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Richard Albert Hundley (born September 1, 1931) is an American pianist and

composer of American art songs for voice and piano.

Early life

Hundley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

When Hundley was seven years old he moved to his paternal grandmother's home in
Covington, Kentucky and began piano lessons. At the age of ten, he attended his first
opera, Il trovatore by Guiseppe Verdi.

Hundley began piano lessons at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music with Madame
Illona Voorm at the age of eleven. At age fourteen, Hundley performed a Mozart piano
concerto with the Northern Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. Two years later he soloed
with the Cincinnati Symphony.

Career

Hundley moved to New York City in 1950 and enrolled in the Manhattan School of
Music but dropped out shortly after.

In 1960, Hundley was selected for the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. In preparation for
this position Hundley learned to sing ten operas in four different languages.

Hundley shared his original songs with some of the singers at the Metropolitan. As a
result, Anneliese Rothenberger, Rosalind Elias, Anna Moffo, Teresa Stratas, Lili
Chookasian, John Reardon and Betty Allen began performing his songs on stage.

In 1962 when soprano Eileen DiTullio sang two of his songs, Softly the Summer and
Spring, in a concert at Town Hall in New York City. Paul Kapp, Director of General
Music Publishing Company was in attendance and he scheduled a meeting with
Hundley to discuss publishing the two compositions. During the period of 1962-1964,
General Music Publishing Company published seven of Hundley's songs.

The American art song specialist, Paul Sperry began performing and advocating
Hundley's music in the late 1960s.
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In 1982 the International American Music Competition included his "Eight Songs" set in
its repertoire list. The 1983 and 1984 Newport Music Festivals also performed his work.

In 1987, Hundley was declared one of the standard American composers for vocalists
by the International American Music Competition.

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Early Life
Richard Albert Hundley was born on September 1, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio to a father
who was an itinerant laborer, and a mother who was a housewife. About one year after
his birth his parents separated and then divorced, with the court awarding his mother
custody. She remarried, but several years later was again divorced. They moved
several times and Richard recalls a lonely childhood. "I played alone, which was most
of the time, because my mother, having divorced my father, seemed always to be
moving from one city to another. No sooner than I had made a new friendship, it was
abruptly ended by our moving."

Around the age of seven, Richard went to live permanently with his paternal
grandmother, Anna Susan Campbell, in Covington Kentucky. At his grandmother's,
Hundley had " backyard playmates and an upright piano." (Hundley, Juilliard master
class; November 14, 1995) In the living room of his grandmothers house sat a huge
upright, and he recalls being "immediately attracted to this wonderful instrument on
which I could pick out the melodies I had been singing." (Hundley 1996). Hundley
remembers that as a child he was always singing. "I sang on my way home from
school, and sang when I played alone." (Hundley 1996). His grandmother, recognizing
his love for music and believing that all children should have an avocation, enrolled him
with the local piano teacher, Mrs. Wyman. Mrs. Wyman encouraged his love of music,
but still he preferred improvising his own pieces to memorizing those of another
composer. "Making up pieces seemed the most natural thing in the world, it was the
title that caused me difficulty." (Hundley 1996).

Richard's grandmother gave tea party's for her lady friends, and he soon began
performing his pieces for his grandmother's friends. At one of these gatherings, a
woman who called herself a medium declared that Richard had been famous in
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another life, like Chopin. (Hundley, personal communication, November 14, 1995). Not
knowing who Chopin was, Richard's grandmother called the Cincinnati Public Library
for Chopin's identification and was informed that he was a famous composer and
pianist. From that time on, Richard's grandmother referred to him as a pianist and a
composer.

Around the age of ten, Richard was introduced to grand opera at a Cincinnati Summer
Opera performance of Guiseppe Verdi's IL Trovatore, at the Cincinnati Zoological
Gardens. He recalls that hearing operatic voices accompanied by a large orchestra
was a revelation, and the emotion he experienced "remains as fresh in his memory as
if he had just returned from the performance." (Hundley 1996). He was deeply moved
by the ability of this vocal music to portray deep emotion and feeling. His imagination
was kindled and the impact of this experience can be found in his music throughout his
career. His focus on text and it's inherent emotions, as well as a love for the classical
voice is rooted in this early episode.

By the time Richard was a young teenager, his grandmother recognized a need for a
more disciplined approach to the piano and arranged for him to take piano lessons at
the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. At the Conservatory he was put in the charge of
Illona Voorm, a Hungarian pedagogue and formerly an assistant to Bela Bartok who
was a strong disciplinarian. Madame Voorm's training was so effective that within a few
years, at the age of fourteen, Hundley performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor
(K.466) with the Northern Kentucky Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mr. Katz. At the
age of sixteen he performed a movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in A major
(K.488) with the Cincinnati Symphony under the baton of Thor Johnson.

