William Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony (Study Score in 4k)

#classicalmusic #studymusic #symphony #studyscore #orchestra
On Nov. 20, 1934, a brand new symphony brought a Carnegie Hall audience to its feet. The concert featured the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by its star conductor Leopold Stokowski. The music was the Negro Folk Symphony, by the 35-year-old African American composer William Dawson. He was called back to the stage several times to take bows after his symphony ended.
Stokowski conducted four back-to-back performances of the piece, one of which was nationally broadcast by CBS radio. One New York critic called it "the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved." Olin Downes, writing in The New York Times, noted: "This music has dramatic feeling, a racial sensuousness and directness of melodic speech."
The three-movement piece is emotionally charged and rigorously constructed. Dawson said he wasn't out to imitate Beethoven or Brahms, but wanted those who heard it to know that it was "unmistakably not the work of a white man." He found inspiration for the piece in traditional spirituals, which he preferred to call "Negro folk-music."
"The themes are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals," Dawson wrote for the program notes of the Carnegie Hall performance. "In this composition, the composer has employed three themes taken from typical melodies over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother's knee."
In an article published in the Journal of the Society for American Music, Gwynne Kuhner Brown, professor of Music History and Music Theory at the University of Puget Sound, notes that Dawson didn't simply build his symphony by quoting singable melodies from spirituals. "The themes are handled with such virtuosic flexibility of rhythm and timbre that each movement seems to evolve organically," she writes, adding that Dawson offers a "persuasive musical bridge between the 'Negro Folk' and the 'Symphony.'"
William Levi Dawson was born in 1899, in Alabama. At age 13, he ran away from home to the Tuskegee Institute, where he studied music, wrote his first pieces and graduated in 1921. Ten years later, after earning a master's degree, he returned to the historically Black institution to launch its music school, while making its choir internationally famous, singing his arrangements of spirituals.
The heart of Dawson's symphony is its central movement, titled "Hope in the Night," which is not based on a spiritual. After three soft strokes of a gong, Dawson gives a plaintive melody to a lone English horn soaring over a lumbering, march-like beat in plucked strings. Dawson described it as an "atmosphere of the humdrum life of a people whose bodies were baked by the sun and lashed with the whip for two hundred and fifty years; whose lives were proscribed before they were born." In a dramatic moment later in the movement, Dawson lets the entire orchestra take over the theme.
The Negro Folk Symphony was Dawson's first and last. Stokowski recorded the piece in 1963 after Dawson made a trip to Africa and revised the music, and the Detroit Symphony recorded it in 1992. But since then, nothing. The problem in part, was the score: There were never enough copies of it available to meet the early demand, and some say it could stand a careful editing and republication.
Jump to:
0:00 First movement: The bond of Africa
11:04: Second movement: Hope in the night
20:56: Third movement: O le' me shine, shine like a morning star!

[@ericdevaughn5941]

This is a fantastic symphony. I wish some orchestra would give us a modern recording which it rightfully deserves. Great orhestration. Such integral handling of themes. Man, I love this. What an enlightenment !!!

[@WorldofIntenseArtie]

One of the hardest piccolo parts I have played so far outside of anything written by Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Not only is it the sprinkles on top of the ice cream, but it's also its own solo instrument in the flute section. This is a magical symphony and it shows you how composers of color approach the symphony orchestra in terms of orchestration. Some folks say it's overly orchestrated. Sure, at times it seems that way, but also look at the time this was written. The old adage that folks of color have to work harder to prove our point and I'm sure Dawson had to do the same. This is one fine example of US American Symphonic sounds!

[@Gregorius24]

This is wonderful. Playing this next week (violin) with our local Philharmonic, along with Rhapsody in Blue.

[@tylerstell8672]

See you there!

[@claramckenzie9140]

This is brilliant from the beginning and holds your ear, concentration, and interest throughout its entirity. It is so dignified and sophisticated to be the 1st and last by the it's composer and strong enough to stand alone; enough for a lifetime's work. I find it perfect.

[@jeremiahevans6596]

His singular orchestral masterpiece!!! A GREAT American symphony!!! I would also suggest the Florence Price Symphony No. 3 and William Grant Still Symphony No. 1

[@jacobmcruz]

18:38 Flute Excerpt

[@rigobertomora5472]

Thank you for sharing, great!!!

[@nebojsazivkovic]

This was a nice discovery and pleasant suprise. Musicologists hve to discover why it was first AND THE LAST. After such success, wuldnt it bee an inspiration to compose another one? Thnk you for posting this. I cam here over your dorico post how to delete a "FLOW" ... and ended up listening this symphony... procrsstinating ... he? 🙂

[@daviddas]

If you liked this, you may also enjoy listening to William Grant Still. I have one or two up on my channel, and I'd like to do many more in the future.

[@prakashwright2182]

Thank you for uploading this. It is always a pleasure to experience new music, especially from previously unknown (at least to me) African American composers. I always get something from your videos, but this was especially satisfying. Looking forward to the next one.

[@daviddas]

Glad to hear it -- thanks! There's much more I'd love to post (time allowing). Next up might be William Grant Still, a composer I greatly admire.

[@napilopez]

Thank you for sharing this insight into this wonderful symphony. This is to me one of the most 'perfect' symphonies. I first heard it a few years ago and it's stuck with me in ways few works have.

[@ekmke96]

18:37

[@fortunatomartino8549]

Make sure to 💋 behind

[@NewsInAction]

I feel like it’s influenced by Gershwin

[@daviddas]

That's an interesting comment because many would feel Gershwin was influenced by black music, as particularly evidenced in his final major work, Porgy & Bess. However, you can see lots of influences in that direction from the very beginning.
(Yes, I do see some Gershwin similarities in the Dawson!)