[William Grant Still (1895-1978)]
WRTI 90.1 FM
Classical Music Radio, Philadelphia
Classical Music Radio, Philadelphia
So just how Big is William Grant Still? He came out of
Mississippi to become the first African-American to conduct a major
American orchestra, the first to have a large orchestral work played by a
major American orchestra, and the first to have an opera produced by a
major American company. He left Oberlin without a degree ,
for the East, to music-theater arranging and playing jobs, and his
potential was immediately seen. Musicians as diverse as George Chadwick,
W.C. Handy, Paul Whiteman, Artie Shaw, and Edgard Varèse recognized his
talent.
It was the avant-garde Varèse who encouraged his
composing the most, and who recommended his pieces for new-music
concerts and publication. Still would later score for films (Pennies from Heaven), for TV (Perry Mason, Gunsmoke), and would compose more than 150 concert works, including ballets, operas, and symphonies.
It
was his first symphony, the “Afro-American,” that brought him renown.
Howard Hanson premiered it in 1931 with the Rochester Philharmonic, and
Hanson would continue
to champion Still’s music throughout his life. The symphony is based on
blues, which Still felt was uniquely African-American, more so than
spirituals, which he believed had become too commercialized.
Still had mixed feelings about the modernist Dismal Swamp.
But it’s an evocative picture of the desperate life of the escaped
slaves who found refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp, that wilderness
spanning North Carolina and Virginia. In Danzas de Panama, for
string quartet, string quintet, or string orchestra, he branches out to
ethnicities not his own, which, he believed, was what any composer
rightly does.
During his stellar career, William Grant Still became not only a leading African-American composer, but a leading American
composer. He felt that music—his or anyone’s—should lift up people of
all countries, colors, and races. A dean is a senior, respected leader.
William Grant Still earns the title.
PROGRAM:William Grant Still (1895-1978): Danzas de Panama (1948)Dismal Swamp (1936)Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American” (1930)
[William
Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which
features a comprehensive Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de
Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com
Recordings, sheet music and books of William Grant Still are
available at www.WilliamGrantStill.com,
which is operated by the composer's daughter Judith Anne Still]
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