William Grant Still
(Boston Globe)
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
William Grant Still composed “Afro-American Symphony.”
On April 30, the Waltham
Philharmonic Orchestra performs a pivotal American work: William Grant
Still's 1931 “Afro-American Symphony,” the first symphony by an
African-American composer to gain traction in the classical music world
and a salient example of early symphonic jazz. The
conservatory-educated, classically inclined Still’s jazz expertise was
the result of on-the-job training, playing in bands and theater pit
orchestras (he was proficient on numerous instruments), culminating with
a year in the oboe chair of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake's epoch-making
1921 musical, “Shuffle Along.” By decade's end, Still was one of the
more prominent arrangers in both the jazz and musical-theater arenas.
All
the while, he continued studying classical composition, most crucially
with French-American ultra-modernist Edgard Varèse, who provided Still's
entrée into influential New York new-music circles. Still's music was
performed alongside that of Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Carlos
Chavez. But his gradual embrace of vernacular elements in his music
pushed Still away from the modernism that those colleagues espoused.
Asking listeners to grasp both the essence of African-American music and
an abstract modern vocabulary was, Still decided, too much; with the “Afro-American Symphony,” he cast his lot with the former.
One curious detail in the “Afro-American Symphony” encapsulates not
only that classical-vernacular give-and-take but also music's
ever-shifting historical prism. Near the beginning of the third
movement, a bumptious scherzo (inspired by the optimism and wit of
African-American preaching), Still sets his theme against an
accompaniment that quotes, almost note-for-note, George Gershwin's “I
Got Rhythm.” Homage or objection? Several of Still's “Shuffle Along”
colleagues, upon hearing Gershwin's song, had recalled the tune as
Still's, one he habitually made especial use of during in-performance
jam sessions — performances Gershwin certainly heard.
***
Michael Korn conducts the Waltham Philharmonic Orchestra
and cellist Joon Kyun in music of Danielle Rabinowitz, Antonín Dvorák,
and William Grant Still, April 30 at 3 p.m., at the Kennedy Middle
School in Waltham. Tickets $20, students and seniors $15, children free;
857-919-1385; www.wphil.org.
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