The Contribution of Musicians and Composers of African Descent to Western European Classical Music

The Contribution of Musicians and Composers of African Descent to Western European Classical Music

By Valdea D. Jennings ,Ed.D

I grew up in Philadelphia in an era in which we were surrounded by music. Like many of us growing up in that era, exposure to classical music came at the movies where both the feature films and the cartoons were accompanied by classical music. Each major network maintained a Symphony Orchestra, most major cities also had Symphony Orchestras and several major cities, and notably New York and Los Angeles had active studios populated by orchestral musicians. Even Philadelphia had a thriving studio network comprised of and employing orchestral musicians. Pit orchestras in all of the theaters provided full orchestral resources for the realization of the musical scores that accompanied theatrical products. However, all of this activity was racially segregated including the popular music of the time that consisted in large measure of what is now referred to as the ”American Songbook” (which incidentally furnished most of the material for jazz in all of its developmental phases) and the various forms of what were referred to as “race music” (e.g., gospel, blues, rhythm and blues and their variants).

In that context,

Western European classical music was among the most segregated forms of artistic expression. However, Marion Anderson, Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes and others continued a tradition begun earlier by operatic performers such as?soprano Matilda Sissieretta Jones?(1869-1933) featured singer in?the first African American group to perform at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1892 (9).

The music program in the Philadelphia public school system was one of the finest in the country. My love affair with the clarinet began at Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. High school (i.e., “Middle School to those born more recently), continued as a music major and principal first clarinet at West Philadelphia High School with participation in a variety of performance opportunities including the all Philadelphia high school orchestra and symphonic band.

After an extremely rewarding musical experience in Philadelphia, I left to attend Westchester State Teachers College. I completed the degree in music education; however, my time at Westchester turned out to be a disastrous mistake that thoroughly undermined my aspirations as a performer (10). The next 25+ years were spent happily and successfully in another profession (11). My active participation in music was scattered and sporadic; however, I continued to be an avid listener. In the early 80s I began to play again with serious intent. It was then that I was introduced to work of William Grant still, Adolphus Hailstark, Ulysses Kay, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and a host of other Afro-American contributors to the world of Western European classical music. The information was contained in an article by Marilyn P. George, the librarian and editorial assistant at WFLN Philadelphia’s classical music station.

Since then, I have discovered many interesting and informative sources of information about this history. What follows is brief overview of materials gleaned from these sources.

The?arrival on August 20, 1619 of 20 African captives, the?first African Slaves, In Jamestown aboard a Dutch “man of war” has usually been designated as the early planting of the seeds of the American slave trade. However, St. Augustine Florida, the first permanent European settlement in America,?was established by the Spanish in 1565. That colony included both slaves and free settlers of African descent.?The music created in St. Augustine included?Spanish styles?and the?African music?of the slaves and free blacks that were all living in that colony; this is the real beginning of?African American music.

However, the prehistory of the involvement of musicians of African descent in the music of Western Europe and America begins much earlier in the 16th century.

Fifty years before St. Augustine or Jamestown John Blanke (1501-1511), a trumpet player of African descent, was already performing in the court of Henry VII in Tudor England (1). The job came with high wages, room and board, clothing, and was considered the highest possible position a musician could obtain in Tudor England. There is also documented evidence of the presence of Black trumpeters and drummers in other cities during the Renaissance, including a trumpeter for the royal ship?Barcha in?Naples?in 1470, a trumpeter recorded as galley slave of?Cosmo de’ Medici?in 1555, and black drummers in the court of?James IV?in Edinburgh(2).?

The documented participation of musicians and composers of African descent in what we now recognize as the Western European classical music tradition began with Ignatius Sancho (3) (c.?1729?–?14 December 1780.). Ignatius Sancho was born?on a slave ship near West Africa. After losing both parents, he was raised as a house slave in England but escaped at age 20.?Sancho became a?composer, actor, anti-slavery activist and the author of??A Theory of Music. He is the first?known?Briton of African heritage to vote?in?a British election.

Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier de Saint-George born December 25, 1745 (4) was one of the most distinguished figures during the end of France’s old regime and the start of its age of revolution, at the end of the 18th?century. He was a musician, athlete, and soldier. He was called the “Black Mozart”, and was the first-ever black composer to write significant works in the western classical tradition.

As a violinist, his virtuosic writing and experiments for that instrument created a new style of music that even modern masters of the violin still find difficult to play.

Boulogne was a prolific composer; his works include several operas, 15 violin concertos, symphonies and numerous chamber works. He was a French exponent of early classical violin composition, served as a violin teacher to Marie Antoinette and was a colonel in the republican army.

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José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), an Afro-Brazilian and a Roman Catholic priest, was an organist and chapel master in the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.?Most of his music was liturgical; about 240 works survive.?In 1817 Garcia wrote Brazil's first opera, Le Due Gemelle (The Two Twins), which was later destroyed by fire.

Another 18th-century black violinist, George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (5)?(1780-1860) for whom Beethoven composed a Sonata, performed extensively throughout Europe (Paris, Vienna, Rome, Dresden and London) sometimes with Beethoven. Bridgetower’s works include sonatas for violin, for cello as well as works for German flute, mandolin, harpsichord, piano and various combinations of these instruments.

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Nathaniel Dett, was a composer, organist, pianist and music professor. While born in Canada, he spent most of his professional career in the United States. During his lifetime he was a leading Black composer, known for his use of?African-American?folk songs?and?spirituals?as the basis for choral and piano compositions in the 19th century?Romantic?style of?Classical music.[1]

He was among the first?Black?composers during the early years of the?American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers?(ASCAP). His works often appeared among the programs of?Will Marion Cook's New York Syncopated Orchestra. Dett performed at?Carnegie Hall?and at the?Boston Symphony Hall?as a pianist and choir director.[

Justin Holland (1819-1887), was a classical guitarist who composed and arranged hundreds of works. His compositions were widely played in the 19th Century.?After two periods at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, he became Cleveland's first black professional classical musician and music teacher (6).

José Silvestre White (1835-1918) was an Afro-Cuban violinist who excelled at the Paris Conservatory and later served as a professor there for many years.?During the 1875-1876 season White performed twice with the New

York Philharmonic under Conductor Theodore Thomas(6).

Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins (1849-1908) was a blind and autistic slave who was a classical pianist and a composer of popular songs.?Owners and managers kept control of Wiggins and his huge income all his life prompting Geneva Handy Southall, his biographer, to subtitle her account of him, “Continually Enslaved.(6)”

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in Croydon, England, on August 15, 1875. His father, a doctor from Sierra Leone, was forced to return to his home country around the time of Samuel's birth because he was not permitted to practice medicine in England. Samuel remained in England with his mother.

Coleridge-Taylor's talent was quickly recognized by the British musical elite. One of his principal music composition teachers was Charles Villiers Stanford. At the suggestion of Edward Elgar, Coleridge-Taylor was commissioned to write a piece for a festival in 1898. The resulting "Ballade in A Minor" was a tremendous success. A subsequent trilogy written from 1898 to 1900 and based on the story of Hiawatha secured his fame for the remainder of his life.

In 1899 Coleridge-Taylor first heard American spirituals sung by the Fisk Jubilee singers on one of their tours. He became interested in African-American folk song and began incorporating it into his compositions. Black Americans returned the compliment. In 1902 a group of African-American music lovers formed the Coleridge-Taylor Society to perform and promote his music in America, and eventually brought Coleridge-Taylor over for three successful tours--in 1904, 1906, and 1910. During the first tour, Coleridge-Taylor conducted the Marine Band along with the Coleridge-Taylor Society Chorus. He also met with President Teddy Roosevelt. Subsequent tours took Coleridge-Taylor to more and more cities in the Midwest and the East.