During his freshman and sophomore years of high school, Richard began notating his
compositions. His fluid improvisatory gift made composing easy, however, notating
these improvisations into formal pieces was so difficult that by his junior year of high
school he had only written down two compositions. But in his junior year, within one
months time, he composed and fully notated five songs. The reason for this sudden
outpouring of creative energy was that he had fallen in love. Richard became attracted
to a smart girl in his English class. To win her favor, he appealed to her fondness for
popular music by adding to his piano repertory a piece with "an elaborate boogie-
woogie bass and lots of glissandi for flashy display." (Hundley 1996). Soon after, the
girl consented to a date. When he went to her apartment, he was introduced to her
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mother, Mary Rodgers Fossit. "She was an attractive and very feminine woman in her
mid-thirties. She loved music and I was immediately attracted to her. Soon after, I lost
all interest in the daughter and became infatuated with the mother." (Hundley 1996).
Mary Rodgers Fossit was a poet and had a deep knowledge of literature and music.
Richard asked her to write lyrics for him to set to music. She consented and they
became collaborators. Several of the resulting songs were entered into a National
Scholastic Magazine competition and Richard won a prize.

Hundley's early life was profoundly influenced by three women, (Madam Vroom, Mary
Rodgers Fossit, and his grandmother) all of who recognized and nurtured his love and
talent for music.

New York
Hundley moved to New York City in 1950 in order to continue his studies at Manhattan
School of Music. But after a year of study he was forced to withdraw due to financial
hardship. Life was a daunting proposition. Unable to continue his formal musical
studies and faced with the necessity of making a living he worked at various odd jobs.
In the evenings Hundley immersed himself in the musical scene of New York City. He
began studying composition with composer Israel Citkowitz - a student of Boulanger.
Citkowitz helped Hundley with counterpoint but he was harshly critical of Hundley's
compositions. Nonetheless, Hundley continued to compose. He wrote Softly the
Summer (August 1957), Epitaph on a Wife (November 1957), and The Astronomers
(September 1959).

In 1960 he joined the Metropolitan Opera Chorus as a tenor. He sang in the chorus for
four years and continued to compose during the three month summer hiatus. During
this period he wrote Isaac Greentree, Elizabeth Pitty, Joeseph Jones, Spring, For Your
Delight, I am not Lonely, Postcard from Spain, Some Sheep are Loving, When Johnie
was Jimmie, and Screw Spring.

His employment at the Opera House reaped much more than a paycheck. During this
time he ingratiated himself to many of the singers, and began showing them his music.
Singers such as Annalese Rothenberger, Rosalind Elias, and Anne Moffo began to
perform his works. It was Anne Moffo at the height of her world fame, who won wide
critical attention for the young composer by including a group of his songs on her
concert tours of major U.S. and European cities. In Philadelphia in 1963 where Miss
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Moffo first performed his songs, Max de Schauensee wrote in the Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin, "the songs showed a gift for melody and writing for voice."

In 1962 Hundley was introduced to the composer Virgil Thomson. Although Hundley
never engaged in formal lessons with Thomson their relationship would span the next
27 years and would prove highly stimulating and beneficial to the younger composer.
"He never denied me access to his store of knowledge." (Hundley 1996). Asked to
explain their affinity, Hundley replied "We liked each other's music."

Hundley left the Metropolitan Opera at the end of the 1963-64 season. "After four years
I was finding it an unbearable hindrance to my creative development to sing six
performances a week and rehearse almost every day. My ears were filled with dead
men's music!" ( Hundley, personal communication, October 3, 1996). In the late 1960's
Hundley was invited, and worked for two summers at the MacDowell Colony in New
Hampshire. In the summer of 1966 he studied with William Flanagan - a student of
David Diamond. Flanagan was also music critic for The Herald Tribune, Stereo Review,
and Musical America.

During the seventies and eighties Hundley continued to compose. his music was
performed and reviewed with increasing frequency. In 1972 he was reviewed in High
Fidelity:
Hundley is a polished craftsman and can spin out very lilting, salon-type
melodies. The quartets in particular ought to be popular among singers,
considering the dearth of contemporary vocal chamber music. The blithe and
bubbly Jenny Wren is an especially delectable number. I also recall the
exquisitely distilled nostalgia of one of the songs, Come Ready and See Me.
(p.62)
In 1991 James Keller wrote in Musical America:
This composer is a sort of American Poulenc, expert at creating characterful
melodies and illuminating their corners with flashes of harmonic surprise... (May
p.52)
In 1990, Hundley wrote his song cycle Octaves and Sweet Sounds which had been
commissioned by Art Song Minnesota. The cycle was published by Boosey and
Hawkes in 1993.

