Ennanga: II (5:21) of William Grant Still Performed by Videmus on YouTube

Works by William Grant Still; Videmus, New World Records 80399

Ennanga: II (1956) • William Grant Still
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk7plaFzdrw&feature=related   

Published on Nov 14, 2012 by Matt Marble

This is the 2nd movement of a 3 movement work for Harp, Piano, and String Orchestra (or String Quartet). Performed by Videmus (http://www.videmus.org/)

Album available here:
http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=80399

Album Notes

William Grant Still (1895-1978) has often been termed the patriarchal figure in Black music and was the first Afro-American composer to secure extensive publication and significant performances. His works represent the culmination of musical aspirations of the Harlem Renaissance, in that they “elevated” folkloric materials. Such a concept, however, had been employed occasionally by earlier figures, including Harry T. Burleigh (1868-1949), Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960), R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943, New World NW 367), and Still’s Afro-British model and cultural hero, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912).

Still was born in Woodville, Mississippi, and his early days were spent in Little Rock, Arkansas, where his mother moved after his father’s early death. His stepfather was a record collector, and those early opera discs and Still’s violin studies stimulated the youth’s interest in music.  On graduation from high school, Still planned to study for a medical career, but his love of music was intensified at Wilberforce College in Ohio, and especially at Oberlin, where he heard a full orchestra for the first time.

During this period, he worked in Memphis for W.C. Handy, subsequently joining him when Handy moved to New York City. In 1921 Hall Johnson recommended him as oboist for Ebie Blake’s Shuffle Along (NW 260) and, while touring in Boston with the show, Still secured composition lessons from George Whitfield Chadwick. After his return to New York, he studied with Edgard Varèse, although any avant-garde influence form this composer remains lost in Still’s earlier, withdrawn works. He concentrated instead on the ethnic latitude more readily allowed by a neoromantic (and sometimes) neo-impressionistic approach.

Late in the 1920s, Still began to receive grants and awards, and these, combined with income from jazz arrangements written for Artie Shaw and others, enabled him to move to California. There, although only minimally active in writing for films (and later, television), he soon formulated an influential orchestral palette.

The Suite for Violin and Piano (1943) demonstrates Still’s attempts at approximating indigenous African music, as he had earlier with his choral ballet, Sahdji (1931). Musical materials were not available to him, as little scholarly attention had been given to that area of ethnomusicology during the 1930s. He had to settle on modal inventions, which, if not authentic, at least gave the flavor of the idiom he desired.

Still sought further inspiration for his work from visual artists. The first movement, drawing from Richmond Barthe’s “African Dancer,” utilizes a three-measure phrase structure in the opening theme and a contrasting bluesy middle section. The second movement relates to Sargent Johnson’s lithograph, “Mother and Child,” and is an ardent and lyric essay in ternary design. The finale portrays the impish and sometime sassy humor Still exhibited in “Li’l Scamp” (in From the Black Belt, 1925) and “Quit Dat Fool’nish” (1938). Its stimulus is “Gamin,” a bronze sculpture by Augusta Savage (the cover art of this recording). The suite was dedicated to Louis and Annette Kaufman, who presented the premiere in Boston’s Jordan Hall on March 12, 1944.

Songs of Separation is a cycle of five thematically related songs set in 1949 to texts of Black poets:

“Idolatry,” by Arna Bontemps; “Poème,” by Philippe Thoby-Marcelin; “Parted,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar; “If You Should Go,” by Countee Cullen; and “A Black Pierrot,” by Langston Hughes. The ardor and, in the Dunbar instance, humor, are reminiscent of the songs of Coleridge-Taylor.

Incantation and Dance (1942) is Still’s only work for oboe, here recorded on flute and piano. (Still’s works were often performed with different instrumentation.) The Dorian material for the incantation emanates from the opening piano figure, and is followed without pause by the pentatonic dance, whose finale is restated an octave higher in this version.

Less familiar are Still’s settings of spirituals, such as the set of twelve published in 1937 by the Handy Brothers, and “Here’s One” (1941), whose tune and text are better known by the opening line, “Talk about a child that do love Jesus.” The latter exists in versions for solo voice, or violin with piano or chamber ensemble

.

“Summerland” was originally the second of Three Visions (1936) for piano, but was recast by the composer for different instrumentation. Lazy and relaxed, it evokes a quiet, warm afternoon. The text of Citadel (1956) by Virginia Brasier-Perlee inspires the composer’s impressionistic harmonies and overt romanticism.

Song for the Lonely (1953) sets a poem by Verna Arvey, the composer’s wife, who served as his pianist, librettist, poet, and creator of his ballet scenarios. She was a journalist in her own right as well.

Another of the composer’s arrangements is Out of Silence, originally the fourth movement of Seven Traceries for piano (1940). The mysterious outer sections of this movement exhibit Still’s less tonal language, contrasting strongly with the harmonic lushness of the middle section.

Ennanga (1956) is one of several works which exhibit Still’s pride in his African heritage (other compositions pay tribute to his Spanish and Native American forebears) and, although he lacked information about African music, he was aware that an ennanga is an African harp. The first two movements are harmonically and structurally akin to his African-American Symphony from a quarter of a century earlier (without the blues element) while the dance-like third movement provides the energetic conclusion.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was composed as a patriotic song for a Lincoln commemoration in 1889 by J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954), based on a text by his brother, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938). It was quickly accepted as an anthem by Afro-Americans and has been arranged by many composers, although this setting by Still is not widely known.

—Dominique-René de Lerma

Dominique-René de Lerma is a member of the administration staff of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago.

[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]