Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
Our focus this week is the so-called Chicago Black Renaissance, which involved a number of Black composers who had recently arrived in Chicago. They were among the tens of thousands within the Great Migration of the late 1910s to the 1940s.
Whereas many, if not most, of the famous Black male music-makers working in Chicago at the time — including Thomas Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Earl “Father” Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, and Cab Calloway (as well as the great Mahalia Jackson), concentrated on gospel, jazz and blues, but a number of female composers were working in classical forms. Unlike their more prominent male contemporaries, however, most of them have unfortunately remained relatively obscure to most audiences.
Up until recently, that “obscure" list included Florence Price. Price, a Little Rock native, resettled in Chicago in 1927. And of course, we’ve previously discussed the major rebirth of interest in her. That was the result of hundreds of her previously unpublished, and largely unknown, compositions that were discovered in the attic of a suburban Chicago home about a dozen years ago, nearly five decades after her death in 1953.
Price made a big splash in 1933 when the Chicago Symphony gave the world premiere of her Symphony No. 1 in e minor, the first time that a major American orchestra had performed a symphony by a woman of color. You’ll hear that symphony in its entirety later in the show.
Meanwhile, let’s start out with another of Price’s less “obscure” compositions: “Dances in the Canebrakes” — the three dances for piano titled “Nimble Feet,” “Tropical Noon” and “Silk Hat and Walking Cane.” Althea Waites is the performer.
(FLORENCE PRICE’S “DANCES IN THE CANEBREAKS”)
ERIC: You’ve heard pianist Althea Waites perform the three “Dances in the Canebrakes” by Florence Price on a Cambria recording titled “Black Diamonds,” piano music by other Black composers, that also includes works by Price’s friend and colleague Margaret Bonds and her fellow Little Rock native William Grant Still — who, by the way, produced a posthumous orchestration of these three dances.
Margaret Bonds, Price's close friend and collaborator, was the soloist in two works on that 1933 concert program in which Price’s symphony premiered.
Her "Montgomery Variations,” written in 1964, and dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., chronicles the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery bus boycott and the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
Based on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” the work is in seven sections:, titled “Decision,” “Prayer Meeting,” “March,” “Dawn in Dixie, “One Sunday in the South,” “Lament” and “Benediction.” Much of Bonds’ music was lost after her death in 1972; this piece was recently re-discovered in 2017. Kellen Gray conducts the Royal Scottish Orchestra, unfortunately we don’t have the name of the solo pianist.
(MARGARET BONDS’ “MONTGOMERY VARIATIONS”)
ERIC: You’ve heard Kellen Gray and an unidentified pianist perform the “Montgomery Variations” by Margaret Bonds. on Major and Minor Masterpieces on KLRE-FM, classical 90.5.
Each of the three movements of Bonds’ “Spiritual Suite” quotes an African-American spiritual — “The Valley of the Bones,” based on “Dry Bones”; “The Bells,” based on “Peter, Go Ring Dem Bells”; and “Troubled Water,” based on “Wade in the Water.” This performance is by pianist Samantha Ege.
(MARGARET BONDS’ “SPIRITUAL SUITE”)
ERIC: You’ve heard pianist Samantha Ege perform Margaret Bonds’ “Spiritual Suite” on a Lorelt recording titled “Black Renaissance Woman,” a compendium of works from the Chicago Black Renaissance.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
So, Eric, let’s tackle one of the less familiar members of the orchestra woodwind section. Tell us what an English horn is and why that’s actually a misnomer.
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Well, Sarah, to begin with, the English horn is not actually a horn, nor is it English.
The instrument, also known by its French name, cor anglais, is actually a member of the double reed family, a deeper cousin of the oboe. It’s approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, and pitched a perfect fifth lower, making it essentially an alto oboe. Unlike the oboe, which has a flared bell at its bottom end, not unlike that of the clarinet, the bell of the English horn is pear-shaped, which helps give it a particular throaty timbre. And also unlike the oboe, which has a straight “staple” to which the player attaches the reed, on the English horn the reed attaches to a mouthpiece, called the “bocal,” that is slightly curved.
The instrument made its debut in Silesia - most of which today lies within Poland, with small portions now in the Czech Republic and Germany - in the early 18th century and also, apparently, in its early form resembled the horns played by angels in religious images from the Middle Ages. So in German-speaking countries it got the name engellisches Horn, meaning angelic horn, and it didn’t take long for the "angelic horn" to become known as the "English horn.”
SARAH: Excellent, I do love my linguistic fun! What is your favorite piece featuring an Angelic/English Horn? Will we hear any this season or have we heard any in previous seasons?
ERIC: Well, J ean Sibelius’ “The Swan of Tuonela,” which we played during season 2, features the English horn as the melancholy voice of the swan. Cesar Franck’s Symphony in d minor has a prominent and lovely English horn solo in the second movement. And you’ll hear the English horn prominently backing up some of the arias in Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.”
SARAH: Awesome, okay well I’m glad we already have an example made for you guys that you could listen to sometimes when we are re-running our episodes. Be sure to check it out in our season two. Alright, if you like it, feel free to reach out and tell us your thoughts on it at majorandminormasterpieces@littlerockpublicradio.org. Now let’s return to Major and Minor Masterpieces.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Irene Britton Smith didn’t migrate to Chicago — she was born there in 1907. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the American Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree from DePaul University, and also studied composition at the Juilliard School and took lessons with the legendary Nadia Boulanger.
Let’s hear violinist Dawn Wohn and pianist Emely Phelps perform Smith’s Violin Sonata and a short piece titled “Reminiscence.”
(IRENE BRITTON SMITH’S VIOLIN SONATA AND “REMINISCENCE”)
ERIC: Violinist Dawn Wohn and pianist Emely Phelps performed Irene Britton Smith’s Violin Sonata and “Reminiscence” on a Delos Recording.
Nora Holt was a cofounder of the National Association of Negro Musicians, of which the Chicago Music Association was the first branch, in the early 1900s. (Betty Jackson Smith was the organization’s president from 1979 to 1984.) Holt was the first Black person in the United States to get a master’s degree, in music from the Chicago Musical College. Like Price and Bonds, most of her scores have been lost — hopefully not permanently — but we do have a couple of short piano pieces to go by. Lara Downes plays “Nora’s Dance” and Samantha Ege plays “Negro Dance.”
(NORA HOLT’S “NORA’S DANCE” AND “NEGRO DANCE”)
ERIC: You’ve heard pianist Lara Downes play “Nora’s Dance” and Samantha Ege playing “Negro Dance” by Nora Holt.
And now the promised major work on this program: Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1, which had its world premiere June 15, 1933 with Frederick Stock conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This performance is by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, performing Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1.
(FLORENCE PRICE’S “SYMPHONY NO. 1”)
ERIC: You’ve heard the Philadelphia Orchestra, with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, perform Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Thanks for tuning in this week to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.