Walter (Hamor) Piston - Life, Books

Composer, born in Rockland, Maine, USA. He trained as an artist and first took a serious interest in music at Harvard (1920–4), and after studies in Paris under Nadia Boulanger, he taught at Harvard (1926–60). A favourite of the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, he was noted for his solid craftmanship in Neoclassical works, including eight symphonies and five string quartets. He also wrote several popular textbooks, including Harmony, Counterpoint, and Orchestration.

Walter Hamor Piston Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976) was an American composer and theorist.

Life

Piston was born in Rockland, Maine. His father's father, a sailor named Antonio Pistone, changed his name to Anthony Piston when he came to America from Genoa, Italy.

With his brother Edward, Walter Piston Jr. During the 1910s Walter Piston made a living playing piano and violin in dance bands, and later on in the decade played violin in orchestras led by Georges Longy. With help from Shaw, Walter Piston was admitted to Harvard in 1920, where he studied counterpoint with Archibald Davison, canon and fugue with Clifford Heilman, advanced harmony with Edward Ballantine, composition and music history with Edward Burlingame Hill. Piston often worked as an assistant to the various music professors there, and conducted the student orchestra.

At about that time Piston joined the Navy Band and learned to play more instruments.

Upon graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, Piston was awarded a John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship, consisting of $1500 yearly for two to three years of travel abroad. At the Ecole Nationale de Musique in Paris, Piston studied composition and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger, composition with Paul Dukas and violin with George Enescu.

In 1936, the Columbia Broadcasting System commissioned six American composers (Aaron Copland, Louis Gruenberg, Howard Hanson, Roy Harris, William Grant Still and Piston) to write works for CBS radio stations to broadcast. Piston considered radio better suited to smaller orchestras, thus he wrote a Concertino for Piano and Chamber Orchestra.

At the invitation of Arthur Fiedler, Piston wrote his most famous ballet, The Incredible Flautist, for Hans Wiener and the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Piston studied the twelve-tone techniques of Arnold Schoenberg, and wrote a work for organ using them, the Chromatic Study on the Name of Bach.

During World War II, Piston was an air raid warden in Belmont, and he wrote patriotic fanfares and other such works.

Piston wrote four books on the technical aspects of music theory which are considered to be classics in their respective fields: Principles of Harmonic Analysis, Counterpoint, Orchestration and Harmony.

Piston's handwriting was so neat that almost all his orchestral scores were published as facsimiles of his original scores, and he also wrote the musical examples in the textbooks he authored.

In his final years, Piston was debilitated by diabetes, and his vision and hearing suffered. 8 (1965) Suite for Orchestra (1929) Concerto for Orchestra (1934) Suite from The Incredible Flutist Sinfonietta (1941) Serenata for Orchestra (1957) Three New England Sketches (1960)

Band

Tunbridge Fair, for symphonic band (1950)

Concertante

Piano Piano Concertino (1937) Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1958) Violin Violin Concerto No. 2 (1960) Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra (1970) Viola Concerto (1958) Clarinet Concerto (1967) Capriccio for Harp and Strings (1963) Fantasy for English Horn, Harp, and Strings (1954) Concerto for String Quartet, Wind Instruments, and Percussion (1976)

Chamber/Instrumental

String quartets String Quartet No. 5 (1962) Three Pieces for Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon (1926) Flute Sonata (1930) Suite for Oboe and Piano (1931) Violin Sonata (1939) Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord Flute Quintet (1942) Divertimento, for nine instruments (1946) Piano Quintet (1949) Wind Quintet (1956) Piano Quartet (1964) String Sextet (1964)

Piano

Piano Sonata (1926) Passacaglia (1943) Improvisation (1945)

Choral

Psalm and Prayer of David (1959)

Books

Principles of Harmonic Analysis (Boston, 1933) Harmony (New York, 1941, 5/1987 with M. DeVoto) Counterpoint (New York, 1947) Orchestration (New York, 1955)

The edition of Piston's Harmony that is currently available is:

Walter Piston and Mark Devoto (1987) Harmony.