Praise for The Music of William C. Wright: Solo Piano and Vocal Works 1847-1893
"David Patterson’s exquisite production The Music of William C. Wright is a delightful glimpse into late 19th-century urban American middle class hobby music. Containing 21 musical selections by Wright and a well-researched and informative 32-page booklet, the package beguiles and educates while it entertains. Those interested in Frank Lloyd Wright’s early home life will be treated by the excellent musicians presented here to a well-recorded rendering of what the young Frank must have heard at home."
Joe Weed
Producer, Swanee: The Music of Stephen Foster
*****
"David Patterson's contribution to the small universe of what we know about Frank Lloyd Wright's father, William Cary Wright, strikes me as immense. Wright biographers have attempted to fill in details of his father's life, but until now we have not had a context for understanding the music itself. Patterson's insight has been to seek to understand the life within the music. We've needed this."
Paul Hendrickson
Author, Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
*****
An "attractively produced and meticulously documented disc of music ... of interest to historians of both music and architecture. Its very existence forces us to ask fundamental aesthetic questions about the relationships between differing art forms. ... [Patterson] is to be highly commended for his investigations into William Wright's music and for this unusual and interesting recording."
Marian Wilson Kimber
Associate Professor of Musicology, University of Iowa
In the Journal of the Society for American Music, Volume 8, no. 2 (May 2014)
*****
"The Music of William C. Wright contributes an essential piece to the puzzle of how Frank Lloyd Wright became Frank Lloyd Wright. Professionally performed, the compositions on the CD are 19th century parlor music (the 'pop' music of the day), an attractive and melodious style that may sound quaint to our modern ears. Listening to these works while reading the detailed liner notes is a particularly enlightening and even fascinating experience. Through this project, Frank Lloyd Wright’s father, William C. Wright, emerges as more than the shadowy figure that historians have painted in the background of the architect’s biography, and music historian and producer David Patterson raises valid and intriguing questions about the role of nature versus nurture in the development of the genius that was Frank Lloyd Wright."
Roberta Volkmann
Author, Susan Lawrence, The Enigma in the Wright House
Editor of Education Resources, Dana-Thomas House, Springfield, IL
*****
"William C. Wright was not a genius like his son, but his journeyman compositions are not without their earnest charms. This CD is a unique and intriguing sampling of the parlor music that genteel Americans played and sang for their amusement and edification in the latter half of the 19th century. All that's missing are the antimacassars!"
Ken Emerson
Author, Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture
*****
"Ear-catching and appealing in their own right, these recordings are also invaluable in illuminating Frank Lloyd Wright’s composer-father as the source of the architect’s own deep appreciation for the kinship between architecture and music. David’s work helps us better understand the mind that created a masterpiece like Unity Temple."
Emily Roth
Executive Director, Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, Oak Park, IL
*****
"Patterson’s thirty-one pages of program notes are a boon to anyone interested in Wright, and altogether The Music of William C. Wright deepens our understanding of both the architect and his father."
Jack Quinan
Darwin Martin House curator emeritus, State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Service Professor
Author, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture, Buffalo, NY
Joe Weed
Producer, Swanee: The Music of Stephen Foster
*****
"David Patterson's contribution to the small universe of what we know about Frank Lloyd Wright's father, William Cary Wright, strikes me as immense. Wright biographers have attempted to fill in details of his father's life, but until now we have not had a context for understanding the music itself. Patterson's insight has been to seek to understand the life within the music. We've needed this."
Paul Hendrickson
Author, Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
*****
An "attractively produced and meticulously documented disc of music ... of interest to historians of both music and architecture. Its very existence forces us to ask fundamental aesthetic questions about the relationships between differing art forms. ... [Patterson] is to be highly commended for his investigations into William Wright's music and for this unusual and interesting recording."
Marian Wilson Kimber
Associate Professor of Musicology, University of Iowa
In the Journal of the Society for American Music, Volume 8, no. 2 (May 2014)
*****
"The Music of William C. Wright contributes an essential piece to the puzzle of how Frank Lloyd Wright became Frank Lloyd Wright. Professionally performed, the compositions on the CD are 19th century parlor music (the 'pop' music of the day), an attractive and melodious style that may sound quaint to our modern ears. Listening to these works while reading the detailed liner notes is a particularly enlightening and even fascinating experience. Through this project, Frank Lloyd Wright’s father, William C. Wright, emerges as more than the shadowy figure that historians have painted in the background of the architect’s biography, and music historian and producer David Patterson raises valid and intriguing questions about the role of nature versus nurture in the development of the genius that was Frank Lloyd Wright."
Roberta Volkmann
Author, Susan Lawrence, The Enigma in the Wright House
Editor of Education Resources, Dana-Thomas House, Springfield, IL
*****
"William C. Wright was not a genius like his son, but his journeyman compositions are not without their earnest charms. This CD is a unique and intriguing sampling of the parlor music that genteel Americans played and sang for their amusement and edification in the latter half of the 19th century. All that's missing are the antimacassars!"
Ken Emerson
Author, Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture
*****
"Ear-catching and appealing in their own right, these recordings are also invaluable in illuminating Frank Lloyd Wright’s composer-father as the source of the architect’s own deep appreciation for the kinship between architecture and music. David’s work helps us better understand the mind that created a masterpiece like Unity Temple."
Emily Roth
Executive Director, Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, Oak Park, IL
*****
"Patterson’s thirty-one pages of program notes are a boon to anyone interested in Wright, and altogether The Music of William C. Wright deepens our understanding of both the architect and his father."
Jack Quinan
Darwin Martin House curator emeritus, State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Service Professor
Author, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture, Buffalo, NY
