005ua015. Retrieved from University of Kentucky Special Collections.
- ^ a b c "Joseph Baber | College of Fine Arts". finearts.uky.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
- ^ Copley, Rich. "Review: UK Opera Theatre's River of Time | Copious Notes". Retrieved 2017-01-15.
External links
[edit]Categories:
- 1937 births
- 2022 deaths
- 20th-century American composers
- 20th-century classical composers
- 21st-century American composers
- 21st-century classical composers
- American classical composers
- American opera composers
- American classical violists
- American male opera composers
- Musicians from Lexington, Kentucky
- Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
- University of Kentucky faculty
- Classical musicians from Virginia
- 20th-century American male musicians
- 21st-century American male musicians
- 20th-century violists
- 21st-century violists