In England, Coleridge-Taylor continued an active life in music. He composed, taught at Trinity College of Music, conducted numerous choral societies, and even conducted in the famed (13)Handel Society from 1904 until his death. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died on September 1, 1912, of pneumonia contracted due to overwork.(13)

Nora Douglas Holt,?born Lena Douglas, was an American singer, composer and music critic, who was born in Kansas and was the first African American to receive a master’s degree in the United States. She composed more than 200 works of music and was associated with the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance and the co-founder of the National Association of Negro Musicians. She died in 1974 in Los Angeles. Due to a theft in the 1920s, all but two of her compositions were lost: “Negro Dance” for piano and a song, “The Sandman.” (12)

?William Grant Still, (born May 11, 1895, in Woodville,?Mississippi, U.S.—died December 3, 1978, Los Angeles, California), American composer and conductor and the first?African American?to conduct a professional?symphony?orchestra?in the United States. Though a?prolific?composer of?operas,?ballets,?symphonies, and other works, he was best known for his?Afro-American Symphony?(1931). He first studied?composition?at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, then under the?conservative?George Whitefield Chadwick?at the?New England Conservatory of Music?in Boston, and later under?Edgard Varèse?during the latter’s most radical avant-garde period. The?diversity?of Still’s musical education was extended when, in the 1920s, he worked as an arranger for the bandleader?Paul Whiteman?and for the blues composer?W.C. Handy. Early orchestral works included?Darker America?(1924) and?From the Black Belt?(1926) for chamber orchestra.??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953)?was the first African-American woman in history?to have?a?symphony?that she composed?and performed by a major orchestra. Her music?Which included major works for the piano, a song cycle,Dark Virgin, based on a text by Langston Hughes?was frequently performed?during her lifetime.(12)

Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998) She was born in?South Norwood,?London, the daughter of composer?Samuel Coleridge-Taylor?and his wife Jessie Walmisley. She wrote her first composition,?Goodbye Butterfly, at the age of twelve. Later, she won a scholarship for composition and piano at?Trinity College of Music?in 1915, where she was taught by?Gordon Jacob?and?Alec Rowley.[In 1933, Coleridge-Taylor made her debut as a conductor at the?Royal Albert Hall. She was the first female conductor of H.M.S.?Royal Marines?and a frequent guest conductor of the?BBC Orchestra?and the?London Symphony Orchestra. She was the founder and conductor of both the Coleridge-Taylor Symphony Orchestra and its accompanying musical society in the 1940s, as well as the Malcolm Sargent Symphony Orchestra. In 1939, she moved to?Buxted?in East Sussex where she had views over the South Downs.

Her compositions include large-scale orchestral works, as well as songs, keyboard, and?chamber music. They include a Piano Concerto in F minor,?To April?(1929), the?Spring Magic?suite (1933),?Sussex Landscape, op 27 (1936), From the Hills, In Memoriam R.A.F.,?Wyndore?(Windover) for choir and orchestra, and the?Golden Wedding Ballet Suite?for orchestra.[3]?Sussex Landscape?was revived in 2019 by the?Chineke! Orchestra?at a?Queen Elizabeth Hall?concert on 22 April 2019.[4]?Wyndore, composed in?Alfriston?in 1936 and inspired by an?Aldous Huxley?poem ("I have tuned my music to the trees"),[5]?is a seven minute song without words.[6]?The first performance was organised by the?Philharmonic Society?and took place at?Birkenhead?on 16th?February 1937, conducted by Dr Teasdale Griffiths. The?Royal Philharmonic Orchestra?will give its first UK performance in 82 years on 7 March 2020 at?Boxgrove Priory, Chichester.[7]

In later life she wrote a biography of her composer father,?The Heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor?(London: Dobson, 1979).[12]?The book includes her life and memories of her father. She also published compositions under the pseudonym Peter Riley.

