Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980)[1] was an American composer.
Biography
Wilder was born in
Rochester,
New York, United States,[1] to a prominent family; the
Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker
Alexander Lafayette Chew. As a young boy, he traveled to
New York City with his mother and stayed at the
Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life.[1] He attended several
prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune.
He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the
Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree.[2] While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by
James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973.
He was good friends with
Frank Sinatra,
Peggy Lee,
Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the
American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were "
I'll Be Around" (a hit for the
Mills Brothers), "While We're Young" (recorded by Peggy Lee and many others), "Blackberry Winter", "Where Do You Go?" (recorded by Sinatra) and "It's So Peaceful in the Country".[1] He also wrote many songs for the
cabaret artist
Mabel Mercer, including one of her signature pieces, "Did You Ever Cross Over to Sneden's?".[3] Wilder occasionally wrote his own lyrics, including for his most famous song "I'll Be Around".[1] Other lyricists he worked with included
Loonis McGlohon,
William Engvick,
Johnny Mercer and
Fran Landesman.
In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed
classical pieces for unique combinations of orchestral instruments.[1] The Alec Wilder Octet, including Eastman classmate
Mitch Miller on oboe, recorded several of his originals for
Brunswick Records in 1938-40. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles ("The Hotel Detective Registers"), were strongly influenced by
jazz. He wrote eleven
operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little (1953), was commissioned for television by
CBS. Wilder also arranged a series of
Christmas carols for
Tubachristmas.
Wilder wrote the definitive book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 (1972).[1] He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the middle to late 1970s.[4] With lyricist
Loonis McGlohon (his co-host on the radio series) he composed songs for the
Land of Oztheme park in
Banner Elk, North Carolina.[5]
Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a
jigsaw puzzle.[6] He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of "While We're Young", he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" Pianist
Marian McPartland told the story of this "alleged" comment to
Tony Bennett, on her "Piano Jazz" radio show in 2004.
Wilder died in
Gainesville,
Florida, from lung cancer in December 1980,[1] and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in
Avon, New York, outside Rochester.
Selected works
Opera
3 children's operas: The Churkendoose; Rachetty Pachetty House, Herman Ermine in Rabbit Town (1942)[7]
Open the Door and See All the People (1964), directed by Jerome Hill
Large ensemble
A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra (1954). Text by Marshall Barer. A musical primer. Eighteen movements featuring individual instruments of the orchestra. [Ludlow]
Names from the War (1961), for narrator, chorus, brass quintet, and woodwind quintet
Children’s Plea for Peace (1968). Children's SSAA chorus, narrator and wind ensemble. Text by Wilder, adapted from writings of Avon, New York schoolchildren. Dedicated to Rev. Henry Atwell. [Margun]
Air for Bassoon and Strings (1945). For Harold Goltzer
Air for Flute and Strings (1945). For Julius Baker
Air for Oboe and Strings (1945). For Mitch Miller
Brass Quintets: No 1 (1959) For the New York Brass Quintet; No 2 (1961); No. 3 (1970); No. 4 (1973) For Harvey Phillips; No. 5 (1975) For the Tidewater Brass Quintet; No. 6 (1977) For the Tidewater Brass Quintet; No. 7 (1978) For Frances Miller; No. 8 (1980) For Frances Miller
Concerto No. 1 for Trumpet and Wind Ensemble (1967). For Doc Severinson
Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Orchestra (1981; written in 1971). For Barry Kilpatrick
Effie Suite (1960) for Tuba, Vibraphone, Piano and Drums. For Harvey Phillips
Fantasy for Piano and Wind Ensemble (1974). For Marian McPartland
Hardy Suite for Piano
Jazz Suite for Four Horns (1951). Four horns with harpsichord, guitar, bass, drums.
Octets (1939–41) Flute/Clarinet 2, oboe/English horn/, clarinet 1, bass clarinet, bassoon, harpsichord, bass, drums: Bull Fiddle In A China Shop; The Children Met the Train; Concerning Etchings; Dance Man Buys A Farm; A Debutante's Diary; Her Old Man Was Suspicious; His First Long Pants; House Detective Registers; It's Silk, Feel It!; Kindergarten Flower Pageant; Little Girl Grows Up; Neurotic Goldfish; She'll Be Seven In May; Such A Tender Night; Walking Home In Spring
Seven Duets for Horn and Bassoon
Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1960). For Donald Sinta
Sonata for Bass Trombone and Piano (1969). For George Roberts
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1963). For Glenn Bower
Sonata for Euphonium and Piano (1968)
Sonata for Trumpet and Piano (1963). For Joe Wilder
Sonata for Viola and Piano (1965)
Sonata-Fantasy for piano
Suite for Unaccompanied Flute (1975). For Virginia Nanzetta
Suites for Piano, Nos. 1 to 4
Suite No. 2 for Tenor Saxophone and Strings (1966). For
Zoot Sims. [Margun]
Suites for Tuba and Piano: Suite No. 1 (1960) for Harvey Phillips; Suite No. 2 (Jesse Suite), *Suite No. 3 (Suite for Little Harvey) and Suite No. 4 (Thomas Suite)
Three Ballads for Stan [also exists in Wilder's piano reduction as Suite No. 1 for Tenor Saxophone and Piano] (1963). For Stan Getz. [Margun]
Twelve Duets for Horn and Bassoon
Twelve Mosaics for Piano
Un deuxième essai for Piano
Woodwind Quintets: No. 1 (1954) For the
New York Woodwind Quintet; No. 2 (1956); No. 3 (1958); No. 4 (1959) For Bernard Garfield; No. 5 (1959); No. 6 (1960); No. 7 (1964); No. 8 (1966) [also known as Suite For Non-Voting Quintet; No. 9 (1969); No. 10 (ca. 1968); No. 11 (1971) For John Barrows; No. 12 (1975) For the Wingra Quintet; No. 13
Wilder, Alec, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, ed. James T. Maher. (New York: Oxford Press, 1972; paperback ed., Oxford Press, 1975), xxxix, 536 pp.
Wilder, Alec, David Demsey editor, Letters I Never Mailed Annotated Edition (University of Rochester Press, 2006).
Stone, Desmond, Alec Wilder In Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 244 pp.
Demsey, David and Ronald Prather, Alec Wilder: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1993) Bio-Bibliographies in Music, No. 45.
Zeltsman, Nancy, ed., Alec Wilder: An Introduction to the Man and His Music (Newton, MA: Margun Music, 1991).