tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post2290863182815589673..comments2023-11-02T00:42:56.828-07:00Comments on From the Podium...: Richard CummingEdward Cumminghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00539557386431739296noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post-43084741904484282902015-07-21T11:52:17.235-07:002015-07-21T11:52:17.235-07:00I met Richard Cumming in the early 1960s when he w...I met Richard Cumming in the early 1960s when he was the composer in residence for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. I was a seminarian in high school at St. Francis Minor Seminary in Milwaukee. Our English professor, Father Murphy, had arranged a rare class outing to see the MRT performance of William Saroyan's play, "The Time of Your Life." It was a first-time theater experience for many of my fellow students. Maybe a dozen or so of us signed up to go. In order to prepare us for this unusual evening off grounds for a cultural event, Fr. Murphy arranged to have Richard Cumming come to the seminary to talk to us about Saroyan's play and his role in writing incidental music it. A future gay man, who left the seminary a few years later, I remember that evening very well. Richard sat at a piano in our small seminary theater and talked and played for maybe an hour. He was both charming and articulate. I was entranced. The highlight of the evening is when he played and sang his setting of Saroyan's prologue to the play. I was so taken with it that evening and when I heard the actor sing it at the actual performance a week late, that I can still sing through most of the song today. The text starts, "In the time of your life, live, so that in that great day there'll be no ugliness or death for yourself or for anyone your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere and when it is found, bring it out its hiding and let it live and let it be free." I have the tune running through my head even now. His music perfectly captured the ideals and enthusiasm of the text. Somehow this small episode had a major impact on a young and impressionable kid like me. Although I never exchanged a word with Richard Cumming, he became a kind of role model for the sophisticated, talented, city guy I wanted to become myself. I never met him again. I did buy John Browning's recording of Cumming'S lovely piano piece, Silhouettes, when it came out years later. I always wondered if his music for Saroyan's play had ever been published. I still treasure his setting of the prologue. It should have survived--more than just in my head these 50 years later.jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02254867848479078274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post-35431337063853078042014-08-27T10:20:18.461-07:002014-08-27T10:20:18.461-07:00Please add mine to the voices of gratitude for thi...Please add mine to the voices of gratitude for this reminiscence. I've enjoyed playing your cousin's Preludes for years, and this morning curiosity got me online to see if he was still with us.<br /><br />Thanks very much.Qlark Vann Griffithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04444212006439673457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post-12534081198291765372012-02-21T08:33:42.950-08:002012-02-21T08:33:42.950-08:00Just a note to say that I'm a musicologist and...Just a note to say that I'm a musicologist and critic who specializes in 20th-century traditionalist composers. I've known the name of Richard Cumming for about 50 years, ever since I bought his recording of Bloch's Poems of the Sea and Five Sketches in Sepia. I subsequently learned that he was also a composer, and I have a whole LP of his songs, and the piano preludes that John Browning recorded. I always liked his music, although I never met anyone who knew his name. In my random listening, I just took out the record of his songs, which I've been enjoying. I decided to look him up on the Internet, and found your announcement of his death, along with your nice recollection. I just wanted to let you know there's one more person who appreciated his work.Walter Simmonshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12390186489081741490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post-43781969956857421182010-09-16T20:20:37.645-07:002010-09-16T20:20:37.645-07:00Sorry this is taking me multiple trys to get this ...Sorry this is taking me multiple trys to get this right... I promise i am not spam lol<br /><br />In is piece silhouette was there a cakewalk (polyrymthic) section? I've been trying to find a copy of it but the only cd i found doesn't have that particular section. its a 2/4 ragtime sounding song with a two alternate heavy beats on every other bar. <br /><br />p.s. you should post on wikipedia because that is the first place i searchedlakilpat@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410893705384907933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7095087275515926736.post-28646287280186408232010-02-14T15:57:23.011-08:002010-02-14T15:57:23.011-08:00I'm so glad I found your entry. I'm a coll...I'm so glad I found your entry. I'm a college senior in wisconsin. I am performing one of Richard's vocal pieces in my senior recital. I was looking around for information on him and found your blog by chance.<br /><br />There isn't much information about him, but his pieces suggest a man I would've been proud to know and work with. Thanks for posting this so very much, it was lovely.Undisclosedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14415633687482271733noreply@blogger.com