Archives of Past Performances of Cello Music (with program notes attached)...beginning on April Fool's Day!!

Programs and notes for past faculty recitals (c.2004-2017)...

North Carolina Central University

Department of Music

Presents

Timothy Holley, violoncello

In Faculty Recital

Assisted by 

Deborah Hollis, piano

Alice Tien, piano

Saturday, April 1, 2006, 4:00 PM

Recital Hall, Edwards Music Building

Twelve Variations on a theme from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, WoO 45 (c.1796)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

                                    *          *          *          *          *          *

Blues (“…kind of…”) from Sonata for Cello and Piano (1968)        

David Baker (1931-2016)

Berceuse, Opus 16 (1883)                                          Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Melodie:

Les Berceaux

Automne

Aurore

En Sourdine

Green

Dans la forêt de septembre

En Prière

                                    *          *          *          *          *          *

Madrigal in a minor (c.1910)                                      Enrique Granados (1867-1916)

INTERMISSION

Vocalise, Op.34, No.14 (1912)                                   Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Sonata, Opus 6 (1932)                                                            Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

            Allegro ma non troppo

            Adagio-Presto-Adagio

            Allegro appassionato

“April’s Fool” recital thoughts, amid the NCAA Final Four Weekend)…

It is a strange enough experience to live in this part of the United States, and be found NOT watching the seemingly nonstop NCAA Basketball Tournament coverage on television--and yet here you are!!  On behalf of the artists and faculty of North Carolina Central University--WELCOME!!  I have only had the rare and even dubious distinction of attending one such recital given on this holiday of humor and practical joking.  While a graduate student at The University of Michigan, I went to hear a joint faculty duo recital given by violist Donald McInnes and pianist Martin Katz, both world-renowned musicians--McInnes now teaches at the University of Southern California, while Katz, in spite of being a USC alumnus, is still in Ann Arbor.  Both musicians appeared onstage, yet one thing was obviously out of place: Katz was carrying the viola (with a careful grip, I might add), and McInnes carried a piano score.  Both men went to their “places” at center stage and bowed nobly to the audience.  McInnes sat down at the piano, and played one note, the “A” which all string players have played for them in the onstage pre-performance ritual of tuning.  Katz in turn, plays that “one note” on the viola, but it sounded only of a raspy, scratching noise, much to the mirthful mixture of confusion and chuckling of the audience members, who really knew all along that they’d been “had”!!  Both gentlemen leaned toward the audience and said in unison, “April Fool’s!!”  The audience erupted in boisterous laughter, the men “re-exchanged” instruments--and gave the audience a performance so special for its technical and musical virtuosity that it has endured for decades in more than my own memory, distinct from any connection to the calendar or the “holiday”. 

This afternoon’s program opens with the variations on the familiar chorus from Part I of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (“Hail, conquering hero…”).  I still have vivid memories of playing this melody as a young quasi-Suzuki method cellist.  Ludwig van Beethoven composed this set of variations during his early years in Vienna, along with the two sonatas for piano and cello (Op.5), probably for the cellist Jean-Louis Duport, with whom he performed for Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia (the grandson of Frederick the Great) on a visit to Berlin.  In spite of his quickly budding sense of virtuosity and a pianist and composer, the variations are quite evenly matched throughout.  Each variation calls for each partner to “converse”, one with the other in the most intriguing manner--sincere musical conversation, neither competitive nor argumentative.  In the avoidance of temptation--the commission of an “April Fools” musical joke or prank--and for the sake of audience understanding, the variations unfold according to the following design:  we begin with the Theme (in the key of G Major); the first variation is for solo piano--Beethoven either felt the need to have his say immediately, or to give the cellist an early break!!  Variations 2 through 4 follow the theme closely--both musicians at work conversing; in Variation 5 the dialogue becomes more commentary than conversation.  One performer’s secret: listen for the manner in which each variation ends, and the manner in which the next variation begins; Beethoven’s genius of craftsmanship shines forth here--in places that even performers often overlook.  After about the sixth variation, one is apt to feel a bit “lost”, so here are a few more good sound “safety spots” so the audience will know where to “hang their hats.” Variation 7 features the cello, not by loud declamation but by quiet skittering around while the piano plays the main theme.  Variation 8 is a short and stormy variation, while Variation 9 resembles “two people on a blind date that doesn’t quite work out (pleasant but not quite special enough for a seconddate!!”)  The only instance where the theme is restated in its opening “triumphal garb” is at Variation 10, in which the cello carries the melody throughout.  Variation 11 is a beautiful Adagio (very slow tempo), featuring each instrument, and the final variation closes the work as an “open-collared” jig.