Style of Composition
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Hundley writes for the voice with a sensitivity that comes from an expertise developed
over many years of singing and being around other singers. Though he writes gratefully
for the voice, he says that his main concern is to write expressively. In a letter to the
composer, American operatic soprano Anna Moffo wrote that his songs are "vocally
rewarding" and she "found him to have a truly great gift of melody and a way with
setting words to these melodies.." (Moffo, personal communication, March 11, 1982).

Hundley's style is also influenced by his talent and fondness for improvising with his
singing voice and on the piano. This inclination towards spontaneous creation was
evident in his childhood. From his earliest memories, he was always singing and
making up melodies. When he had a piano, he began to compose accompaniments for
these melodies. The added dimensions is his love of poetry and his inclusion of the text
into the process.

Hundley memorizes the text before setting it to music, then begins to combine it with a
melodic shape that reflect his feelings about the text. The melodic shape and rhythm
are worked until a balance between the emotional meaning and textual clarity is
reached. In his songs he writes the vocal line first. Virgil Thgomson said that his songs
could stand by their vocal lines alone.

Throughout his life, Hundley has had close relationships with many of America's great
composers. In the 1950's and 1960's, in addition to his teachers Thomson, Citkowitz,
and Flanigan, he was in contact with Noel Farrand, Stanley Hollingsworth, John
Brodkin Kelly, Lee Hoiby, David del Tredici, and John Corigliano. He also met and
socialized with Marc Blitzstien, Henry Cowell, Gian Carlo Menotti, Leonard Bernstien,
Alec Wilder, and Samuel Barber.

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Looking for Richard Hundley

On April 7th, Richard Hundley (b.1931) is coming to Norfolk to give a

master class. Mr. Hundley is a composer, pianist and choral singer. His
life has been structured around music and he will share with us some of
that experience.
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Four of Hundley's songs: Waterbird, Sweet Suffolk Owl, Come Ready

and See Me, and Seashore Girls were sung in recital by the
internationally known countertenor David Daniels in April 1999 at
Harrison Opera House. That was my total exposure to his music until I
decided to research him for this article. It was Steve's suggestion that
we share this introduction with our readers to prepare them for the
master class.

Last weekend I again heard Come Ready and See Me at Jennifer

Smith's Junior Recital at Christopher Newport University. The song has
a memorable melody and is one of Mr. Hundley's best known. Ms. Smith
gave a very pleasing and natural rendition. Her vocal teacher is Shirley
Thompson who has been a friend and consultant to Artsong Update.
Once again I requested help for this article and Shirley made available
to us a video tape of a master class conducted by Mr. Hundley at
Towson University in April 1998.

In the tape he coaches singers in his compositions and those of other

American composers. He asked each singer to read the poem aloud
before singing. He then worked with both singer and pianist making
suggestions for tempo, dynamics and interpretation and even
demonstrating at the piano. His approach was considerate and
diplomatic, praising freely the things he liked and and making
corrections in a totally non-judgemental and inclusive way.

Mr. Hundley favors legato phrasing in voice and piano, and the lyrical
songs are agreeable to sing and to hear. They have been described as
"...crystallized emotion. He has mastered the art of agonizing over
details until he produces something that sounds simple, even
inevitable... His melodies stay in the mind. In his harmonies and open
spacings he sounds American, in the sense that Copeland created a
recognizably American sound. And he has the American gift for
exuberance and humor: look at Epitaph on a Wife, Some Sheep are
Loving, Postcard From Spain and I Do." The tenor Paul Sperry whom I
quote here points out that Hundley did not go abroad to study. His texts
are all in English." He writes every kind of song: slow, fast, wet, dry,
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funny, moving, waltzes, fox-trots, major statements, little bonbons."

(Opera News, August, 1996: The Great American Songbook, pg. 22).

Unfortunately, only three books of his songs are published: Eight Songs,
Four Songs and Octaves and Sweet Sounds, and a few single songs.
Other songs can be had by contacting him directly.

My research for currently available recordings led me to ask Genevieve

McGiffert, president of Art Song of Williamburg. She too is an avid
collector of American music. "I am surprised that no one has recorded
Sweet Suffolk Owl and perhaps even Come Ready and See Me..." But
she had none. Searching the web produced no commercial recordings,
only distorted ones on the Columbia University website:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/taylor/hundley/. You can hear Come Ready
and See Me, Epitaph on a Wife, Seashore Girls, Moonlight's
Watermelon and Well Welcome.

In our CD index we found one song, Astronomers, on a collection of

American Songs My Native Land, sung by Jennifer Larmore
(Teldec0650-16069-2).

We also learn from his website that Richard Hundley has had an
interesting life. He spent the years 1960-1964 in the Metropolitan Opera
chorus, where he met many famous singers of the day. He showed them
his songs and they used them in their recitals; the best known being
Anna Moffo.

