remembering ellsworth snyder

ellsworth snyder (he preferred lower case letters for his name) and I met in 1977 shortly after my wife and I moved to Madison. I was working at a music store, and the subject of contemporary music came up in conversation with a coworker. She mentioned a teacher she had had, ellsworth, and said I should contact him and arrange a meeting, which I did. A little early for our lunch at the Madison's Plaza Bar (his office, he said), I stopped into the music store next door to browse the magazines and upon picking up the new Contemporary Keyboard, opened to an article titled Avant-Garde Piano: Non-Traditional Uses In Recent Music, by ellsworth snyder - the person I was to meet. The article included a photo of ellsworth performing a piece by LaMonte Young in which the pianist attempts to feed hay and water to a piano. Needless to say, I was a bit intimidated and already in awe of this person I was about to meet and who would become a faithful, generous and enduring friend. In the years that followed, ellsworth always seemed happy to look at my new work and, very often, perform my compositions. We collaborated many times in music and other media. I cannot overstate how rich my life has become because of our friendship.

Even though he was a champion of the contemporary arts, ellsworth was in many ways a nineteenth century gentleman. He dealt with the world often from that perspective and hoped it would reciprocate. Much of the time it did not. After teaching at Milton College until the school's closing, he was never offered another permanent teaching position. What he knew and had to say was evidently not of interest to academia. Instead, ellsworth continued as musical director at Madison's First Unitarian Society and as a piano teacher at his studio on the square in downtown Madison, until finally giving up the studio to teach from his apartment during his final years. Those fortunate enough to have had contact with him as a Unitarian choir member or piano student were treated not only to his formidable knowledge but also to his charm, grace, and manners. Many became permanent friends with ellsworth as a result of those connections.

Two performances by ellsworth stand out in my mind. The first was on the Unitarian's Summer Music Series which ellsworth created. For several Friday evenings during the summer, the Unitarian presented programs of classical music featuring performers from Madison's music community. The series was one of ellsworth's labors of love and an invaluable part of Madison's musical culture. On one of the concerts, ellsworth, playing a Mozart piano concerto with chamber orchestra, began the second movement at an incredibly slow, dirge tempo. I was shocked, convinced that he would never be able to sustain the piece at that slow speed. But he did, making Mozart's lines absolutely sing throughout the whole movement. I remember being physically uncomfortable and unable to sit still; the marvelous tension created by that slow speed was nearly unbearable. ellsworth's thinking with regard to performance practice was often outside the conventional: he thought about Schubert in the same way he thought about John Cage; he played Cage with the same warmth and sensitivity with which he played Schubert.

The second performance was the premiere of John Cage's One5, written for ellsworth. The first to write a doctoral dissertation on Cage, ellsworth performed Cage's music often and was known as a leading authority on the composer's work. Cage and ellsworth had become friends and remained in contact until Cage's death. In 1991, ellsworth organized an exhibit of Cage's visual work at the (then) Elvejhem Museum on the UW campus; following the show's opening, he performed the new composition written for him on an all Cage program of works for piano at the Unitarian. The church was filled, Cage was in attendance; the performance of the difficult work was inspired.

As ellsworth's health declined in recent years, he played the piano less. He said that he couldn't play, but it was unclear if he really couldn't play or just not at the level that he demanded of himself. In any case, painting, which he had begun after seeing Cage's visual art, became more the focus for his energy and creativity. ellsworth worked in a style that might be called painterly minimalism. His art often has the sense of wonder of someone just beginning to make art, but in this case it is done by someone who understands, through knowledge of art and its history, how difficult simplicity really is. ellsworth had many successful shows of his work at the Grace Chosey Gallery in Madison.

ellsworth was a tireless advocate for contemporary thinking, but however much he may have loved twentieth century art ideas, it's probably not accurate to say he loved those of the twenty-first. For someone so involved with the experimental, ellsworth was remarkably resistant to change. He was very disappointed with the direction things (art, the world) had gone, specifically after the explosive sixties, and was not hesitant to say so and why. Stimulating conversations with him very often went the way of making one feel despondent and hopeless. I often joked with him that we didn't need to meet in person anymore; he could depress me in record time by just talking on the phone.

ellsworth's final years were plagued with poor health which forced him to leave his condominium and move to the Meriter Retirement Home. But even there he continued his life as best he could, giving music appreciation classes at the Meriter (playing atonal music for the residents! - I joked that he was making the only avant garde retirement home in existence) and filling his apartment with art, literally to the bursting point. The world of his apartment was like a dense, amazing, beautiful forest that one could walk through, a forest that ellsworth had made and chose to live in. Through the sustained care of his many friends, ellsworth was able to remain in his apartment until the end of his life, surrounded by the things that he loved and which excited him. His death marks the passing of an extraordinary individual and, for those who knew him, the loss of a dear and treasured friend.

2005