David Baker is one of the few remaining musical “elders” that continue to serve as “guardians of the flame” of American jazz.  A renowned performer, educator, author, composer-arranger and conductor, he has directed the Jazz Studies Program at Indiana University since 1966.  He has directed the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra since 1990, and his own small ensemble at IU, the 21^stCentury Bebop Band.  No less than three generations of musicians have studied, performed or toured with him.  He is an incredibly prolific composer in both the jazz and concert traditions, and his concerted works often seek to draw the aural boundaries between the two as nebulously as possible--to the extent that both traditions become conclusively “classical” in and of themselves.  Such is the case in the Sonata for Cello and Piano(1968), in which classical cello technique meets and interacts with jazz and blues phraseology throughout all three movements of the work.  Only the middle movement, whose actual tempo marking is “Slow”, will be performed here.  The “Blues” title was coined by the venerated cellist and pedagogue Janos Starker over the course of many performance opportunities of the Sonata at IU and beyond.  However, its “bluesy” sound is less related to the actual standard, triple-phrased, twelve-measure long harmonic formula of blues-based music than it is to a distinct style of modern jazz played on the classic recording of the Miles Davis Sextet, Kind of Blue (1959). The music is heavily saturated in modal writing, and the individual performance styles of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and guitarist Wes Montgomery can be clearly heard throughout the work. The movement is largely a cello “soliloquy”, opening unaccompanied followed by a quasi-improvisatory cadenza midway through the work.  The piano plays austerely, but the reserved manner of writing is poignantly expressive throughout the movement.

My first exposure to the music of Gabriel Fauré came when I was in high school, upon hearing a recording of the Requiem, Opus 48.  While the beauty of the melodies was quite attractive, it was the unusual beauty of his harmonic palette that captivated me as a young listener.  Fortunately, he wrote a fair amount of music for the cello (his Elegy, Opus 24 is one of the best-known works of the cello repertoire), but his melodie have long held a special place on my list of musical favorites.  I have collected a number of them over the years, but this performance is the first attempt to perform them as a set, extolling their melodic and harmonic variety.   I chose to do an entire “set” of short pieces and songs that have reasonably attractive melodic lines and mostly exploit Fauré’s “kaleidoscopicism”.   The set opens with an unlikely choice of work for a recital, but expectable given the date of this recital--how “occipitally appropriate” (or just plain bone-headed) to place a berceuse(lullaby) ‘smack in the middle of the front half of the program!!  Notwithstanding the title and temperament of the berceuse, its beauty of melodic line and harmonic language make a nice introduction to Fauré’s oeuvre, which is dominated by the piano--many works for solo piano, vocal and piano chamber music.  “Les Berceaux” speaks of the double-entendre imagery of large rocking ships at port and small cradles rocked by their mothers; cast in 12/8 meter, the song has a long-phrased “rocking” feeling, reflective of a large ship at sea.  “Automne” deals with melancholy brought on by past regrets of thought and deed over a substantial period of time (two decades).  It is the stormiest song of the set, where the piano dominates the “dramatic texture”, the right hand creating a cloudy skyline while the left plays a repetitive figure that might represent the sentiment of regret.  “Aurore”--as its title implies--signals a change of mood, imagery and tonal color from stormy gray to full-spectrum, rainbow palette; no less than nine references to visual color or astronomy can be found in the poetry.  The sound texture is light and open, with a simple accompaniment and attractive melody, giving the song a placid disposition interrupted only by a brief excursion into the parallel minor key.  “En sourdine” continues the pleasantry of mood and image with a “cloak” of thick forestry, silence and wordless passionate love.  This setting is a languorous sylvan tone-poem gently propelled by the 16^thnote figures cascading throughout; the serene melody is well suited for the high baritone voice or the cello, with very few real conflicts of acoustic balance.  It is interesting to note that the title of this song is also a musical term, meaning “use the mute”.  In “Green”, the muted image opens up to unabashed Romantic emotional expression; Fauré’s harmonic palette is at its most chromatic in this song, one that receives scant exploration throughout his oeuvre.  The philosophical “deep point” of the set is reached in “Dans le forêt de septembre”, where the aches of an ancient forest in autumn encounter a solitary man weeping, and the forest “consoles” the man by presenting him its token of “mortal fraternity”--its first dead leaf. The song is most attractive, not for its melody which has a recitative-like flow, but for the beautiful piano accompaniment that undulates between key regions using enharmonic modulations.  The culmination of this set is something of a restrained “high point” discovered by “good chance” and dialogue with my esteemed colleagues in preparation of this program.  “En Prière” is simply what it is, a prayer--but the prayer is that of Jesus Christ said prior to his eventual betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion--and resurrection.  The tone and style of this setting are fittingly reminiscent of either the Sanctus or Pie Jesu sections of the Requiem.  As in “Aurore”, simplicity of melody and accompaniment are all that is necessary to convey this message of devout faith.

