Tag Archives: Sheet music consortium

“An American Elegy”: The Perfect Tribute

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Program notes from Frank Ticheli’s “An American Elegy” 1999

In April of 1999, the nation stood still as they witnessed the tragedy that was the Columbine High School Massacre. Everyone experienced a collective feeling of anger, sorrow, and grief as they watched the news in horror. Throughout the country, people could not comprehend what they had seen, and many wanted to do whatever they could to help Columbine High School. One of these groups was the University of Colorado’s Alpha Iota Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, a nationwide fraternity for college band members. The Alpha Iota Chapter decided to reach out to world-renowned band composer Frank Ticheli to commission a piece in honor of all those affected by that tragic day.

Frank Ticheli was honored when he was approached by the chapter and knew that he needed to write something special to commemorate those who lost their lives. Ticheli in his program notes describes how the main melody of the work came to him in a dream. Once he had the main melody, the rest of the work came together in around two weeks. Ticheli continues to describe the work in his program notes, saying,

An American Elegy is, above all, an expression of hope. It was composed in memory of those who lost their lives at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, and to honor the survivors. It is offered as a tribute to their great strength and courage in the face of terrible tragedy.

Ticheli uses multiple pages at the beginning of the score to go into detail about each section of the work. He gives specific directions on how different sections of the piece should feel, as well as the emotions he wanted to portray while writing the piece.

All of the emotion that was put into this work becomes very apparent with just one listen of the piece. The music never tries to make a statement, which has become a theme in more recent memorial pieces, especially those about school shootings. The music focuses solely on being a memorial for all those who lost their lives, and in my opinion, does so to near perfection. The piece slowly builds up, seemingly going through every stage of grief in just 10 short minutes. The piece finally reaches its climax at around 7:00 minutes in, using the brass to play the Columbine alma matter. After this fanfare moment from the brass, the instrumentation completely dies out, leaving just an offstage trumpet solo that rings over the venue. This moment is the emotional heart of the work and portrays so much emotion without ever even needing to see the soloist.

Overall, this piece is one of the most influential pieces in all of the wind-band literature and is a beautiful tribute to those who lost so much. I want to leave this post off with one final quote from the program notes, as I feel it perfectly encapsulates the importance of this work.

I hope the work can also serve as one reminder of how fragile and precious life is and how intimately connected we all are as human beings.

Frank Ticheli, An American Elegy, Manhatten Beach Music, 1999

“Old Man Jazz” — Praise or Shade?

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“Old Man Jazz : An Eccentric Fox-Trot Song” written by Gene Quaw hasn’t seen many performances in recent years, and there’s good reason why the first recording that comes up is from 1920. Melodic and rhythmic lines in the opening of the tune veils the main character, Old Man Jazz, in mystery, and the associations and implications of the lyrics throughout the song create a tension between appreciation for Old Man Jazz and the negative aspects to his character.

 

 

The song by Quaw seems to be riddled with messaging that “Old Man Jazz” is strange, in an unknowable, enchanting way. Firstly, the subtitle “An Eccentric Fox Trot” tells us that this is a dance, however, it’s not a typical or conventional dance. The opening introduces our main character, Old Man Jazz, who seemingly “arrives in town” and brings about a performance that causes the townspeople, or presumably dancers, to dance. It’s stated that the people like to dance, as expressed by the lyrics : 

“ Old Man Jazz,

The music’s great

Old Man Jazz,

Don’t hesitate,

Ev’ry body likes to do the RazzmaTazz”

 

Even going further as to mention that the townspeople are sad when he leaves : 

“Old man Jazz has gone away from town

That’s why ev’rybody wears a frown”

 

