Lovers of music accustomed to being thrilled by the vocal prowess of UNLV professor Carol Kimball may be surprised to learn that her passion for song flows through her fingertips onto the printed page. Two recently published books testify to that connection.
In the first book, Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature, Kimball has revised a work she originally completed in 1996. The first section contains her discussion of song styles and the connection between music and poetry. She describes the components of style: melody, harmony, rhythm, accompaniment, and texts.
The second — and major — part of the book lists composers and their songs, grouped by nationality. Each country's group is introduced with a short essay giving the particular characteristics of its music. Then Kimball gives a brief description and history of each song.
Song is widely used around the world as a text and reference for song literature classes.
In Women Composers, Kimball continues her focus on the history of music and its composers. Twenty-two different women composers are featured, accompanied by the scores of up to five of their songs. "All of the women featured in Women Composers are strong, interesting people," she says. "They had a core strength. They were not free spirits in a flighty sense, but strong individual personalities."
Among the composers included in the anthology is Alma Schindler, who married fellow composer, Gustav Mahler. Kimball says Schindler was a "beautiful, beautiful woman." Her father painted portraits in Vienna, and she was exposed to a steady stream of the leading cultural figures of her day.
When Mahler proposed to Schindler, he set the condition that she stop composing and accept his music as hers. "Have you any idea how ridiculous and degrading such a competitive relationship would eventually become?" Mahler asked her. "You must become what I need," he insisted. Alma complied and they married in 1902. As a result, Kimball explains, "There are only a few of her songs, but they are very beautiful."
Another female composer and performer, Clara Wieck, married composer Robert Schumann who, unlike Mahler, supported his wife's creative efforts. Schumann recognized the challenges Wieck had balancing composing and domestic life: "Children and a husband ... do not go well with composition. Clara cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many tender ideas are lost because she cannot work them out."
Felix Mendelssohn's sister Fanny Hensel also had a supportive husband even though her father, after educating her alongside his son, insisted that she needed to prepare for the "only acceptable job for a woman — a housewife."
Kimball says 19th century society accepted some women composers better than they did others, and adds that it is "still hard for women" to make their way as composers.
Her favorite among the women in her book is Parisian Pauline Viardot. Kimball says Viardot was no beauty, but she epitomized La Belle Epoch, the period from 1871-1914 when composers, artists, and writers filled Paris with creative energy.
Kimball's own creative energy has been in high gear since she came to UNLV in 1972 to teach voice, opera, and music education and learned as soon as she arrived on campus in September that she was expected to produce an opera in November. "We worked very hard to get it together and used people in the community," she recalls about the two one-act operas she produced. The initial UNLV Opera Theatre effort was so successful she returned the following year with "a beautiful production of Hansel and Gretel" done in cooperation with the theatre department, which had just hired the late Ellis Pryce-Jones.
Since those early days, UNLV has added music faculty to handle the opera theatre, leaving Kimball time for her second love, writing. The recent recipient of the Charles Vanda Award for Excellence in the Arts says she is considering a new book that will discuss recital format and repertoire. "Recital as an art form is dying out," she says. "People don't go to a recital for entertainment unless they know the performer." She hopes the new book will help rebuild the audience for classical music.
