Post by erik on Jan 13, 2024 19:06:13 GMT -5
With January 15th being the day we in America celebrate the birthday of one of the giants of American history, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the spotlight turns to a recording of two works by giants on the Afro-American spectrum of our nation's musical culture.
William Grant Still: SYMPHONY NO. 1 (AFRO-AMERICAN)
Duke Ellington: THE RIVER
Detroit Symphony Orchestra/NEEME JARVI (Chandos)
African-Americans have contributed mightily throughout the history of the United States to our nation’s growth in the musical arts. But it wasn’t until sometime after the shackles of slavery and Jim Crow had ended that a lot of that acknowledgement came to the fore, and works by such composers got performed with anything resembling the regularity of, say, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin,
William Grant Still, who lived from 1895 to 1978, was a case in point. The first full symphony ever written by an African-American composer, Still’s Afro-American Symphony it was also the very first work of any kind by an African-American to get performed by any orchestra in his own country—in this case, it was the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Howard Hanson in 1930. Sticking to the traditional four-movement format of the symphony, Still infused his work with the influences of blues, African-American spirituals, and even some ragtime jazz elements (in the symphony’s jaunty third movement, the equivalent of a Scherzo). The symphony did find a lot of favor with a lot of exceptionally open-minded conductors of the era, including Leopold Stokowski; but the work was not extensively recorded back then. The growth of exploration of African-American culture, however, did lead to Still’s work becoming a significant part of the American classical repertoire in the early 1990’s,
Another work by a great African-American composer was a 1970 ballet score by one Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington entitled “The River”. A collaboration between the composer and the legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey, “The River” is an allegorical and spiritual ballet score of sorts, naturally jazzy in its rhythms, with Ellington giving very colorful descriptions of the movement of this particular river. In essence, this is an American version of the Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana’s famous nationalistic tone poem “The Moldau”, expanded out to about twenty-seven minutes in length.
As the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1990 to 2005, the Estonian-born conductor Neeme Jarvi was a tireless advocate for the breadth of American music; and it is quite clear on this particular recording that he has a great feel for these two great works by titans of American music in general, and African-American culture in particular. The orchestra’s performance of these works, along with the astute conducting enthusiasm of Mr. Jarvi, make this one of the most important recordings of American music of any kind since Leonard Bernstein’s championing of Aaron Copland in the 1960’s.
William Grant Still: SYMPHONY NO. 1 (AFRO-AMERICAN)
Duke Ellington: THE RIVER
Detroit Symphony Orchestra/NEEME JARVI (Chandos)
African-Americans have contributed mightily throughout the history of the United States to our nation’s growth in the musical arts. But it wasn’t until sometime after the shackles of slavery and Jim Crow had ended that a lot of that acknowledgement came to the fore, and works by such composers got performed with anything resembling the regularity of, say, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin,
William Grant Still, who lived from 1895 to 1978, was a case in point. The first full symphony ever written by an African-American composer, Still’s Afro-American Symphony it was also the very first work of any kind by an African-American to get performed by any orchestra in his own country—in this case, it was the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Howard Hanson in 1930. Sticking to the traditional four-movement format of the symphony, Still infused his work with the influences of blues, African-American spirituals, and even some ragtime jazz elements (in the symphony’s jaunty third movement, the equivalent of a Scherzo). The symphony did find a lot of favor with a lot of exceptionally open-minded conductors of the era, including Leopold Stokowski; but the work was not extensively recorded back then. The growth of exploration of African-American culture, however, did lead to Still’s work becoming a significant part of the American classical repertoire in the early 1990’s,
Another work by a great African-American composer was a 1970 ballet score by one Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington entitled “The River”. A collaboration between the composer and the legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey, “The River” is an allegorical and spiritual ballet score of sorts, naturally jazzy in its rhythms, with Ellington giving very colorful descriptions of the movement of this particular river. In essence, this is an American version of the Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana’s famous nationalistic tone poem “The Moldau”, expanded out to about twenty-seven minutes in length.
As the music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1990 to 2005, the Estonian-born conductor Neeme Jarvi was a tireless advocate for the breadth of American music; and it is quite clear on this particular recording that he has a great feel for these two great works by titans of American music in general, and African-American culture in particular. The orchestra’s performance of these works, along with the astute conducting enthusiasm of Mr. Jarvi, make this one of the most important recordings of American music of any kind since Leonard Bernstein’s championing of Aaron Copland in the 1960’s.