LEIGH HOWARD STEVENS

Robert Kurka’s Marimba Concerto was commissioned by the teacher of Leigh Howard Stevens, Vida Chenoweth, who recently died on December 14, 2018.  Chenoweth premiered the work almost exactly 60 years ago, on November 11, 1959 in Carnegie Hall.  It was the first time a performance for solo marimba had been heard on its stage.  The work was written for a “low-A” marimba with a range of 4-1/3 octaves.  This was the biggest marimba available at the time and had only been introduced to the world about ten years before.  Today, a 5-octave range is common, with the lowest note being the same as the lowest note on a cello.  Mr. Stevens, being a marimba designer as well as a marimba soloist, performs on an instrument of his own design and has transposed some of the notes of the marimba part down an octave, to take advantage of today’s 5-octave range.  Stevens is known for inventing a new way of holding 4 mallets (“the Stevens grip”), as well as the “one-handed roll,” and other expressive ways of sustaining the sound of the marimba. These techniques are now commonly used in marimba compositions and performance.  All these advances in technique have been incorporated into his interpretation of the solo part.  Stevens performs an original cadenza which he has composed with musical themes taken from the first movement.

Notes by the Publisher

Born of Czech parents on December 22, 1921 in Cicero, Illinois, Robert Kurka achieved a career of distinction, despite his short life.  Although largely self-taught, he studied composition briefly with two outstanding teachers, Otto Luening and Darius Milhaud.

Life Magazine honored Robert Kurka by including him in a list of nine composers selected for special notice; he was labelled “the tunesmith.”  He taught at the City College of New York, Queens College, and was composer-in-residence at Dartmouth College.  He received commissions from various musical organizations and was co-winner of the George Gershwin Memorial Award.  Finally, in the early 1950’s he received the most coveted of all honors, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship award. 

Reporters for newspapers and magazines turned out in full force for the premiere, and wrote glowing accounts. Time Magazine wrote, “As for the piece itself, it proved to be tuneful, crisply rhythmic, shot through with jazz echoes and a spirit of jaunty sophistication.  It proved again that the composer Kurka had one of the most promising original talents in U.S. music.”  The New York Journal-American  wrote, “Kurka’s Concerto for Marimba saved the evening; with this piece the concert came alive:  syncopated music with lighthearted melodic writing.  This work is as native as the barn dance-full of spirit.”

Tragically, Kurka had died of leukemia nearly two years before:  December 12, 1957.  The world premiere of Kurka’s opera The Good Soldier Schweik also took place after the composer’s death; it was presented April 29, 1958, by the New York City Opera.