William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Student Newspaper of Oxford University
30th September 2019
By Kurien Parel
Even the most enthusiastic
classical music listeners probably have never come across the composer William
Grant Still, who was at one time considered among America’s leading composers. A Time cover story in 1940 on Disney’s rendition of the Rite of Spring
casually lists Still in the same category as Hindemith and Prokofiev.
According to The Cambridge
History of American Music, “No composer plummeted from authentic prominence
to an eclipse more total than endured by William Grant Still.”
Referred
to by some as “the Dean of Afro-American composers”, was arguably
America’s most successful symphonist of his time. His first symphony
(1930) was performed by 38 different orchestras in its first 20 years,
making it, according to musicologist Edith Borroff, the most popular American symphony until the 1950s. On being shown a recording of the symphony, Sibelius simply remarked: “He has something to say.”
It was therefore not surprising that
Still was awarded a commission by the League of Composers for a piece on a
patriotic theme during World War II. According to Still, his “thoughts turned
to the colored soldiers around the world.” Still himself had served in World
War I in the US Navy and would have been cognisant of the particular challenges
faced by black soldiers.
He titled his piece ‘In Memoriam,
the Colored Soldiers who Died for Democracy’ emphasising the often-overlooked sacrifices
of non-white soldiers in the war. The piece is solemn and is based on a black spiritual
theme with a fanfare – a blend of Afro-American music with European classical
idiom. The piece is not convolute but is, as Olin Downes of the New York
Times reviewed it, “with simplicity and feeling”.
The US army at this time was segregated, with
black soldiers relegated predominantly to menial roles and inferior facilities,
subject to daily slights and injustices. Black American soldiers were at times even
required to give up their seats to Nazi prisoners. Still would have been aware
of the irony of black soldiers fighting and dying for the ideal of democracy
when they themselves were denied basic freedoms. Like much of his music, the
purpose of this piece was to dignify the marginalised.
The “In Memoriam” piece was
premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1944 to much critical acclaim. A review
in the New Yorker called it “one of
the most successful works on war themes commissioned by the League of
Composers”. John Briggs of the New York
Post wrote: “Mr. Still may well become the American Tchaikovsky.”
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