BostonGlobe.com: 'Dett finds the roots of an American classical style'

[R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which 

features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. (Photo: Library of Congress)]

Christopher Wilkins

Music Director

Boston Landmarks Orchestra

The Boston Globe

By Matthew Guerrieri

Globe Correspondent   August 09, 2014

On Wednesday, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra resurrects R. Nathaniel Dett’s compact but ambitiously innovative 1919 oratorio “The Chariot Jubilee.” Born in Ontario in 1882, Dett accomplished much. He was Oberlin College’s first African-American music graduate. He led the music department at Virginia’s Hampton Institute for nearly 20 years. While on a Harvard sabbatical — during which “The Chariot Jubilee” was premiered, by the Boston Cecilia — his influential four-part essay on “Negro Music” won the university’s Bowdoin Prize. He was the model of a serious, early-20th-century African-American musician.

It was after hearing a Dvorák string quartet at Oberlin that Dett realized the possibility of treating Negro spirituals as elements in more extended, classical forms. Spirituals became Dett’s musical cause. “The Chariot Jubilee” arranges spiritual-derived themes — from “Ride Up in the Chariot,” “Father Abraham,” and, especially, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” — into a polished musical sermon. There are touches of late Romanticism: some melting voice-leading, a complex weave of slow- and fast-moving vocal parts. There is even, in the bounciest section, an evocation of trains (which spirituals often compared to heavenly chariots). But “The Chariot Jubilee” is disciplined music, decorously expressive.