William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony


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.

https://youtu.be/wPhDb3XnXHs


William Dawson (1899–1990) is probably better known as an educator and an arranger of spirituals, but one hearing of the opening of his Negro Folk Symphony and it becomes obvious that he was a composer of extraordinary power. The premiere of what Dawson had at one time thought of as his “Symphony No. 1,” given by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, was a triumph, as was the performance Stokowski and the orchestra gave four days later in New York. One reviewer said of the symphony that it was “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved.” In 2012, Gwynne Kuhner Brown wrote, “the tumultuous approbation [Dawson’s symphony] received from critics and audiences alike set it apart—not only from contemporaneous works by African Americans, but also from most new classical music of the period.”


But none of this saved the work, and its composer, from relative obscurity. Why? As Joseph Horowitz has written, “What if Dawson had composed another half-dozen symphonic works? What if he could have realized his aspiration to become a symphonic conductor? Might American classical music have canonized, in parallel with jazz, an ‘American school’ privileging the black vernacular?”


“Blue” Gene Tyranny says of the Negro Folk Symphony, “No mere pastiche of Americana, this grand work is by a composer fully conversant with the subtleties of technique and possibilities of expression in the symphonic form.” It is a beautiful and extremely moving work.


My classical music post for today is William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

William Byrd's "The Battell"

Image
Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/jomZcpqkfUI The great English composer William Byrd (1543–1623) wrote his wonderfully descriptive virginals piece "The Battell" after the great Armada victory of 1588, although most musicologists believe that it is more likely to have been inspired by a smaller skirmish, perhaps an uprising of some sort. Sally Mosher has said of "The Battell": "By the 17th century, battle pieces had become a popular genre, so Byrd can be said to have launched a new keyboard genre in addition to composing the first English keyboard suite. All in C major, sections of ‘The Battle’ are harmonically very simple; for the most part they alternate between the tonic and the dominant, using no more than a handful of chords. Like the march, they often suggest trumpets and drums, but they also quite successfully suggest the sounds of soldiers marching, of ho...
Read more

Elfrida Andrée's Organ Symphony No. 2 in E Flat

Image
This March, the Daily Classical Music Post will introduce you to some of the most wonderful music ever composed—and, yes, it will all be by women composers! https://youtu.be/5w_BfXxmnIc The Swedish composer and organist Elfrida Andrée (1841–1929) was one of the first women organists to be appointed to a full-time position in Scandinavia. She was the organist at Götheberg Cathedral from 1867 until her death. In addition to two organ symphonies, she composed many other works, including chamber music, orchestral music, and an opera. She also was the first Swedish woman telegraph operator. Andrée is definitely not well known either in her native Sweden or, indeed, anywhere else. She probably would not be considered to be a great composer, but her works are definitely tuneful and sometimes quite intriguing. Her Organ Symphony No. 2 for organ and brass is an good example of this. My classical music post for today is Elfrida Andrée's Organ Symphony No. 2 in E Flat.  
Read more

William Byrd's "All in a Garden Green"

Image
Throughout September, the Daily Classical Music Post celebrates the music of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century England. https://youtu.be/vuf6rCX7D-E William Byrd wrote a set of six variations for virginals on a well-known tune, "All in a Garden Green." It was included in the collection My Lady Nevell's Book (1591), although most people believe that it was written much earlier than that. The words of the popular song on which this was based went something like this: All in a garden green, two lovers sat at ease, As they could scarce be seen above the leafy trees. They lovèd lofty full, and no wronger than truly, In the time of the year cam betwixt May and July. It was very common in the 16th and 17th centuries to write variations on a tune that people would instantly identify. Byrd was a master at this, and this early work shows that. My classical music post for today is William Byrd's "All in a Garden Green."
Read more