Enrique Granados was born in Lerida, Spain, and studied piano in Barcelona and Paris, returning to Barcelona in 1889, where he opened a school of music.  He won distinction as a pianist and composer, and championed the zarzuela, the Spanish nationalist operatic genre which takes its name from the Palace of La Zarzuela (the opulent derivative of Versailles), and whose earliest work for the stage was produced in 1629.  His best-known work, Goyescas, was produced at the Metropolitan Opera in 1916; while en route back to Spain from the U. S. (via Liverpool, England), his ship was torpedoed and sank in the English Channel.  Granados and his wife were among the passengers lost at sea.  Granados wrote Madrigal in c.1910 for the renowned Spanish cellist Pablo Casals.  Zarzuelas include the recitative and madrigal forms, and both can be found in the cello work, which gradually moves from a free-flowing recitative to a slow stately march by its bravura conclusion.

Sergei Rachmaninoff has as an unavoidable connection to April Fool’s Day--he was born on April 1, 1873.  One of my “grand-teachers”, Mr. Louis Potter (Professor of Music emeritus at Michigan State University for 45 years), was also born on April Fool’s Day--at last hearing, he should be 94 years young today!!  Rachmaninoff was one of the last of the great performer-composers of the Romantic tradition, and his piano performances as well as his works--still stand out as legendary for their technical virtuosity and artistry, beauty and grandeur.  The Vocalise is the last of the Fourteen Songs (Op.34) of 1912, written for Antonina Neshdanova, a gifted coloratura soprano of the Moscow Grand Opera.  It quickly became a favorite with audiences, and soon appeared in arrangements for almost every solo instrument, and an orchestral transcription also followed--at Serge Koussevitsky’s urging in 1916.  Oskar von Riesemann, the editor of Rachmaninoff’s memoirs, wrote the following about the Vocalise:  “The wonderfully curved melodic arch, with its even tranquility, spans the song from beginning to end in one unbroken line…We find in it a resemblance, without any similarity of notes, to Bach’s Air on the G String, which moves in the same clarified atmosphere of divine tranquility.”