It’s clear that this Old Man Jazz has a skill that few others have, an ability to perform jazz, blues, and rag that inspires the people to dance, “shiveree and shake the shimmie”, and “sway like ‘U’ boats”. However, as much as it seems the people enjoy the music that “Old Man Jazz” brings, it’s questionable as to how the music and lyrics paint his character and music. Paralleled to the praise and encouragement for Old Man Jazz, he has a “reputation” that is assumed and isn’t further explained apart from no one caring about his reputation, implying that Old Man Jazz and/or his band have a negative reputation. Moreover, Old Man Jazz is, later in the song, assumed to have left the town with “Mister Booze”, which likely isn’t another character, but an implication that Old Man Jazz left to drink alcohol. The lyrics additionally describe the music Old Man Jazz performs as “wicked” and as “funny blue notes”, pointedly othering the music despite people’s positive reception. These negative implications to Old Man Jazz alongside the praise for this character creates a dichotomy within the music and affects our perception of the music and the character. Should we dance and sing along? Should we feel uneasy? This tension is much like the tension we’ve discussed in class surrounding Black people and Black people’s music throughout history – enslaved people, in books, theater, song and other forms of entertainment, were painted as dangerous, impulsive, or unintelligent but simultaneously were cunning, clever, and skillful; Black spirituals were applauded when they were adopted to be commercialized and suit White audiences and concert performances, but needed to be rationalized as to how Black people and Black culture could have ever come up with this incomparable music that became renowned.

Whether or not Gene Quaw intended to create this dichotomy within his music is not made clear; regardless, whoever “Old Man Jazz” may be, the music outwardly associates  jazz, blues, and rag, all significant parts of African American culture and music, with eccentricism and problematic attributes.

 

For more listening :

“Old Man Jazz” performed by The Elliotts provided by EMGColonel 

An actually recent performance of “Old Man Jazz”

 

Stephen Foster’s Intent and Impact with “Old folks at home”

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In an earlier blog post, I came across Stephen Foster’s “Old folks at home” (also known as “Way down upon the Swanee River”), a ballad which was written for and widely performed by blackface minstrel troupes. Many of Foster’s compositions have had a prominent role in the lasting legacy of minstrelsy, and this piece is no exception. “Old folks at home” went from immediate popularity after its publication in 1851, to performances by Christine Nilsson and Adelina Patti, to designation as the state song of Florida in 1938. Through the Sheet Music Consortium database I was able to observe five different publications of the song ranging from 1851 to 1899.

The sheet music published by Firth, Pond & Co. in 1851 is unique because it claims that “Old folks at home” was composed by E. P. Christy, the leader of Christy’s Minstrels. Christy paid Foster to write the song and have it published under his name for performance by his minstrel troupe, as is made clear by the cover of the sheet music. The song is also labeled in this publication as an “Ethiopian melody”, which was interesting but not surprising, as white people at this time casually used “Ethiopian” to describe anything relating to dark-skinned people. 

The falsehood about Christy as the composer of this song must have been short-lived, because only three years later the song was published within “Foster’s Melodies Arranged for the Guitar”. All following publications that I have seen credit Foster as well.

Each publication which includes a vocal part used fairly similar dialect, although the dialectic inconsistencies present in some publications stood out to me. In the 1897 version published in Boston, the word “the” is used in the first line, but all other instances of “th” are replaced by “d.”

In the 1894 “Concert Edition”, the word “ev’ry” appears in contrast with the word “ebber” used earlier in the same music. These inconsistencies reveal the half-ass nature of the use of dialect for this piece, which reflects the broader attitude of disrespect towards the group which is supposedly being represented in this music. 

The Suwannee River in Florida, shown in red

“Old folks at home” is currently still the state song of Florida (due to its references to the Suwannee River), however, the most obviously problematic things about the song have been eliminated through the removal of dialect and the replacement of the word “darkies” with “brothers.” However, the line “still longing for the old plantation” continues to be clear and present in the first verse.

Based on letters from Stephen Foster to E. P. Christy, Foster wanted his “tragic” minstrel songs (such as “Old folks at home”) to inspire feelings of pity and compassion for slaves, rather than the ridicule resulting from most minstrel shows at the time. Could Foster’s intentions ever come true through this piece intended for blackface performance, which by nature mocks the experience of enslaved people in America? Only a further exploration of primary sources could tell.

 

Sources:

“Florida Lakes and Rivers Map.” GIS Geography. Geology.com, November 2, 2021. https://gisgeography.com/florida-lakes-rivers-map/. 

“In Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana.” Old folks at home. The Trustees of Indiana University, 2021. http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/detail.do?action=detail&fullItemID=%2Flilly%2Fdevincent%2FLL-SDV-035017. 

“Old Folks at Home : Ethiopian Melody.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/37599. 

