Shepherd

I received an email from Scott Holden recently. He is immersing himself in new music for his Carnegie Hall recital in June, "A Century of Mormon Music." He told me about his reaction to learning a work by Arthur Shepherd, "From a Mountain Lake." Years ago, I had heard about the piece from my friend, the late Grant Johannesen, who was a friend of Shepherd's and thought very highly of his music.

Scott Holden wrote, "The more I play that piece of his (Shepherd's) the greater I think it is. Beautifully crafted, amazing harmonies, not really an extra note in it--but sumptuous harmonies that combine elements of Griffes, and a tad bit of Vaughn Williams. It's amazing to me that it was unpublished."

Apparently, the score was in the BYU library, mis-filed as a choral work. It wasn't unknown--Johannesen recorded it with BYU's record label, but it certainly isn't well-known. Scott played an excerpt for me; it's quite wonderful.

 

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