Samuel Barber is one of the most honored and frequently performed American composers of the mid-twentieth century.  Encouraged by his aunt and uncle--the contralto Louise Homer and the composer Sidney Homer, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 14, where he studied composition, piano and voice.  Annual summer travels to Italy with his Curtis schoolmate (and would-be lifelong friend) Gian-Carlo Menotti, reinforced his interest in European culture and Romanticism.  With the help of Curtis Institute founder Mary Curtis Bok, Barber achieved significant recognition early in his career.  He gained international notoriety as a composer when Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra performed a live broadcast of Adagio for Strings in 1938.  After that time most of Barber’s compositions resulted from commissions from prominent performers and ensembles.  Barber began work on the Sonata for Violoncello and Piano in the summer of 1932.  It was dedicated “to my teacher, Rosario Scalero”, but early published editions bore an inscription to Orlando Cole, the cellist who gave the world premiere: “to Orlando, physician at the birth of this Sonata, in appreciation of his help and interest, Samuel Barber, seven years late”. Like Barber and Menotti, Orlando Cole was one of the first group of students to attend the Curtis Institute, studying with the British cellist Felix Salmond, and playing in a student string quartet that gave the first performances of the Serenade (Op.1), and Dover Beach (Op.3).   Barber’s primary compositional models for the Sonata were the cello sonatas of Johannes Brahms, with which Barber was thoroughly familiar with by his later years at Curtis.  In letters to his parents and uncle, he wrote of “playing sonatas of Brahms with David Freed” (cellist and Curtis schoolmate) while sailing across the Atlantic en route to Europe in June 1928.  The entire three-movement work is built upon one set of ascending tones (in sixths) in its opening measures, outlining a French augmented sixth chord.  This opening is reflective of the opening measures of the Sonata in F Major (Op.99) of Brahms, which contains a similar melodic idea built primarily of ascending fourths. Although Romantic in spirit, its contemporary features cannot be overlooked, especially that of complex rhythmic structures, as well as the dynamic balance of key relationships throughout the work.  Cole and Barber gave the first performances of the Sonata in Philadelphia and New York in 1933 and 1934; although from that time until 1947 it received no less than ten significant public performances, Barber never seemed confident about how the work would be received by audiences and critics.  Barber’s manner of composing placed him quite independent of the trends of his generation, according to Cole “even passé--in contrast to the music of Aaron Copland and other composers of the Boulanger school”.  However, since that time--until 1948 it was the only cello sonata in the repertoire written by an American composer--it has enjoyed great popularity with cellists, pianists and chamber music enthusiasts.  To give this work its greatest sense of artistic worth and perspective, a closing quote of creative wisdom from a letter to Barber from “Uncle Sid” is most appropriate: “Public life has its value and often lifts a man to great efforts and inspires great conceptions, but production is done in the dark, underground, as it were, and an honest acquaintance with himself and an understanding of his own convictions is the hardest but most necessary job a composer has, if he wants to do anything but artificial work…”  In no way should the Barber Sonata ever be considered “artificial…”

Dr. Timothy Holley, with the kind assistance of Deborah Hollis and Barbara B. Heyman

“Les Berceaux” (Sully Prudhomme)

Along the quays, the large ships, rocked silently by the surge, do not heed the cradles which the hands of women rock, but the day of farewells will come, for the women are bound to weep, and the inquisitive men must dare the horizons that lure them!  

And on that day the large ships, fleeing for vanishing port, feel their bulk held back by the soul of the far away cradles.

“Automne” (Armand Silvestre)

Autumn of misty skies, of heart-rending horizons, of hasty sunsets, of pale dawns,

I see flowing like the waters of a torrent your days filled with melancholy.

My thoughts, carried away on wings of regret, as if our lifetime could be reborn,

Roam dreaming through the enchanted hills, where in days gone by my youth delighted!

I feel in the bright sunlight of triumphant recollections

The scattered roses blooming again in a bouquet, and I feel tears rising to my eyes, which in my heart

My twenty years had forgotten!

“Aurore” (Armand Silvestre)

From the gardens of the night the stars fly away,

Golden bees attracted by an unseen honey,

And the dawn, in the distance, spreading the brightness of its canvas,

Weaves silver threads into the sky’s blue mantle.

From the garden of my heart, intoxicated by a languid dream,

My desires fly away with the coming of the morn,

Like a light swarm to the coppery horizon,

Called by a plaintive song, eternal and far away.

They fly to your feet, stars chased by the clouds,

Exiled from the golden sky where your beauty blossomed,

And, seeking to come near you on uncharted paths, 

Mingle their dying light with the dawning day.

“En Sourdine” (Paul Verlaine)

Serene in the twilight created by the high branches,

Let our love be imbued with this profound silence.

Let us blend our souls, our hearts, and our enraptured senses,

Amidst the faint languor of the pines and arbutus.

Half-close your eyes, cross your arms on your breast,

And from your weary heart drive away forever all plans.

Let us surrender to the soft and rocking breath

Which comes to your feet and ripples the waves of the russet lawn.

And when, solemnly, the night shall descend from the black oaks,

The voice of our despair, the nightingale, shall sing.

“Green” (Paul Verlaine)

Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches

And here, also, is my heart which beats only for you.