“Old Folks at Home.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/37129. 

“Old Folks at Home.” Playmakers Repertory Company Playbills. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/sheetmusic/id/32979. 

“Old Folks at Home; Way down upon the Swanee River.” Duke Digital Collections. Accessed October 30, 2021. https://repository.duke.edu/dc/hasm/b0951. 

​​“On This Day in Florida History – May 28, 1935 – Now Controversial ‘Old Folks at Home’ Becomes State Song.” Florida History Network – Your one-stop source for celebrating and preserving Florida’s past, today. Accessed December 6, 2021. http://www.floridahistorynetwork.com/may-28-1935—now-controversial-old-folks-at-home-becomes-state-song.html. 

Root, Deane L. “Foster, Stephen C(ollins).” Grove Music Online, October 16, 2013. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002252809?rskey=7S6WHZ#omo-9781561592630-e-1002252809-div1-5. 

“The Swanee River.” State Symbols USA. State Symbols USA. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/florida/state-song/swanee-river. 

 

 

Harry Burleigh–A Nice Post for Once

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We have been tackling some difficult ethical issues in this class regarding how we should feel and respond to the shameful reality of minstrelsy and its related veins. One conclusion we have come to is to acknowledge the past, recognize (white) America’s shortcomings, and point ourselves and others in the direction of something better. In my research for this post, I feel I have found that something better.

Sheet music for “Steal Away” arr. by H.T. Burleigh.
Complete sheet music here.

I came across the spiritual, “Steal Away,”1 the name of which I recognized as a song Viking Chorus sang during my freshman year. I found that the spiritual was arranged by Harry T. Burleigh, and reading about him was a little shining star in this (at times) depressing class. A rendition of the spiritual can be found on Youtube, among several others.

Harry Thacker Burleigh (b. 1866) is recognized as the first and among the most influential African American composers in post-Civil War America. He studied at the New York National Conservatory of Music where he became friends with Antonín Dvorák, who was the school’s director. They spent ample time together, Burleigh sharing with Dvorák the black spirituals and plantation songs that he had heard from his grandfather. Dvorák encouraged Burleigh to save these songs, to arrange them as his work.2 Thankfully, he did. “Steal Away” is one of the hundreds of pieces he arranged and composed. His most successful song is likely his arrangement of “Deep River” (1917), a song many people today recognize.3

Photograph of Harry T. Burleigh by Carl Van Vechten

In the booklet of “Negro Spirituals” from which I found “Steal Away,” one of the first pages is a single page note from Burleigh on spirituals. Similar to the descriptions of spirituals Eileen Southern provides in Antebellum Rural Life,4 Burleigh outlines them as “spontaneous outbursts of intense religious fervor, and had their origin chiefly in camp meetings, revivals and other religious exercises”. He goes on to condemn the portrayals of blacks and their music in minstrel shows, declaring that the attempted humorous mimicry of “the manner of the Negro in singing them” is a “serious misconception of their meaning and value”.5

It is my belief that, with the knowledge of the shortcomings of American culture in our hearts, we should look to and celebrate those who do not fall into the questionable traditions we have encountered. I think Harry T. Burleigh is a splendid example. Thus, I would like to end this post with the ending words of Burleigh’s note in the booklet. He speaks of that value mentioned above, the true value of spirituals.

Their worth is weakened unless they are done impressively, for through all these songs breathes a hope, a faith in the ultimate justice and brotherhood of man. The cadences of sorrow invariably turn to joy, the message is ever manifest that eventually deliverance from all that hinders and oppresses the soul will come, and man–every man–will be free.

–H.T.B.

“Goin’ Home”

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While scrolling through the sheet music consortium, I stumbled across a digitized piece of music of which I have a physical copy in my own personal library, “Goin’ Home,” an adaptation by William Arms Fisher of Anton Dvořák’s New World Symphony (No. 9, mvt II Largo, specifically). Personally, I love the symphony and have enjoyed listening to it for many years, but I can’t help but wonder now about the complicated philosophies of Dvořák and this adaptation of his work which place the work not just as a well-known music history class example to memorize, but a work that has juxtaposed good intention with possible misguided ideology.

