(from upper left and going clockwise) Florence Price, Duke Ellington, George Walker, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

The Binghamton Philharmonic's program annotator Ubaldo Valli wrote this reflection on Black classical composers in honor of Black History Month.

Take a moment and try to answer the following:  

Name three Black musicians.    

Most people can name far more than three. 

Now – name three Black classical composers. 

Joplin? Ellington?  Maybe George Walker?  Anyone else?  Most people would be stuck for answers. 

Why is this?   There have always been Black classical composers. But, because of racial discrimination ranging from segregation to slavery, they have not had access to education, resources, and performance opportunities. Just three sad examples of the reality Black composers faced are some leading American conservatories not accepting Blacks until the mid-20th century, Scott Joplin’s fruitless decade-long attempt at the end of his life and the height of his fame to get his opera Treemonisha performed, and the first Pulitzer Prize in music being awarded to a Black composer (George Walker) after 53 years (in 1996). 

Denied the opportunities afforded White musicians, Black musicians did what they could with what they had. The results in the United States were the incredibly popular and rich genres of the spiritual, ragtime, Dixieland, jazz, and the blues.  Imagine how classical Black composers felt when the popularity of this music was held against them!  Music based on these popular forms was not serious enough for the concert hall—it was too "lowbrow" for a "highbrow" audience (themselves racially tinged terms derived from the discredited "science" of phrenology.)  This music "of plantation melodies and minstrel ballads" was produced by "the lowest strata of society." Perhaps the polite dismissiveness of a hostess in James Joyce’s short story The Dead, in which she moves the conversation from the outstanding singing of a "Negro chieftain" in a popular holiday pantomime back to the "legitimate opera," said it all. 

Regardless, White classical composers such as Gershwin, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Milhaud flocked to Harlem to absorb sounds that would influence their own compositions.  But even their use of materials from Black music was criticized.  For example, Antonín Dvořák was convinced during his tenure at the National Conservatory of Music in New York that "the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies” and was inspired by those melodies while writing his “New World” Symphony.  Dvořák was subsequently condemned for his allegedly unsuccessful efforts "to make civilized music by civilized methods out of essentially barbaric material" leading to "a mere apotheosis of ugliness, distorted forms, and barbarous expression." 

Nevertheless, Black composers persisted. 

And because they persisted, there is a large and varied repertoire that is (slowly) being rediscovered.  While you might expect the lesser-known corners of Joplin's and Ellington's outputs being explored (Ellington wrote an opera? (Queenie Pie)) and more new works by living Black composers (Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021), there is much more—the music of Black composers spans centuries and continents.  Just for starters:  Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), a French contemporary of Mozart (and a world class fencer!); Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), an English composer celebrated during the Victorian period; Florence Price (1887-1953), an American composer whose 1st Symphony was one of the first by a Black composer performed by a major American orchestra and who is returning to prominence after a significant portion of her music was discovered in an abandoned house in 2009; Jose White Lafitte (1836-1918), a Cuban violinist-composer praised by Rossini,  The Nigerian composer Samuel  Akpabot (1932-2000), the Americans William Grant Still (1895-1978) and William Dawson (1899-1990), Ulysses Kay, Olly Wilson, Julius Eastman, Avril Coleridge-Taylor....(Check out https://www.musicbyblackcomposers.org/ for much more.) 

So, while we celebrate Black composers during Black History month, this is a body of work that can be celebrated year-round.  Here are some links of music by composers mentioned above to get you started: 

Joplin – Treemonisha:

Ellington – Queenie Pie:

George Walker - Lyric for Strings:

Terrance Blanchard – Fire Shut Up in My Bones: 

Chevalier de Saint-Georges - Violin Concerto, Rachel Barton Pine, violin, Daniel Hege, conductor:

 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Hiawatha Overture:

Florence Price – Symphony No. 1:

Jose White Lafitte – Violin Concerto in F# minor:

Samuel  Akpabot – Three Nigerian Dances:

William Grant Still – “Afro-American” Symphony No. 1: 

William Dawson – Negro Folk Symphony:

© Ubaldo Valli 2022