MARY HOWE
Dr David C F Wright
Mary Carlisle was born in Richmond,
Virginia, at the home of her maternal
grandparents. She was born into a very
wealthy and privileged family. Her father,
Calderon Carlisle, was a successful
lawyer and this meant that Mary had
a private education which included piano
lessons which was regarded as one of
the essential accomplishments foryoung
ladies of the day. One of her early
teachers was Hermine Seron. This would
explain why most of her early works
are for the piano.
She lived in Washington all her life and by the time she was
a young teenager she was playing the piano in private concerts
and, at the age of 18, entered Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
Her father died in 1901 and she travelled aboard. In 1904 she
spent four months in Dresden and had some piano lessons from Richard
Burmeister who had been a pupil of Liszt. Back home in Washington
she continued to mix with the society that had included her respected
father and in 1912 she married the lawyer Walter Bruce Howe and
this ensured that she would maintain her comfortable life style.
Her first child was born and she formed a piano duo with Anne
Hull and they performed at various social events and concerts.
Mary gave birth to two more children and began to compose. The
duo began to perform at symphony concerts and a particular performance
of Mozart's magnificent Concerto for two pianos and orchestra
K365 is recalled with pleasure.
But it was composition that most interested her. To this end,
she studied under Gustav Strube at Peabody and with Ernest Hutcheson
and Harold Randolph. She spent 1933 in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.
Part of the best learning process is to study the masters and
to copy out their works by hand. J S Bach did it with works of
Telemann, Pergolesi and others. With her piano duo in mind, Howe
arranged many of Bach's works for this combination. Ten years
earlier, in 1923, she had composed an Andante and scherzo for
piano quintet and for their New York debut a transcription of
the work for two pianos was given.
She formed a friendship with Amy Beach who composed music which
sounds like watered-down Brahms and they were both members of
the Society of American Composers. In 1925 Anne and Mary gave
the premiere of Beach's Suite for two pianos.
Howe had memories of an Afro-American convict chain gang laying
dynamite in North Carolina and the sounds of drilling and the
explosion while she was out riding her horse. Why this should
have so impressed her I cannot say but she composed her first
large scale work Chain Gang Song for chorus and orchestra first
given at the Worcester Festival by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
One of her relatives had collected chain gang songs and the work
was a success. One female journalist praised it by saying, "There
is not a hint of femininity in the piece!"
The following year, 1926, the conductor George Barere asked her
for some orchestral pieces suggesting that she might begin with
orchestrating some of her piano pieces. She took her piece Star
and orchestrated it effectively. It was a short work with a mighty
climax dying away to the Ravelian style of harp effects. Sand
was to follow and as the title suggests it was a gritty work.
Most of her orchestral pieces were written at the MacDowell colony
in the summers from 1926 onwards.
She was the most well-known woman in the musical life of Washington.
She helped organise the first of the Elisabeth Coolidge Chamber
Festivals. Her affluent means and campaigning lead to the formation
of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra in 1930 being its
first director until 1938. They responded by giving performances
of her work including, in 1935, Castellana for two pianos and
orchestra and Spring Festival of 1937. William Strickland (1914
-1991) was the conductor and promoted American music all over
the world. It was when he was stationed at Fort Meyer's Army Music
School in 1942 that he commissioned Prophecy 1792 from Howe. In
1946 he formed the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and in 1951 became
the director of the Oratorio Society of New York
Castellana is based on four Spanish songs she would have known
from childhood. Her father was of Scottish and Spanish descent.
In her middle years Howe had taken up singing. In 1939 a recital
of her songs was given in Washington and she had formed a madrigal
group. They made up a quartet known as the Howes being Mary and
her three children.
She was always interested in classical poetry and, in 1941, wrote
three Pieces after Emily Dickinson for string quartet. Each of
the three movements is based on the last line of a Dickinson poem.
It has been described as her most contemporary-sounding work.
In 1942 she composed Interlude between two pieces for her son,
Calderon, originally written for recorder and harpsichord. At
the premiere, Calderon was accompanied by Ralph Kirkpatrick.
During the war she campaigned vigorously to support the American
forces and composed two works with the conflict in mind. Prophecy
1792 speaks of another struggle and is scored for chorus and orchestra
to words by the eccentric William Blake and To the Unknown Soldier
for tenor and piano, or orchestra, with a text by Nicholas Levy.
In 1952 Washington National Orchestra
gave a concert of her works. Her husband
died in 1954 and the following year
she went to Vienna where the Vienna
Symphony Orchestra, under William Strickland,
played both Star and Sand and gave the
premiere of Rock commissioned by Strickland.
She died in 1964, aged 82.
Copyright David C F Wright 1988. This article or any part of
it must not be used, copied, downloaded, store in any retrieval
system without the prior consent of the author. Failure to comply
is a breach of copyright law.
