Posts By: willcwhite

Getting Played

This past summer (July 2024 to be precise), I found myself on a personal/professional roller coaster the likes of which I never would have imagined when I discovered that several of my compositions had been plagiarized by a teenage scam artist halfway across the world. Not only plagiarized, but passed off as his own compositions, to the point where he had them performed *in concert* by prominent, talented professional musicians in his home country.

This kid plagiarized my music by copying it off of my scrolling-score YouTube videos, admittedly an arduous task that could prove he has the necessary work ethic to write his own music. But here’s the kicker: in spite of the fact that he could have just copied my music without me ever knowing of his existence, the whole time that he was plagiarizing me, he was also writing me lengthy emails, kicked off by an anonymous, out-of-the-blue fan letter:

The story has several more unlikely (and frankly, insane) twists and turns. I’ve recounted it in full detail to several friends and colleagues in private, but now it’s very much a matter of public record, as it’s been voluminously chronicled by Hugh Morris in VAN Magazine.

Because my plagiarist was/is a minor, the editorial team at VAN decided to redact his name and any identifying details, and I’m honoring that same policy here on my website. If you’re a composer who read my story on VAN and you’ve gotten an email similar to the one above, please do send me a (non-anonymous) message, because I’m not the only one who got plagiarized. (For more on that, you’ll have to read the article.)

Also unmentioned in the article — and rather unfortunately, in my view — were the specific works of mine that got caught up in this whole affair, and for the benefit of readers who have navigated their way to willcwhite.com in the hopes of finding out more, I’m happy to assemble them below:

My piano sonata, a huge, dissonant, virtuosic work, is the piece that I first discovered had been performed under false pretenses. I don’t think I can convey my level of shock when I watched the video of this work being performed in No one’s home country. As is mentioned in the article, the most galling thing was when No one bounded on stage, handed the pianist a floral bouquet, and took several bows. (That’s not even counting his speech!) It was the first time I had ever even seen what he looked like.

This next one was actually kind of funny. No one changed the title from “The Seafarers” to “The Mariners,” quite unaware, I’m sure, of the additional layer of irony: the Mariners is the name of Seattle’s professional baseball team.

As far as I know, there was no public performance of the Bagatelles, but after No one had been exposed, he admitted to having plagiarized them, and I can only presume he was trying to pawn them off as his own and arrange a performance.

Lest anyone feel sympathy for me, let me assure you: I’m not the victim here. For me, this has wound up as a wild, unforgettable story. The victims are No one’s friends and family, not to mention the musicians he duped into playing my music under false pretenses.

Anyway, that’s the story of my insane summer!

Pinnacles

Harmonia’s 2024-2025 season is here, and this is what’s on tap:

Salvation

BACEWICZ  Overture for Orchestra
BARBER  Prayers of Kierkegaard
BARTOK  Concerto for Orchestra

This program hangs together awfully well, I think: the Bacewicz and the Bartók were written in the same year (1943). Bacewicz was stuck in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, while Bartók had escaped to safety in the U.S. But of course, he was never really comfortable there (here) and was ill basically the whole time. Meanwhile, Barber, a natural-born American citizen, was commissioned by the Boston Symphony in 1943 to write his piece (identical details to Bartók) but it took him 10 years to fulfill the commission. Prayers of Kierkegaard almost never gets performed.

Majesty

HANDEL  Zadok the Priest
HANDEL  Dixit Dominus
BEETHOVEN  Symphony No. 7

This is an all-banger concert. Handel was Beethoven’s favorite composer and it’s easy to hear why.

Messiah

HANDEL Messiah

I say this every year and I mean what I say: it never gets old. When it all goes well, it’s like riding one of those enormous waves off the coast of Portugal, or so one presumes

Innocence

WEBER Overture to Oberon
MAHLER Selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5

There’s a real train of musical thought and influence here. Mahler was so thoroughly into Weber that he basically recomposed Weber’s opera Die Drei Pintos and I think he was sleeping with Weber’s granddaughter or something? One of you musical history buffs will have to fill me in on that. As we all know, Mahler was the major influence, symphonically speaking on Shostakovich. The Weber and Mahler pieces are both about an age of innocence (i.e. childhood.) The Shostakovich is about professing one’s innocence to parties making accusations of guilt.