Do not tear it apart with your two white hands, 

And may this humble offering seem sweet to your so lovely eyes.

I come, still covered with dew, which the morning wind has turned to frost on my brow.

Permit that my fatigue, reposing at your feet, may dream of the cherished moments that will refresh it.

On your young bosom let me cradle my head, still filled with music from your last kisses,

Let it be soothed after the good storm, and let me sleep a little, while you rest.

“Dans le forêt de septembre” (Catulle Mendes)

Weakening murmuring branches, sonorous tree trunks, hollowed by age,

The ancient, aching forest is in tune with our melancholy.

O fir trees clinging to the gorge, dry nests in broken boughs,

Burnt thickets, flowers without dew, you know of suffering!

And when man, entering palely, cries in your solitary woods, 

Shadowy and mysterious plaints greet him with sympathetic tears.

Good forest!  Open promise of the exile that life implores,

I come with footsteps still quick into your depths still green.

But a slender birch on the path, a russet leaf grazes my head and alights trembling on my shoulder.

The aging forest--knowing that winter, when all comes to nought, 

Is now at hand in me as in it--presents me with a fraternal tribute: Its first dead leaf!

“En Prière” (Stephan Bordese)

If the voice of a child can reach you, O my Father,

Listen to the prayer of Jesus on His knees before you.

If You have chosen me to teach Your laws on the earth

I will know how to serve you, holy King of Kings, O Light!

Place on my lips, O Lord, the salutary truth,

So that whoever doubts should with humility revere You!

Do not abandon me--give me the gentleness so necessary to relieve the suffering, 

To alleviate pains, the misery!

Reveal Yourself to me, Lord, in whom I have faith and hope,

I want to suffer for You and to die on the Cross at Calvary!

The Influence of The Negro Spiritual on the Cello Music of African American Composers" (Guest Lecture-Recital, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, 24 February 2009)...

Guest Lecture-Recital: "The Negro Spiritual as “Evolved Through The Oral Tradition”

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  This evening’s program is a unique “exercise” in performance, written and lectured discussion of the music of African-American composers using the Negro spiritual as artistic “raw material”.  My doctoral dissertation at The University of Michigan was a series of three public recitals dedicated to the cello music of African-American composers. The third recital was originally conceived as a lecture-recital on the cello music of African-American composers using the Negro spiritual as artistic “inspiration”; however, other programming concerns prevented that plan from germinating to complete fruition. Fortunately twelve years later, this evening’s program serves to provide due “address” to this proposed lecture and performance topic.  My “lecture” might best open with a recited reference made to poetry, the poem “Yet Do I Marvel” of Countee Cullen, one of the poet laureates of the Harlem Renaissance: 

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.

Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!  

In this poem the “undoubtable goodness” and “inscrutable ways” of God are given 

compact ponderance in the form of a sonnet.  The figures of Joseph or certainly Job 

might be nominally implied within this line of questions, which strangely appear in 

text without the expected marking of punctuation, but still contain the ironic word of 

inquisition--“why”.  Cullen calls upon more than just Biblical imagery to illustrate the 

“marvelous thing” that he is pondering.  He also includes the Greek mythological 

“deographies” of Tantalus and Sisyphus, who command notorious places in the anti-

pantheon of Olympian ne’er-do-wells!!  Tantalus was king of Lydia and son of Zeus, 

ruler of the gods. Tantalus was honored above all other mortals by the gods. He ate at

their table on Olympus, and once they even came to dine at his palace. To test their 

omniscience, Tantalus killed his only son, Pelops, boiled him in a cauldron, and served 

him at the banquet. The gods, however, realized the nature of the food. They restored

Pelops to life and devised a terrible punishment for Tantalus. He was hung forever from a 

tree in Tartarus and afflicted with tormenting thirst and hunger. Under him was a pool of 

water, but when he stooped to drink, the pool would sink from sight. The tree above him 

was laden with pears, apples, figs, ripe olives, and pomegranates, but when he reached 

for them the wind blew the laden branches away. The word tantalize is derived from this 

story. Such “immortal retribution”, while not of fire and brimstone, sounds ironically 

fitting for those who put God to the test by destroying what comes from God just to see 

what will happen as a result.  Sisyphus was king of Corinth--the son of Aeolus, king of 

