Lilac Time

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of George Walker, in conversation with his son Gregory. Today, recognition at last, as Walker wins the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Music.

When Walker got the phone call informing him of his epic win, the shock rendered him monosyllabic; in his autobiography, Reminiscences of an American Composer and Pianist, he recalls saying “Wow!” a lot. News soon got around – a Pulitzer was big news – and before long, there was a queue of journalists snaking down the driveway of the composer’s house in Montclair, New Jersey, eager to extract a few bon mots from the great man. A Pulitzer Prize is a career-defining moment, which makes what happened next in Walker’s career all the more surprising. “I got probably more publicity nationwide than perhaps any other Pulitzer Prize-winner,” he recalled in 2015. “But not a single orchestra approached me about doing the piece or any piece. It materialized in nothing.” The piece that won the prize was Lilacs, Walker’s setting of verses from Walt Whitman’s elegy on the death of Abraham Lincoln, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’. The Pulitzer Music Jury praised the “beautiful and evocative lyrical quality” of “this passionate, and very American, musical composition”.

Hey Nonny No (anon)
Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano
George Walker, piano

Poème for violin and orchestra
Gregory Walker, violin
Cleveland Chamber Symphony
Edwin London, conductor

In Time of Silver Rain
Mother Goose (Circa 2054)
Patricia Green, mezzo-soprano
George Walker, piano

Lilacs
Albert Lee, tenor
Sinfonia da Camera
Ian Hobson, conductor

Modus
Cygnus Ensemble

Produced by Chris Barstow for BBC Wales