page_title: Blues, Rags and Stomps
section_title: Stroller in Air
hierarchical_section_title: Blues, Rags and Stomps / Book II / Stroller in Air
caption_attribution_description: English: Stroller in Air by Robert Boury.
context_page_description: Blues, Rags and Stomps, Op. 1, was composed by Robert Boury between 1970-1973. It consists two books, three movements each. Boury composed mostly during his graduate study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The first set was nicknamed “Varsity Rags”, which Eubie Blake admired and told the audience, “Now that’s ragtime”, after he heard Boury’s performance at the 1971 Toronto ragtime Festival. Book I and II consist of three movements each: I. A Tristan Two-Step, II. Alice Walking, and III. The Rocket’s Red Glare. Book II: I. Eubie’s Blues, II. Stroller in Air, III. I Left My Heart. Boury comments that “A Tristan Two-step” represents his breakaway from modern music and was a way to be accepted as a tonal composer.
context_section_description: Boury dedicated this piece to his colleague, William Albright, who was also breaking out of the modern music syndrome with ragtime music. This title comes from a short story Le Piéton de l'air (A Stroll in the Air) by Eugène Ionesco, a Romanian-French dramatist. The story is about a contemporary person who sees a biplane from the time of the First World War fly over, and Boury thought that appropriate as a title since it was the height of the ragtime craze.
  This is one of Boury’s longer works which is in a through-composed form. There is a subtitle, “a medley”, which refers to: “A collection of parts or passages of well‐known songs or pieces arranged so that the end of one merges into the start of the next”. Boury stated that this movement was a series of his own musical sketches. Fundamentally, there are a total of five sections including an introduction and a coda; intro – A (mm. 11–36) – B (mm. 37–59) – C (mm. 60–75) – A’ (mm. 76–100) – Coda (mm. 101–113). Some of these sections include subtitles, such as “Wild Goose” and “Kingdom Come”. “Wild Goose” refers to the slang, “Wild Goose Chase”, endless chase, and “Kingdom Come” is a quote from “The Lord's Prayer”. Perhaps the composer intended this piece to show people’s feelings of sadness and depression caused by the war. The pianist must produce the introduction with emotionless sonority. Therefore, each chord in the introduction should be played without unnecessary accents or dynamical changes in the introduction. The first A section has very thick chords accompanied by octave in the lower register. Due to faster tempo the sound may get too harsh. The pianist must bring out the outer notes and not play all notes equally. In the section of “Wild Goose” there are four sets of ascending arpeggios. These may refer to the “endless chase” that never goes anywhere but to come back to the starting point. The result of the endless chase leads to a very dark and exhausted sound starting in measure in 50–. Four measures of the transition (mm. 56– 59) to “Kingdom Come” may be a ‘dark tunnel’ where people are searching for hope. “Kingdom Come” has a very consistent tempo until it reaches the next section. Perhaps it may describe that people unite and believe that Kingdom will come if you are faithful to work every day. At measure 76 the first theme comes back, but starts slower and weaker in G minor compared to earlier first theme. This section could be the time people suffer in silence and pretend everything is okay. At measure 93 a G major chord might be expected to be played, followed by tonic and dominant chords in G major. Instead, Boury chose to write a g dim° chord with sforzando to surprise listeners. Adding a brief moment before playing the g dim° chord would give these notes, special emphasis. Here may be described as people reached to their emotional limit at g dim° chord, and lost their hopes at mm. 96– ("little by little lose steam"). In the coda, this war puts people in a very deep depression; in a zombie-like state where they seem to have no will of their own.
  There are a few suggestions for learning and performing this piece. Many of the bigger chords may need to be rolled. The pianist must make sure to have the chords on the beat when rolling them. Additionally, this rolling motion must match the mood of the section. For the chromatic passages, use finger numbers 1 and 4 on the black-key octaves. This helps the pianist to shape the phrases better and also easier on the hands to do so without making mistakes.
caption: Stroller in Air
exif: {}