Thessaly. Sisyphus saw the god Zeus carry off the beautiful maiden Aegina and told her 

father what he had witnessed. Enraged with Sisyphus, Zeus condemned him to Tartarus, 

where he was compelled for eternity to roll to the top of a steep hill a stone that always 

rolled down again.  This myth speaks of “Zeus venting his rage, with some humor thrown 

in for seasoning”.  While Tantalus was punished for “serving boiled Pelops”, Sisyphus 

was strangely whacked in Mafia-style Olympian retribution—just for being an 

informant!!  At least Aegina was a cute maiden; and obviously being condemned to 

Tartarus was the equivalent of being incarcerated at Alcatraz, Attica, Shawshank or Sing 

Sing!!  Humor aside, Cullen uses these presumably familiar figures in the American cultural 

imagination to personify the struggles of a heterogeneous people whose collective 

ancestors had arrived in what was to become the United States of America two centuries 

before he penned these words.  Due to the fact that sonnets do not traditionally attempt to 

recount detailed history as the saga would do, Cullen saves the true dilemma of his 

contemplation for the closing lines of this sonnet: the God would make a poet black (of 

all the colors of the “racial rainbow”) and make him to sing.

In her paper “O Black and Unknown Bards: The Influence of the Spiritual on American Poetry”, the poet Dee Galloway has written: “Whether referred to as Negro spirituals, black spiritualsor simply the spirituals, the legacy of these simple church songs and folk melodies, passed down from enslaved Africans in North America to their descendents, have had an unprecedented affect on every facet of African American life. Proliferating in the southern United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of these "sacred" songs was not limited to ritual worship, they served many functions within the slave community – from storytelling to battle cry – they have always been central in black America's struggle for freedom. Today through the work of such musical historians as Bernice Johnson Reagon, Horace Clarence Boyer and Arthur C. Jones, and the dynamic performances if such groups as Sweet Honey in the Rock and The Spirituals Project Choir, the spirituals continue to "speak" to American literature across time.  Poetry and song are essentially two sides of the same coin. They each utilize a kind of compressed language that relies heavily on the connotative and denotative meanings of words, and they each combine this language and imagery in unique ways to elicit or express particular ideas and feelings. 

Music and poetry were always commingled in African culture, and the early slaves brought this tradition with them. In the words of Olaudah Equiano, one of the first West African slaves to write the narrative of his own life: "We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets (Gates and McKay 143)." In West African culture, each village or tribal clan has its griot, a clan member who is both storyteller and historian. Before the written word, the griot memorized all of a village's significant events such as births, death, marriages, hunts and wars, ensuring the continuity of the collective heritage and culture of the clan. Often accompanied by drummers or the handclapping of the villagers, a griot could speak for hours, even days, drawing upon a practiced and memorized history, passed on from griot to griot for generations. It is said that "when a griot dies, it is as if a library has burned to the ground."[1]

She later writes in the same vein of discussion: “African American poets have always 

drawn from the vast well of material provided by the vernacular tradition. James Weldon 

Johnson, among many things a prolific writer and gifted poet, found his models in 

folklore, particularly in the spirituals and the folk sermons of the black church.” 

Here the varieties of “function” within the whole of the spiritual repertoire should be 

outlined, mainly to avoid the misconceived notion that all Negro spirituals were intended 

solely for use in worship. It should be stressed that the first singers that would form the 

now-legendary Fisk Jubilee Singers were former slaves, and the “sorrow songs” they 

would ultimately sing to the world were the hidden “code” songs that their ancestors used 

as signals for potential movement of fugitive slaves via the Underground Railroad

northward to freedom. Those same songs were certainly also the “collective property of 

the invisible church”, which held services and fed a dispersed and uprooted “flock” as 

they struggled to “sing the songs of Zion in a strange land”.  (Please refer to Psalm 137:4 

when considering this statement.)  Therefore, the varieties of “song-function” within the 

Negro spiritual tradition are the following: the work song, play song, teaching song, 

worship or sermon song, protest song, and of course, the “code song”.  In order for a 

spiritual to be used for manual labor, the only musical element that was a prerequisite 

was an even, singing or marching metrical structure [cf. “Every Time I Think About 