For ten years he was studio pianist for the famous Verdian Zinka
Milanov, by then retired. Once again he met and played for world-class
singers like Régine Crespin, Grace Bumbry and Christa Ludwig who
came to study with Madam Milanov.

Hundley has lived in New York City and has known many contemporary
composers and has been friends with several. In 1962 he met Virgil
Thomson who became his teacher and friend until Thompson's death in
1989. Hundley's mature songs were greatly influenced by Thomson.
There seems to have been a steady and slow output of songs. Some of
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the best known are: Epitaph on a Wife, 1957, The Astronomer, 1957,
Come Ready and See Me, 1971, Sweet Suffolk Owl, 1979 and
Waterbirds, 1988.

In 1982 his songs ware added to the repertory list for Carnegie Hall
competitions. In 1987 he was recognized as a "standard American
Composer for vocalists." Hundley's songs are part of the vocal repertory
in major music schools in the United States and abroad. The Columbia
website also contains a thesis on American songs built around
Hundley's songs, actually listing them in order of complexity for music
teachers. (The Solo Vocal Repertoire of Richard Hundley: A
Pedagogical and Performance Guide to the Published Works by Esther
J. Hardenbergh). It has been suggested that Hundley's songs are
rhythmically difficult and are appropriate for the advanced student.

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In Focus

Tenor Paul Sperry on the music of Richard Hundley

Richard Hundley says his objective as a composer is “to crystallize emotion.” He

succeeds amazingly well. Some of his pieces I find heartstoppingly beautiful: “The
Astronomers,” “Come Ready and See Me,” “Waterbird.” He has mastered the art of
agonizing over details until he produces something that sounds simple, even inevitable.
I think he has taken the apparent simplicity of his teacher and friend Virgil Thomson
and invested it with more urgent emotion. His melodies stay in the mind. In his
harmonies and open spacings he sounds American in the sense that Copland created
a recognizably American sound. And he has the American gift for exuberance and
humor: look at “Epitaph on a Wife,” “Some Sheep are Loving,” “Postcard from Spain,”
and “I Do!” for examples.

Hundley’s training differs from many other Americans – he never went abroad to study,
and he credits his three years in the Metropolitan Opera chorus and his even longer
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stint as accompanist for Zinka Milanov’s lessons as formative to his gifts as a song
writer. There is no question that he understands both the voice and piano perfectly. And
singers love his songs. My only regret is that more of them aren’t published.

His songs, like Schubert’s, are easy to fuse into wonderful recital groups - he writes
every kind of song: slow, fast, wet, dry, funny, moving, waltzes, fox-trots, major
statements, little bonbons. His set of songs, “Octaves and Sweet Sounds,” is the only
collection he has put together and suggested that they be performed as a group. They
can also be excerpted but they work very well as an entity. Happily, Hundley is still
producing marvelous pieces; as I write this I am about to premiere what we hope is the
final version of a delightful setting of Vachel Lindsay’s “The Whales of California.” I say
we hope it’s the final version because he likes to make adjustments until he’s sure he’s
got it right. When he does get it right, it certainly is right - I’ve been singing “The
Astronomers” for nearly thirty years and haven’t grown tired of it. As crystallized
emotion, it is a gem.

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Richard Hundley's songs are an example of his ability to depict in musical terms the
emotions and images evoked in the poetry. He chooses poetry and text from a variety
of sources, but the one poet to whom he shows a strong affinity is American poet,
James Purdy. He has used poems by Purdy for at least ten of his songs, for two
extended choral cycles and Purdy was the librettist for Hundley's unfinished opera.
Hundley has also chosen texts written by poets as diverse as William Shakespeare,
Gertrude Stein, Orrick Johns, Robert Louis Stevenson, e. e. cummings, Jose Garcia
Villa and James Joyce. In four cases, Richard Hundley is the writer of the text. One in
its entirety, Softly the Summer, and three that he adapted, The Astronomers, Isaac
Greentree, and Postcard from Spain.

Style and compositional structures vary greatly and, as a result, there is no clear
delineation of style period in his solo vocal works. He uses musical devices
(dissonance, intervallic movement, and melismas), elements of texture (staccato and
legato, full chords and delicate counter melodies) and the full range of the voice and
piano to illustrate the verses. His vocal line and piano accompaniment combine to
reinforce each other in a manner that leaves them inseparable.
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All of his published songs have been chosen for analysis. They have, up to this point,
never been examined for the potential use in the college level vocal studio and on the
concert stage. The following list of songs is compiled for the instruction of the reader.
The song analyses are organized by level of difficulty, and a listing of each group will
be found at the beginning of that respective chapter.

Richard Hundley's songs have been published by two publishers. Seventeen songs are
included in three volumes published by Boosey and Hawkes, Inc., and seven songs
published by General Music Company as separate sheet music. Below is a listing of
the contents of the three volumes and the separate songs.