Charles Wakefield Cadman

Charles Wakefield Cadman (December 24, 1881 – December 30, 1946) was an American composer. For 40 years, he worked closely with Nelle Richmond Eberhart, who wrote most of the texts to his songs, including Four American Indian Songs. She also wrote the librettos for his five operas, two of which were based on Indian themes. He composed in a wide variety of genres.

Life and career Cadman's musical education, unlike that of most of his American contemporaries, was completely American. Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he began piano lessons at 13. Eventually, he went to nearby Pittsburgh where he studied harmony, theory, and orchestration with Luigi von Kunits and Emil Paur, then concertmaster and conductor, respectively, of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. This was the sum of his formal training, although he has been said to have been a pupil of Anna Priscilla Risher as well.

By the age of eighteen, he was working as a clerk in a railroad office in Homestead, also in steel country. On the side, he continued writing music. In 1902 he met neighbor Nelle Richmond Eberhart and learned that she was interested in music.

They began to work together, she writing the text and he the music for their first piece, a hymn for which they were paid one and a half dollars. Their collaboration began, and it continued for 40 years.

In 1908, Cadman was appointed as the music editor and critic of the Pittsburgh Dispatch. He was greatly influenced by American Indian music, which he had been studying, especially through the work of ethnologists Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche. Fletcher and La Flesche had studied the Omaha Tribe and recorded their music and stories. In the summer of 1909 he went to Nebraska to study the music and traditional instruments of the Omaha and Winnebago tribes. He lived with the people on their reservations, learning to play their instruments. Cadman drew from La Flesche's recordings, and he was also interested in his stories collected from these peoples.

They began work that year on an opera; Cadman had already started to pull melodies from three printed collections of Omaha and Pawnee music published by ethnologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher, who also was with the Smithsonian. The songs were transcribed or harmonized by others. Cadman did gain some distribution for this music: selections from the opera were published by White-Smith in 1917 as a piano suite, and by Boosey in 1920 as an orchestral suite.

It was very popular in the 1920s, performed also in Denver and Los Angeles. Redfeather made her opera debut in the lead role in a 1924 performance in Denver, and also sang it in Los Angeles in 1926.

Some scholars believe that Cadman's involvement with the so-called Indianist movement in American music resulted in some critics failing to judge his works on their own merits. While his and similar works were popular in the early 20th century, they have since fallen out of favor.

Move to Los Angeles In the 1920s, Cadman moved to Los Angeles, California. He helped to found the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and often performed there as a solo pianist. His opera Shanewis was performed there in 1926. The Belle of Havana (1928) South of Sonora (1932) The Willow Tree, Radio Opera (1932) Ramala, revision of The Land of the Misty Waters (unperformed)

American Indian art songs

From Wigwam and Teepee, Op. 57 (also known as Four American Indian Songs); words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1914 "The Place of Breaking Light" "From the Long Room of the Sea" "Ho, Ye Warriors on the Warpat" "The Thunderbirds Come from the Cedars" "The Doe-Skinned Blanket"; words by Cecil Fanning; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1919 "From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water", Op. 45 No. 1; words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart; White-Smith Music Publishing Co., 1909 Her Shadow (Ojibway Canoe Song); words by Frederick R. Burton; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1918 He Who Moves in the Dew; words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1916 I Found Him on the Mesa; words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1913 The New Trail (Indian Duet); words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart; Edwin H. Morris publisher, 1928

Other art songs 300 total songs, including: At Dawning Op.29.1 (1906) It Is Morning Again (unknown author), published by G. Schirmer Joy (unknown author), published by G. Schirmer The Moon Behind the Cottonwood words by Nelle Richmond Eberhart, published by G. Schirmer A Moonlight Song (unknown author), published by G. Schirmer Sayonara Welcome! Sweet Wind (unknown author), published by G. Schirmer The Willow Wind Could Roses Speak Op.26.1 (1906) My Sweetheart Of Paradise (1923) (lyrics by John Steel), published by Sherman Clay & Co., San Francisco

Orchestral Thunderbird Suite (1914) The Feather of the Dawn (1923) To a Vanishing Race (1925) Oriental Rhapsody (1929) Dark Dancers of Mardi Gras (1933) Trail Pictures Suite (1934) American Suite (1936) Suite on American Folksongs (1937) Pennsylvania Symphony in e minor (1939) Aurora Borealis (1944)

Concertante A Mad Empress Remembers for solo cello and orchestra (1944)

Chamber music String Quartet (1917) To a Vanishing Race for 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass (published 1917) Piano Trio in D major, Op. 56 (1913) Sonata for violin and piano (1937) Piano Quintet in g minor (1937) A Mad Empress Remembers for cello and piano (1944)

Organ music Meditation in D (1904) Legend in F, Op. 30 No. 1 (1906) Caprice in G, Op. 30 No. 2 (1906)