(Program)
Columbia Masterworks recording. Printed in the U.S.A. // William Grant Still (1895—1978) // ‘Afro American Symphony’ (1930)
‘Afro-American Symphony’
Moderato assai (Longing)
Adagio (Sorrow)
Animato (Humour)
Lento con risolutione (Aspiration)
All of this will be gone someday
You and me and everyone we know
Leaving memories and traces for the afterglow
“” josé gonzález, ‘Afterglow’
the typical biography of an orchestral composer is often a list of mentors and precocious musical talents for whom social mobility has procured a sufficiently sound buffer against the non-artistic—perhaps even anti-artistic—features of daily life, and from an early age are propelled to the seemingly inevitable stardoms of their profession by the perfect combination of a sisyphean work-ethic and being sufficiently white and male enough to grab the attention of programmers, commissions, orchestra seats, fellowships and artistic grants the world over. so it’s a welcome gust of fresh air when a slight alternative to the usual storyline climbs up the ladder:
William Grant Still
Hi father died when Still was only a few months old, and his mother took him with her to little Rock, Arkansas, where relatives lived. On her remarriage, in 1906, the singing of the youth’s grandmother gave way to the sound of opera recordings from his stepfather’s collection, thus providing (along with private music lessons) further impetus for his interest in composition. At Wilberforce University, where he was supposed to be following preparatory work for medicine, Still formed a string quartet and tried his hand at conducting and performance of various instruments. “” robert philip on william grant still, The Classical Music Lover’s Guide to Orchestral Music
it’s good news to know that black composers of the western musical tradition are out their if you search for them (and if your local orchestra occasionally programs their work—perhaps this symphony might show up in one of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s all-american retrospectives) and if enough interest is generated in the general public. the work of tsegué-maryam guèbrou, ethiopian nun turn composer, is one such example of black composers being rediscovered by a new generation of concertgoers.
like his contemporary george gershwin, william grant still’s musicality was influenced by blues music; his Afro-American Symphony shares much in common with gershwin’s ‘An American in Paris’, both beginning from a place of longing/homesickness and ending with an upbeat slightly optimistic bent. ‘Afro-American Symphony’ is a four-movement orchestral piece scored mostly for wind and percussion instruments, each unfolding with lush tchaikovskyian lyricism in the portly length of about 30-minutes.
the first movement, subtitled ‘Longing’, is loosely inspired by a verse from one paul laurence dunbar’s poems:
’All my life long twell de night has pas’,
Let de wo’l come es it will,
So dat I fin’ you, my honey, at last,
Somewaih des ovah de hill.
“” ‘Twell De Night Is Life
another dunbar poem, ‘W’en I Gits Home’, inspired the theme of the second movement (‘Sorrow’)—somewhat of a derivative of the homesickness suffered by gershwin’s listless character in ‘An American in Paris’:
It’s moughty tiahsome layin’ ‘roun’
Dis sorrer–laden earfly groun’,
An’ oftentimes I thinks, thinks I,
‘T would be a sweet t’ing des to die,
An’ go ‘long home.
“” ‘W’en I Gits Home’
a jazzy scherzo—featuring a banjo—and subtitled ‘Humour’, bridges the second and fourth movement. the Symphony closes with ‘Aspiration’, based on yet another dunbar poem ‘Ode To Ethiopia’:
Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul;
Thy name is writ on Glory's scroll
In characters of fire.
High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky
Thy banner's blazoned folds now fly,
And truth shall lift them higher.
“” ‘Ode to Ethiopian’
(song of the week: ‘Afterglow’ — josé gonzález)
a recent shower thought: either josé gonzález is the devendra banhart for hipsters or devendra banhart is the josé gonzález for hippies. in either case the allure is the same: the wonderful amalgamations that result from ethnically hyphenated musical styles. to the extent that gonzález can be loosely associated with the ‘freak-folk’ label which banhart is the prime contemporary example, the ‘folk’ derives moreso from his musical upbringing in sweden while the ‘freak’ perhaps attempts to describe psychedelic as well as the influences of non-western musical traditions (argentina in the case of gonzález and venezuela in that of banhart). because of his fluency in english and spanish, banhart’s music more reflects the full spectrum of that hyphenation (his latest album Ma for example, ‘Memorial’ especially). gonzález is relatively moreso a folk musician, albeit of unconventional style, like in ‘Afterglow’ (from the album Vestiges and Claws): austere lyricism, often repetitive to create the effect of a hypnotic hymnal, accompanied by a slow derivative of bossa nova’s syncopated rhythm.