Kaintuck' (Still)

[1] The work, written after being inspired by a train trip to Kentucky[2] and commissioned by the League of Composers, and originally scored for piano and symphony orchestra, was first performed on two pianos, with the composer's wife, Verna Arvey, as soloist, in Los Angeles on October 28, 1935 at a Pro Musica concert.

Since then, the work has been played in a full orchestra version by Howard Hanson at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

It was written to express musically [Still's] inner reactions to the peaceful, shimmering, misty sunlight on the blue grass of Kentucky.

This cadenza, unlike most, does not aim toward the exploitation of the interpreter, but simply and colorfully enhances the thematic and harmonic material that has preceded it.

[5][6] Music reviewer Mary Carr Moore considered Kaintuck' a work of "real power and splendid proportions".