Undine Smith Moore’s “Before I’d Be A Slave”
This February, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates Black composers and musicians whose music has been suppressed and ignored. All of these musicians should be added to the music history and music theory curriculum.
Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989) was known as “the Dean of Black Women Composers.” After beginning her undergraduate music studies at Fisk University, she was the recipient of the first scholarship granted to a Fisk student by Juilliard. After graduating, she received her Master’s from Columbia's Teachers College. She also studied composition with Howard Murphy at the Manhattan School of Music. Her cantata “Scenes From the Life of a Martyr,” written in 1981 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Only one-quarter of her compositions were published in her lifetime.
Moore composed “Before I’d Be A Slave” for piano in 1953. She wrote on the title page:
“It follows a program which I would hope is evident in the music without verbal explanation—in general:
In frustration and chaos of slaves who wish to be free
In the depths—a slow and ponderous struggle marked by attempts to escape-anyway-being bound-almost successful attempt at flight
Tug of war with the oppressors
A measure of freedom won—some upward movement less lacerating
Continued aspiration-determination-affirmation.”
Anastasiia Pavlenko says, “Marked Furioso, the piece opens with a series of clusters intensified by accelerando. Highly dissonant, the piece presents a whirlwind of strong emotions. There are many wide dense chords (a student needs to reach a 9th easily), octaves, and tremolos. The composer left markings indicating characters like ‘tug of war,’ ‘great power,’ and imitation instructions ‘like a xylophone.’ The piece requires a performer with exceptional stamina and concentration to play dense texture combined with jumps and rapid dynamic changes.”
My classical music post for today is Undine Smith Moore’s “Before I’d Be A Slave.”
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