Margaret Bonds was a pianist and composer noted for her musical adaptations of Shakespeare and collaboration with Langston Hughes.?Bonds was the first African American soloist to appear with the Chicago Symphony and played an important role in the development of twentieth-century classical and musical theater. Bonds was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 3, 1913.?Showing promise at an early age, she completed her first composition at the age of five.?Her musical prowess was encouraged by her mother, who was also a musician and a frequent host to African American writers, artists, and musicians. Bonds received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Northwestern University in 1933 and 1934 respectively.?Although Bonds was educated as a classical musician, her work was versatile and strongly influenced by jazz and blues.?Her compositions were performed by a large number of concert artists including the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Louis Armstrong, and Woody Herman. Perhaps most notable was her fruitful collaboration with the poeLangstonHughes.?

This partnership lasted well into the 1950s and included several larger projects such as theatrical adaptations of some of Langston Hughes’s works.?Bonds’s musical scores also featured the texts of other poets including pieces for W.E.B. Du Bois and Robert Frost.Margaret Bonds died on April 26, 1972 in Los Angeles, California.?She was 59.

Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was known as the “King of Ragtime,” but he also composed classical works.?His opera “Treemonisha” has been performed by the Gunther Schuller and the Houston Grand Opera (6).

Scott Joplin and the diverse musical and artistic culture in which he thrived provides an opportunity to transition to the discussion of the diverse musical and artistic heritages in the three notable urban Afro-American cultures, i.e.,?New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia.

The Negro Philharmonic Society was founded in New Orleans well before the Civil War.?The orchestra at one point had more than 100 performers, including a few white members.?Its director, Constantin Demerge, was a black violinist.?Racial hostility put an end to the Society prior to the Civil War.?Two of its former members, Edmond Dede (1827-1903) and Charles Lucien Lambert, Sr. (c.1828-1896) fled New Orleans in the 1850s and made successful careers in France and Brazil.?Dede graduated from the Paris Conservatory and worked as a conductor in Bordeaux, France for 27 years (6).

Francis "Frank" B. Johnson (1792-1844), a Philadelphia bugler and band leader, was the most popular black composer in the pre-Civil War United States.?He published his first work, “A Collection of New Cotillions” in Philadelphia in 1819.?Johnson's band soon became the leading musical group for social events and marches in the region. Despite their popularity, racial violence broke out during at least one concert.?The members were also arrested and fined in St. Louis for entering the State of Missouri as free blacks without official permission.?In 1837, Johnson and his band members became the first African American musicians to travel to Europe to perform.?Their triumphant return to the United States in 1838 generated more notoriety as they now performed outdoor “Promenade Concerts” throughout the Northeast.?Johnson composed “Honor to the Brave: Gen. Lafayette's Grand March,” which became a popular tribute to the French military leader who helped the United States win its freedom from Great Britain.?The composition can be heard on the CD “The Music of Francis Johnson and His Contemporaries: Early 19th-Century Black Composers” (6).

The segregated circumstances in Philadelphia during my preschool years had given rise to a thriving black business community. And a group of its most prominent leaders had established a cultural environment centered mainly in South Philadelphia and in the Carol Park area of West Philadelphia that in many ways was a continuation of the Harlem Renaissance. As part of their continuing response to the “great migration,” they had established a training program for aspiring Afro-American business people called the Pioneer Business Institute. The curriculum included training in the fundamental skills necessary for successful business ownership; it also provided an extensive cultural experience that was infused with the rich, diverse cultural elements that characterized the Harlem Renaissance.

My parents were among the small business people that received that training. Because it was often difficult to find caretakers for me I was truly blessed with the experience of being taken along to many of the cultural experiences by my parents. I remember with truly great thankfulness so many of the wonderful experiences that we shared. The whole world of our history and culture in its highest and best forms became an indelible part of my childhood experience. It was in that context that I truly began to experience the significance of Western European classical music via exposure to The Symphony from the New World, Antonin Dvorak’s E minor Symphony, and its connection to our heritage.

