Connecting the Dots: Why the hills are alive with the sound of chamber music 

John Bos

John Bos CONTRIBUTED

By JOHN BOS

Published: 09-29-2023 6:02 PM

The hills of Franklin County are alive with the sound of music. And here’s why.

When Hawley resident Alice Parker Pyle (famed choral composer, conductor and 20-year music arranger for the Robert Shaw Chorale) enlisted violist Arnold Black to play a Handel sonata at a Sunday church service in the village of Charlemont in 1969, Black and his pianist wife Ruth reveled in the intimate acoustics of that church.

The next summer in Charlemont, straddling the scenic Deerfield River, and opposite a harpsichord shop across the street from the Federated Church, Mohawk Trail Concerts (MTC) was launched. It was the first chamber music festival in Franklin County.

Last Saturday at that same church, an extended family of “Arnie” fans gathered for a concert commemorating what would have been his 100th birthday.

Former MTC board member and the author of “Colrain: A History,” BeldenMerims wrote a brief history of MTC in 2014 in which she noted, “The founding musicians declared the concerts ‘should be informal and informative,’ accessible to the community in style, content and cost. They would encourage new compositions and play ‘music old and new,’ performed by musicians ‘near and far.’ ‘We wanted no taint of elitism,’ Black would recall. At post-concert receptions locals chatted with musicians in chinos and t-shirts.”

“The concerts,” Merims wrote, “were spiced with levity, often provided by the puckish Black, whose commentary on the music and composers became a draw in itself.” She listed the performers in the first program including “Thomas Pyle, baritone; Alice Pyle, harpsichord; Arnie Black and Yoko Matsuda, violin; Jacob Glick, viola; Paul Olevsky and Charles Forbes, cello.” In a Merim anecdote that I love, she described how at the first concert, the musicians proudly introduced a Stradivari and a Guarnerius violin, a Stradivari and a Montagnana cello, after which Glick held up his viola and proudly announced, “Montgomery Ward” to a roar of laughter and applause.

I had the privilege of serving as executive director for MTC’s 25th anniversary season. It opened me to Arnie’s incredible connections in the music world and his wonderful sense of humor. “Do you know,” he asked me, “what the difference is between a Harley Davidson and a viola is?” ”I haven’t’ a clue” I responded.” He, with a puckish grin on his face, said “You can tune a motorcycle.”

That was Arnie Black, who longtime MTC singer and volunteer TinkyWeisblat gave readers Arnie’s Russian mother’s recipe for squash latkes in this newspaper, (by way of “The Steppes of Central Asia.”). And “to be eaten to Alexander Borodin’s music of the same name!” This proviso echoes both the classic and comedic side of Arnie’s career as a composer. At the 100th commemoration concert longtime MTC musicians played” animal” songs from his “African Plain Songs” suite that included songs like “An Average Everyday Elephant,” “Rhinocerenade” and “Swinging Monkeys.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning Bill Bolcom and his wife, soprano Joan Morris played to packed houses each summer for 25 years. One of their enduring audience favorites was “Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise.” In a message from Morris that Weisblat read to the audience last Saturday, she wrote “One of the plus factors for me and Bill about playing Mohawk Trail Concerts all those years was coming back home and sharing the silly jokes we heard from Arnie and Abba. And going to Gould’s Sugar House the day after the concerts and pigging out delightfully and getting another couple jokes to carry us back home.”

“Abba” was Abba Bogin, MTC’s associate artistic director, fabulous pianist and married to MasakoYanagita, concertmaster of Springfield Symphony as well as Queens Symphony in New York. In addition to their frequent appearances on the MTC stage, Abba and Masako housed MTC’s seven-foot Steinway piano in their house each winter before returning to New York. That was another connection for me. I had worked with Abba when I was director of the performing arts division at the New York State Council on the Arts. Earlier in 1971 when I was working at New York University, I watched Bill Bolcom create an early work called “The Great Hoss Pistol.”

It would take more than a full page to complete Arnie Black’s musical biography. His wide range of musical associations, his personal warmth and great sense of humor enabled him to attract performers of stunning accomplishment to the “acoustically astonishing church.” I know he would be gratified knowing that his MTC legacy is thriving under the artistic direction of cellist Mark Fraser.

“Connecting the Dots” can be read every other Saturday in the Recorder. John Bos also writes for “Green Energy Times” and his op-ed articles have been published in the Springfield Republican, Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Brattleboro Reformer, and other regional newspapers. Comments and questions may be sent to john01370@gmail.com.