Invention

BACH Invention a 3 (arr. Swingle Singers)
LAURIDSEN  “Quando son più lontan” from Madrigali
WHITACRE  Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
GARRETT  The Lesson
DETT  O Holy Lord
BURTON  A Prayer
BRISTOW  At harbor, waiting for wind [world premiere]
KEYT  Nizina [world premiere]
SAMS  “Stone” from The Earthmakers
BACH “Confiteor” from Mass in B minor

I may be on the cusp of understanding how to program a choir concert. It’s been a hard road, but I think I’m getting there. Bach bookends can’t be a bad idea. Then there’s three sets: Lauridsen-Whitacre, in which I found pieces by the kings of contemporary choral music that I actually like; Garrett-Dett-Burton, a little tribute to my friend Marques who is very much a Friend of Harmonia and has introduced me to great music; Bristow-Keyt-Sams, three extremely worthy Seattle composers.

Mass in B Minor

BACH Mass in B minor

Do I really need to say anything?

Spring Rites

BELLINI Overture to Norma
R. SCHUMANN Cello Concerto
MENDELSSOHN Die Erste Walpurgisnacht

I have a growing soft spot for Early Romanticism. When’s the last time you heard this — or any — Bellini overture in concert? I chose this overture because of its thematic resonance: Norma is about druids, and so is Die Erste Walpurgisnacht. Speaking of which, that’s got to be the most unjustly neglected piece in Mendelssohn’s output. It’s spooky, silly, campy fun from start to finish. And the Schumann cello concerto? Come on!

Eaters of Flesh hymn-fantasia, op. 46a

Eaters of Flesh is a piano fantasia that began life as a hymn. The hymn text was penned by William Cowherd, the leader of a 19th-century sect of radical Christian vegetarians known as the Bible Christian Church. As a fervent vegan myself, I set this text to music (along with two other texts by Cowherd) as my op. 46, Three Vegan Hymns.

Cowherd’s text reads as follows:

“Eaters of Flesh!” could you decry
Our food and sacred laws,
Did you behold the lambkin die,
And feel yourselves the cause?

Lo! there it struggles! hear it moan,
As stretch’d beneath the knife:
Its eye would melt a heart of stone!
How meek it begs its life.

Had God, for man, its flesh design’d;
Matur’d by death, the brute,
Lifeless, to us had been consign’d,
As is the ripen’d fruit.

Hold, daring man! from murder stay:
God is the life in all.
You smite at God! when flesh you slay:—
Can such a crime be small?

The fantasia uses my original hymn tune for “Eaters of Flesh” as the basis for an impassioned keyboard work.

The fantasia may be performed as with or without the vocal part. If performed without the voice, the pianist should incorporate the melody into the texture.

Galanteries, op. 59

The term “galanterie” was used by 18th-century composers to describe the optional movements of a Baroque dance suite. A suite required four standard movements — the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue — but between the sarabande and the gigue a composer could insert a rogue dance: a bourrée, gavotte, minuet, or passacaglia, just to name a few of the options.

In Galanteries (which I describe as “a suite of misfit dances”) four such movement types are given pride of place: the bourrée, the air (a pair, in fact), the chaconne, and the passepied.

Composed April–May 2024

The Key of David

While I was in Chicago last month (to give a slew of pre-concert lectures for the symphony), I took one evening to record a piece that’s been in need of a recording for quite a while now, “O Clavis David,” for choir and organ:

As to the recording session itself, all I can say is, if you hire the right people, you’ll get a good product, and thankfully I had a friend who knew all the right people to hire.

Of course, where organs are concerned you don’t just need the right person playing (which I had) but you also need the right person to record (ditto) and you darn well better make sure you’ve got a quality instrument in an excellent acoustic.

This recording was made at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, which boasts a blazing hot E. M. Skinner organ. When I walked into the church and heard the organist practicing his part, I practically thought he was going to knock my ears off my head.

Luckily he pulled it back (just a little) for the session, but saints alive is that a phenomenal instrument. The piece was written for the Flentrop organ at St. Mark’s in Seattle, which couldn’t be more different, but that’s the thing with writing for the organ — you do your best to make a piece that will work in many different settings, because you never know what you’re going to get.