Jesus”, or Calvary”]. Play songs and teaching songs were intended for use with and 

among children.  The most fascinating thing about the recreational and teaching song is 

that they were so inventively deceptive in their structure and presentation (cf. “Oh, What 

A Beautiful City”, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee”—just like the “12 Days of 

Christmas”).  In this song, the dimensions of New Jerusalem are discussed, but that isn’t 

the “only” information being taught!!  Mathematics—multiplication and division and 

maybe some higher math as well are contained within the “twelve gates to the City—

Allelu!!” While most colonial “states” would make the teaching of a slave to read illegal, 

the spirituals occasionally served to supplant such “mal-legislative” intentions.  While 

many period memoirs of accounts with slaves described them as “childlike” and “happy 

when singing and dancing”, we are wise to remember that these descriptions are 

subjective measurements of the exception within this phenomenon of human behavior 

called chattel slavery--and not the rule.  The rule was the will of the slave-driver; and if 

the slave owner was not able to be on hand at all times, it fell to the “driver” to exact a 

Draconian control and vengeance against any and all slaves who disobeyed his orders in 

the fields, the slave cabins and every place else in between.  Songs of socialization and 

accountability were taught and perpetuated among the slave community [cf. “You Better 

Mind How You Walk/Talk”, and “Scandalize My Name”], of watching one’s attitude and 

action, and the avoidance of bearing false witness and keeping confidential information 

confidential.  The “code songs” were numerous--loosely fitted to suit the need of 

“classified message”: “Steal Away”, “I Couldn’t Nobody Pray”, “Follow the Drinking 

Gourd” (which also teaches astronomy!!), “Deep River, “Didn’t My Lord Deliver 

Daniel”, “Go Down, Moses”, etc.  The worship or sermon songs are the best known, and 

also appear to speak of an additional interesting tendency: the graduated degree of 

literacy among the preachers and teacher-composers moving amongst the slaves.  Some 

spirituals read and flow in close textual congruence with hymns of the Wesleyan 

tradition, implying that some of these spirituals may have been “communally composed” 

--as all of them are—but with the leading or aid of professionally-trained ministers 

having consummate skills in verse and Scriptural exegesis.  The best-known examples of 

this type of song would be: “There is a Balm in Gilead”, “Deep River”, “My Soul’s Been 

Anchored in the Lord”, etc. Other spirituals that may come from a tradition less-

connected to professional ministry: “In dat great getting’ up mornin’ (Fare Ye Well)”,  

“The crucified My Lord (an’ He never said a mumblin’ word”).

Without dwelling on the matter of song-categories for too long, I should also comment on 

a few interesting matters present among some of the spirituals as both song and “sung 

Biblical truth”:  Some spirituals provide mirror-like “insight” into the everyday issues of 

slave life.  The song “Shout all over God’s Heaven” is best known for its verse “I got 

shoes…”, which sounds palatable until one remembers that in Rev. 21:21, Heaven will 

have streets paved in gold so pure that it shines like transparent glass!!  I’d walk down 

such a street as that barefoot!!  It is known that in warmer annual climates (depending on 

the economic and personal provisions of the slave-owner, many slaves of working age 

went barefoot, and the younger slave children occasionally went naked.  The reality of 

“food and raiment” supercedes Biblical narrative in importance here for the slave.  

Therefore, the line “I got shoes, you got shoes, all God’s chillun’ got shoes…” makes a 

bit more sense than walking on glass, even if it does happen to be pure gold.  The 

opening line of the spiritual “Peter, go ring dem bells” sounds quite festive--but the 

gospel accounts contain no references to Peter going to any belfries or carillons to “ring 

dem bells”!!  And the phrase “Peter, go outrun John getting to the Tomb of Jesus” 

doesn’t make a good lyric!! Therefore, our communal composers occasionally took 

matters of some artistic and capricious license with the exact Biblical account (a largely 

oral account, mind you) while developing this large body of song repertoire.  It should 

also be borne in mind that the songs we still recognize may only be half of what would be 

were all the variants and obscure versions of these songs to survive.  

The next matter of my discussion here is the “metamorphosis” of the Negro spiritual, 

from a solo and communal folk song that of the choral anthem, solo art song and 

instrumental setting. The solo song (“sorrow song”) became communal when the song 

moved from individual to group utterance, often in work settings or worship settings.  

