- Date: 1979
- Composer: Adolphus Hailstork
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
This work was composed in 1978 at the suggestion of William Henry Curry, who conducted the premiere with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on January 17, 1980. Scoring includes three each of flutes, bassoons, trumpets, and trombones, pairs of oboes and clarinets, four horns, harp, and percussion.Hailstork (whose given name was Adolphus Cunningham III) is a protean musician -- educator, choral conductor, and pianist as well as composer -- whose teachers included Vittorio Giannini, David Diamond, Nicholas Flagello, Nadia Boulanger, and, finally, H. Owen Reed. He was severally educated at Howard University (B.Mus., 1963), Fontainebleau (summer of '63), the Manhattan School of Music (M.Mus., 1966), and Michigan State University (Ph.D., 1971). In between he served in the U.S. Armed Forces in Germany (1966 - 1968). Since 1977 Hailstork has been Professor of Music and Composer-in-Residence at Norfolk State University in Virginia, which proclaimed him a Cultural Laureate of the Commonwealth in 1992.In program notes for the Atlanta performances of Epitaph in the Woodruff Arts Center, Nick Jones wrote, "The composer has been quoted as saying that the piece represents the graveside service of a great man. The mourners gather and sing a spiritual, the music gradually swelling as more people arrive and join in the singing. After reflecting on the hopes and dreams inspired by this leader, they lift their bowed heads and move to carry on the work he began."
Hailstork has called this short work (originally Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed) "a funeral piece." In the Elizabethan sense -- the first Elizabeth, that is -- Epitaph is Solemn Music, without flourishes, narcissistic special effects, or exhibitionism, that proceeds deliberately to a single climax at the end. ~ All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| African Heritage Symphonic Series, Vol. 2 | 2001 |
| Epitaph | 1994 |
| The Virginia Symphony plays Hailstork, Howe & Gottschalk | 1997 |
