A virtuoso dies too quietly

Herbie Miller • Contributor

The New York Times reported the death of Dr Donald Shirley, the Jamaican virtuoso pianist. There was not much said of it in Jamaica, but there should have been ...

Dr Shirley, who was 86, died in his New York apartment on April 6 from complications caused by heart disease, said Michiel Kappeyne van de Coppello, a friend who studied piano with Dr Shirley, reported The Times.

The paper went on to say Dr Shirley was the "son of Jamaican parents, and a musical prodigy who played much of the standard concert repertory by age 10 and made his professional debut with the Boston Pops at 18, performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor".

Dissuaded from pursuing a classical career in music, Don Shirley developed what amounted to a singular style, one that bridged classical and popular American music by "embedding a well-known melody within a traditional classical structure".

These melodies, which were inspired by Tin Pan Alley, Negro spirituals, blues and jazz idioms, were fundamental to Dr Shirley's repertoire.

In his hands, Irving Berlin's Blue Skies, for example, became an elaborate set of variations on a theme. In his arrangement - he called his works transcriptions - of George Shearing's Lullaby of Birdland, the famous melody abruptly became a fugue. His recording of Richard Rodgers's This Nearly Was Mine, from South Pacific, was Chopinesque, wrote Bruce Weber of The Times.

PROLIFIC COMPOSER

A prolific composer, Dr Shirley wrote for piano, organ, violin, cello and string quartet. He composed a one-act opera; a set called Variations, which took its departure from the Greek legend of Orpheus descending to the underworld, and 'Finnegan's Wake', a tone poem based on James Joyce's prose of the same name.

Dr Shirley was also prolific in recording for Cadence and Columbia Records.

At the peak of his career, Dr Don Shirley's artistry was neither lost on critics nor his peers.

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky considered "his virtuosity ... worthy of Gods". Many, including Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn and Cole Porter, also praised him.

Dr Shirley fulfilled all expectations when he performed at the Ward Theatre in 1956, attracting rave reviews. His appearance prompted The Gleaner reporter to declare: "Displaying a technique far more prodigious than any demands were made upon it, Dr Don Shirley gave a performance that was unmarred even by the fact that the lowest octave of the piano was in part slightly out of tune."

In addition to his musical prowess, Dr Shirley also spoke eight languages fluently and held three PhDs: a doctorate of psychology (Phi Beta Kappa) from Harvard University and a doctorate in liturgical arts and a doctorate of music from Catholic University of America.

The Institute of Jamaica, in recognition of his contribution to Jamaican culture, awarded Dr Shirley the Bronze Musgrave Medal last year but due to ill health, he was unable to attend the ceremony.