The communal song became an anthem when the spiritual moved from the free 

expressions of the “invisible church” into the material forms of organized Black 

denominational worship (cf. “Wade in the Water”, commentary the decline of the praise 

house traditions of the South Carolina Sea Islands).  This metamorphosis extends even 

further when we consider in terms of acculturation--what takes place when the various 

melodic and harmonic tendencies of Wesleyan hymnody meet the wide variety of 

melodic ideas coming from the “sound-cultures” of various regions of the African 

continent from which the imported slaves had been brought.  The spirituals heard this 

evening have been given the “aesthetic garb of western art-music”; obviously their style 

and manner still work very well in performance, and the beauty of the melody and the 

pathos of the words aren’t lost with audiences merely because the harmonization is added 

or changed to reflect a different artistic culture.  A list of composers of African descent 

(save one, who was Australian) numbers over thirty, and this list is by no means complete 

nor does it claim total accuracy: Harry T. Burleigh, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Robert 

Nathaniel Dett, William Dawson, Clarence Cameron White, Florence Price, Hall 

Johnson, William Grant Still, Edward Boatner, John W. Work, Arthur Benjamin*, 

Undine Smith Moore, Margaret Bonds, Thomas H. Kerr, Jr., Julia Perry, Zenobia Powell 

Perry, Hale Smith, Betty Jackson King, Barbara Cooke; Lena McLin; Jacqueline 

Hairston; John Coates; Moses Hogan, Frederick Hall, Edward Margetson, Nora Holt, 

Lettie Beckon Alston, Stephen M. Newby, William C. Banfield, Frederick Tillis, 

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, T. J. Anderson, Adolphus Hailstork, Mark A. Lomax, 

Marian Harrison, Trevor Weston--and the list always goes on and on!!  

The third and final use of the Negro spiritual as “natural resource material” for the 

developed art music tradition of African-American composers, in both vocal and 

instrumental traditions. This tradition is largely an artistic response to the now-legendary 

quote of Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak, who stated that the seeds of a “great 

national school” could be found in the Negro spirituals that he learned from his close 

friendship with Harry T. Burleigh, one of his students at the National Conservatory of 

Music in New York City. The Lawrence Brown set, and the Barbara Cooke pair are 

examples of arrangements within the spiritual tradition extending to touch the “imported” 

Euro-American art-music tradition.  Yet they move and operate on a similar aesthetic 

wavelength as the vocal tradition of including spirituals on Classical recital programs.  

The difference that will be heard here is twofold: the idea of the “song without words” 

(chant sans parole or Lied ohne Worte) functions automatically, and the element of 

improvisation will play a role within and between the songs that will provide some 

measure of balance in the absence of conveyed message by sung words.

I close this lecture with the reading of the poem provided in your program, “O Black and 

Unknown Bards” by James Weldon Johnson, followed by the remainder of this evening’s 

program.

O black and unknown bards of long ago,

How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?

How, in your darkness, did you come to know

The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre?

Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?

Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,

Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise

Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?

Heart of what slave poured out such melody

As “Steal away to Jesus”? On its strains

His spirit must have nightly floated free,

Though still about his hands he felt his chains.

Who heard great “Jordan roll”? Whose starward eye

Saw chariot “swing low”? And who was he

That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,

“Nobody knows de trouble I see”?

What merely living clod, what captive thing,

Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,

And find within its deadened heart to sing

These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?

How did it catch that subtle undertone,

That note in music heard not with the ears?

How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,

Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.

Not that great German master in his dream

Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars

At the creation, ever heard a theme

Nobler than “Go down, Moses.” Mark its bars

How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir

The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung

Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were

That helped make history when Time was young.

There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,

That from degraded rest and servile toil

The fiery spirit of the seer should call

These simple children of the sun and soil.

O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,

You—you alone, of all the long, long line

Of those who’ve sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,

Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.

You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings;

No chant of bloody war, no exulting paean

Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings

You touched in chord with music empyrean.

You sang far better than you knew; the songs

That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed

Still live,—but more than this to you belongs:

You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.

---

[1]I heard this phrase often while growing up, usually spoken by or about someone in the church who had died.  It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I took the time to find out what a griot was.