[TOP: “Africa: Piano Music of William Grant Still”; Denver Oldham, piano; Koch 3 7084 2H1 (1991) BOTTOM: Joseph FireCrow (Photo, CapeCodOnline.com)]
By Keith Powers
April 08, 2010
“Cultural traditions mingle and re-create themselves Saturday night and Sunday afternoon as the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra performs 'Journey to the New World,' a provocative mix of classical music standards and newly created work.”
Program Notes
CLASSICS IV
Journey to the New World
An Inspiring Musical Landscape of America
April 10 & 11, 2010
Jung-Ho Pak, Conductor
Guest Artist:
Joseph FireCrow, Native American Flute
From the Black Belt
Li’l Scamp
Honeysuckle
Dance
Mah Bones is Creakin’
Blue
Brown Girl
James Cockey
The Gift of the Elk, a Suite for Native American Flute
Antonin Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 From the New World
“A Playful, Humorous Touch
William Grant Still
From the Black Belt
When Antonín Dvořák came to the United States from Czechoslovakia in 1892 for a three-year stint as the director of the National Conservatory of Music, he took a lively interest in the American music scene and, in particular, the efforts composers had been making to develop a distinctly American idiom. Dvořák, who for many years had been enriching his music with elements from his own native Bohemian folklore, had some advice to give them. Why not use American traditions to create a distinctive American musical style? And to him, American traditions meant primarily African-American or Native American traditions, as these seemed emphatically non-European in origin. Most composers did not follow Dr. Dvořák’s prescriptions...” “Yet there have been some who did develop the potential in the repertoires that the visitor from Prague had been recommending.
“William Grant Still was one of them, even though he hardly needed Dvořák to tell him what to do. Still had his own European teacher in the French-born avant-gardist, Edgard Varèse, from whom he received the technical equipment to give original expression to his own African-American heritage. His best-known work is his grandiose African-American Symphony (1930), but he wrote many other works based on Negro themes. From the Black Belt (1926), a suite for small orchestra in six movements, is one of these. It is made particularly appealing by Still’s light touch with which he uses traditional melodies to create a playful, humorous atmosphere.
“The joke in the first movement (Li’l Scamp) is that it is over before it really began. In an essay devoted to her husband’s music, Verna Arvey Still saw the second movement (Honeysuckle) as ’a musical suggestion of the saccharine odor of the honeysuckle.’ The remaining movements (Dance, Mah Bones Is Creakin’, Blue, Brown Girl, and Clap Yo’ Han’s) offer equally compelling illustrations of their respective titles.” [William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, where a complete Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma is found.]
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