For this week’s blog post I was curious how newspapers reported black composers in the 20th century. In class, we have discussed Florence Price and William Grant Still during our exploration of American music. Price was the first African-American women to have her symphony, Symphony in E minor, performed by a major orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933. Still is widely known for his Afro-American Symphony composed in 1930. I found two newspaper articles from 1990 and 2014 and became intrigued by the similarities, the names included, and the authors comments.
The two articles are “Composers Who Had to Triumph Over Prejudice: Composers Who Overcame” by K. Robert Schwarz (1990) and “Great Divide at the Concert Hall: Exclusion or Seclusion? Black Composers Discuss Their Music” by William Robin (2014). Although we discuss 20th century works in class, I find it important to include the comments from the 2014 article as they are similar to ideas presented in the 1990 article. Schwarz’s criteria for inclusion in this articles were black artists who have an CD or record of their album. Robin’s focuses on the music of three composers from the end of the 20th into the 21st century with a brief mention of the composers Schwarz mentions. I will briefly introduce both articles while reporting the authors comments and composers they chose.
“Composers Who Had to Triumph Over Prejudice: Composers Who Overcame” by K. Robert Schwarz (1990)
“Racism on the part of the white musical establishment worked to deny blacks entry into the European-oriented world of American concert music.” (first page, second paragraph)
Schwarz mentions Dvorak and his plea for American composers to use native folk music in their own works. R. Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943) is mentioned composing “Magnolia Suite” (1912), “In the Bottoms” (1913), and “Juba Dance” with this comment: “But more often Dett’s fragile folklike sources seem overwhelmed, drowned within the European chromatic harmonies and dense late-Romantic textures” (first page, fourth column). Florence Price (1888–1953) is mentioned with her Symphony in E minor as being more successful than Dett because she “ set out to be a composer only secondarily one who made reference to folk materials” (first page, fourth column).
Poet Langston Hughes, composer William Grant Still, and tenor Roland Hayes are mentioned as part of the black Renaissance of the 1930’s. Still’s Afro-American Symphony uses modern blues and jazz idioms rather than spirituals. William Levi Dawson who wrote “Negro Folk Symphony” (1934) composed with new material and folk music. Schwarz comments on these specific works by stating:
“The problem with…Still and Dawson … Dett…. is the disparity between the simple, self-contained black-American material and the extended European forms” (second page, third column) following up with “The undercurrent is all too clear: the spirituals dances, and blues were not worthy enough in their unadorned state; they supposedly needed to be elevated so that they could compete with the achievements of European art music” (second page, fourth column).
He follows with:
The result is not the greatest music America has produced. And it is far from the greatest black music, for Bessie Smith’s “Lost Your Head Blues” (1926), Duke Ellington’s “KoKo” (1940) — Anthony Davis’s opera “X” (1986)- are all more vital in their cultural stance than the Afro-American Symphony. Nevertheless, when viewed from today’s perspective, composers like Dett, Price, Still, and Dawson cannot help but appear heroic. They fought back against the racism of their country and of their chosen profession, and time has been their vindication.
“Great Divide at the Concert Hall: Exclusion or Seclusion? Black Composers Discuss Their Music” by William Robin (2014)
Robin asks “Why do black composers remain on the outskirts of classical music?” (third paragraph) Keep in mind this article was written 24 years after the Schrawz article on the same topic and it would appear, the same question is being asked. Robin mentions James P. Johnson and Duke Ellington who primarily belonged to the jazz cannon. He makes a shocking but common statement that “Gerswhin’s Rhapsody in Blue is more African-American than William Grant Still’s Afro- American Symphony” (third paragraph) and that “African-American music is often regulated to special events outside the main classical season, like Black History Month concerts or Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations” (third paragraph).
Composer Dr. T.J. Anderson (b. 1928) states:
“It’s inevitable, once you are identified- and you always are identified because of race- there’s a certain different expectation. You know that you’re not going to be commissioned by the major artistic institutions like the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera” (first page, second paragraph) He also included “all black composers were avant-garde because of their ostracism from the establishment”.
Robin describes another black composer, Dr. Jonathon Bailey Holland (b. 1974), as a post-Copland, Americana composer where “race is not central to his musical identity” (second page, first column). He also spoke out about events celebrating black heritage as special events.
George Lewis (b. 1952) is a composer who was excluded from experimental music with his piece “Memex”.
“If there is a definition of an African-American composer, there isn’t a single profile, there isn’t a single mold. There’s just no way to make a generalization based on African-American-ness, It’s not a category that works” (second page, fourth column).
This last quote is my favorite out of all. It seems in most of academia we put labels on things. It makes it easier to understand, to place into context but it also means we miss out on the bigger picture and tend to misunderstand and misrepresent ideas and people. We cannot “generalize” what 20th century music is the same way academia as with say Classical or Romantic music (although now that I typed this sentence I’m starting to think maybe we shouldn’t generalize these eras and the possibilities of what we’re missing out on is too much). In simplifying the two articles, Schwarz’s article seemed more concerned with how black composers compared to the European tradition whereas the Robins article is more concerned with what it means to be a black composer in spite of the European tradition. There is more to be said than what can fit in one blog post but I think these two articles provide insight into out larger group discussions. My question to you is: What do you think of these comments? and or quotes by these composers?
While you ponder enjoy George Lewis’s “Memex”.
Sources:
“Composers Who Had to Triumph Over Prejudice: Composers Who Overcame” by K. Rober Schwarz, New York Times (1923-Current file); Apr 15, 1990; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times
“Great Divide at the Concert Hall: Exclusion or seclusion? Black composers discuss their music” by Robin, William, New York Times (1923-Current file); Aug 10, 2014; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times