Antonin Dvorak was part of the faculty at The National Conservatory of Music of America (7), an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeanette Myers Thurber and sponsored by a number of philanthropists including Andrew Carnegie. Its mission included seeking out and encouraging female, minority, and physically disabled students.

Among its students was Harry T Burleigh, a name that should be familiar all with the knowledge of our musical heritage. Dvorak was greatly influenced by the traditional spirituals that Harry T Burleigh sang to him. The New World Symphony was composed at the Conservatory while Dvorak was part of the teaching faculty.?Harry T. Burleigh, later a composer himself, said that Dvo?ák had absorbed the 'spirit' of the spirituals before writing his own melodies.

Dvo?ák said of the spirituals that he had heard, “I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called?Negro melodies these can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them. The works of William Grant Still and many other distinguished American composers is indeed a reflection of that idea.”

As suggested before, the Philadelphia of my youth was filled with music. The Afro-American community was teaming with talented musicians performing in all genres including Western European classical music. In my neighborhood alone, there was Josh Sadler, violist, Everett Walton trumpet, John Fraser string bass, Oliver Pettaway trombone and Gilbert Stanton percussion all mentoring the eager young group of musicians that were my peers. Their contributions as well as those of other Afro-American performers and composers are well documented in a publication by Elaine Mack entitled Black Classical Musicians in Philadelphia (8).

Opportunities to perform in mainstream classical organizations venues were very limited; the principal venue for classical performances for Afro-American musicians was the church. The aforementioned cadre of talented Afro-American classical musicians performed widely in our community, thankfully including those of us that they were mentoring and providing multiple opportunities for our personal and musical growth and development.

They were all members of the Gilbert Anderson Memorial Symphonic Orchestra (the only Afro-American Symphony orchestra of its kind at the time). Like the Negro Philharmonic Society of New Orleans, the Gilbert Anderson Memorial orchestra met and rehearsed in a historic Afro-American institution, the Christian Street YMCA in South Philadelphia. My participation as principal first clarinet in that orchestra and the Easter concerts at St. Barnabas are among my most cherished memories of those wonderful earlier years.

Currently, as an educator, composer/arranger, and performer I continue “the work in progress” that is the perfection of the gift, with the full knowledge that is not we who possess it. Rather, it is loaned to us by the Power that created it, inhabits us only for its sharing and expression, and then passes to others for their stewardship. But, that is the case with all gifts, that is, they are only truly fulfilled through their sharing.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to share.

REFERENCES:

1. Imtiaz H. Habib,?Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible, Ashgate Publishing, 2008,?ISBN?0754656950, p.?39.

2. Wikipedia

3. King, Reyahn (1997).?Ignatius Sancho: an African man of letters. London, UK: National Portrait Gallery. p.?17.

4. Wikipedia

5 Lerma, Dominique-René de. “George Bridgetower”?in Sonorities in Black music; a concert series, first concert, 12 December 1978.Baltimore: Morgan State University, 1978, p5.

6. Utilizing the research of Professor Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, historian William J. Zick provides vignettes which comprise an overview of various composers and musicians of African ancestry who performed in Europe, North America, and Latin America from the 16th Century to the 20th Century.

7. Finck, Henry Theophilus (1916). Thirty Years of the National Conservatory of Music of America. NCMA.?

8. Mac, Elaine B., Black classical musicians in Philadelphia

9. Website: Afrocentric voices and classical music. Historic and contemporary African-American singers and composers of classical music

10. My musical History @: https://docsmusic.wix.com/dr-j

11. My work as a psychologist @ linkedin.com/in/dr-valdea-jennings-95a2a614

12. Encyclopedia.com

13 Library of Congress

Discography:

American Heritage symphonic series; Chicago Sinfonietta/Paul Freeman, conductor;Cedille Records, The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation

Black Composer Series - The Complete Album Collection, Paul Freeman (Artist)?SONY Classical: