Solo Works on YT
Photos and titles are hyperlinked.
Works for Solo Piano have their own page on the website.
Four Solitudes for Four Alone: (English Horn, Flute, Viola, Violin) have their own page on the website
Psalm 42 sung in Gaelic by Patrick Connolly, tenor, in a memorial event honoring William Appling. June 29, 2013
"...Rolf Schulte, who over the years has been on of the great gifts to contemporary music in New York City. ....Richard Wilson's 'Diablerie' ....contemporary in its vocabulary and grammar, but pursuing always the long, lyrical, sometimes operatically expressive lines of Romantic-era concert writing." Bernard Holland, NY Times June 26, 2006
Sophie Shao plays three movements from Richard Wilson's
LORD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON:
I. Talk often, but never long;
II. Be exact, clear, and perspicuous;
IV. Mimickry is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery.
Richard Wilson wrote MUSIC FOR SOLO FLUTE in 1972 at the request of Harvey Sollberger, who gave its first performance at the Manhattan School of Music on November 20, 1972 in a concert by The Group for Contemporary Music. . The work is in three movements.
Richard Wilson composed IRONIES: Five Pieces for Solo Oboe in 2006. The work is dedicated to Laura Ahlbeck, who gave its premiere in Merkin Concert Hall, New York City, on October 29, 2006.
Richard Wilson's work for solo bassoon, entitled PROFOUND UTTERANCES, was written as a 60th birthday tribute to the composer Robert Moevs. This live performance was given by Arthur Weisberg on February 17, 1982 at Skinner Hall, Vassar College.
Among personal effects left by the reclusive, little-known elder brother of Sigmund Freud--Hieronymus Guglielmo Freud--was the following memorandum: My brother suffered a terrible frustration in his early youth. He harbored a burning desire to play the tuba. But his diminutive stature caused the band director to force him to learn the piccolo instead. It is my opinion that this had a marked effect on him in later life.
In response to his remarkable revelation Richard Wilson wrote CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS for solo tuba, taking title and movement subtitles from Freud's famous essay of 1930.
1. Overcoming the Forces of Nature
2. Soap as a Measure of Civilization
3. Love, Necessity, and the Death Instinct
4. The Aggressive Impulse Thwarted
5. Bad Conscience and the Superego
Stephen Johns, who plays it in this recording, gave the premiere on March 22, 1996 at Vassar College.
Fred Sherry, cello
Richard Wilson writes: I composed Lord Chesterfield to His Son for my son James, who was then studying the cello. Knowing that he might doubt my counsel, I arranged that he receive an abundance of solemn advice from an 18th-century gentleman. Each of the seven movements bears an advisory inscription.
Be exact, clear and perspicuous
Mimickry is the lowest and most illiberal of all buffoonery
Be silent upon your own subject
Be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh
Take care never to seem dark and mysterious
Lord Chesterfield was premiered by Fred Sherry at the Greenwich House Music School, New York City, on November 14, 1991.
Diane Marazzi plays Richard Wilson's ORGANICITY.
Recorded August 10, 2011 on the Gress-Miles Organ
in the Vassar College Chapel.
Richard Wilson's FLUTATIONS. World premiere performance by John Solum, solo flute, on November 12, 1986 at Skinner Hall, Vassar College.