The sheet music I found includes a detailed account of Dvořák’s intention behind the New World Symphony and the melody on which this vocal piece is based. This description, shown to the left, describes Dvořáks fascination with the native people of the US. In his own desire to see his home, he attempted to fully understand the Native American and black music traditions which showed the true roots of American culture.

I think, overall, the attempt of this work to show Dvorak’s intent shows in the written dialect on the words “I’m Jes’ goin home” and “Gwine to roam no more.” Clearly, Fisher’s adaptation attempts to look to Dvořák’s attempts to draw on black folk music. The music does say that the singer may omit the dialect, which shows that people of all backgrounds were encouraged to sing this music. We also know from the forward of this piece pictured above that Dvorak, while attempting to make an example of true American music, also drew on his own experiences. The spirit of his work was meant to be applicable to many people. In “Goin’ Home,” Fisher develops Dvořák’s yearning for his own home into a universal message of hope for anyone searching for home.

However, the message is pointedly not universal when it is directly associated with black folk music. Even more so, the white composer and arranger have not used an actual black folk tune but made one up – this causes confusion and leads people to believe that the song is originally a black folk tune. Instead of lifting up an already existing melody in the black folk tradition, Dvořák stereotyped his idealized version of folk music and missed an opportunity to showcase genuine, authentic folk music. While the attempt seemed earnest in its good intent, the execution remains slightly subpar.

We must also consider what it would have meant if he’d used a black folk melody. Would appropriating one have been much better? He was stuck between creating one on his own and using an existing one – both appropriation and creation would have contributed to the erasure of this culture in some form, though. As someone who was not part of the black folk tradition, it would have been impossible to find a way to authentically emulate these traditions without erasure. This brings up the question of whether or not he should have written this at all.

I hesitate to say he should not have. Whether that is simply because it is beautiful music or because there is some other argument that he contributed to American music in a way different than MacDowell (who contributed to a “vanishing Indians” idealogy), I cannot say.1 This piece, especially controversial given its dialect text, would be an excellent addition to our class exhibit, however. Since I own a personal copy, and we can give people a QR code that lets them access it online and peruse anytime, I think that it is an accessible source that many could use.

 

 

1 Daniel Blim, “MacDowell’s Vanishing Indians,” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Vancouver, BC, November 4, 2016.

William Arms Fisher’s “Goin’ home”: somehow a “Negro spiritual”

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This week while browsing the Sheet Music Consortium my eye was caught by a particular title: “Goin’ home: Negro spiritual from the largo of the New World Symphony, op. 95.” I was curious as to what this material could be – was the New World Symphony based on a spiritual?

William Arms Fisher

I was surprised to learn that this title was in fact invoking a song written to the music of the largo from Dvorak’s famous American symphony. The lyrics to “Goin’ home” were written and set to music by William Arms Fisher in 1922, after the premier of the “New World Symphony” in 1893. Fisher was a student of Dvorak’s at the National Conservatory, and later went on to become a music editor, historian, and songwriter. He wrote on the impact and importance of 18th and early 19th century American music, and also compiled anthologies of Irish songs and Negro spirituals. Fisher is however most well known for the setting of “Goin’ home” at hand.

In his forward to “Goin’ home,” Fisher writes about his inspiration for writing lyrics to go with the second movement of the New World Symphony:

“That the lyric opening theme of the Largo should spontaneously suggest the words “Goin’ home, Goin’ home” is natural enough, and that the lines that follow the melody should take the form of a negro spiritual accords with the genesis of the symphony.”

“Goin’ home” title page

In this statement by Fisher, as in the symphony as a whole, we see a blending of genres, a crossing of Dvorak’s European symphonic traditions with pastoral and folk-y American inspiration. Fisher believed that the homesick, almost tragic qualities of the English horn melody in the largo movement embodied Negro spirituals, which thus called him to interweave the spiritual with the symphony. However, is “Goin’ home” a Negro spiritual if Fisher wrote the lyrics and Dvorak wrote the music?

This brings up the question of authorship for me, and the author’s/composer’s intentions while writing the music. First of all, Fisher chose to write the lyrics in a dialect, which was a conscious decision on his part. It seems to me like an effort to be more authentic and true to the style in which he was writing, a style rooted in a tradition and experience he did not share. Fisher’s outsider and dangerously essentialized perspective of black people is shown here in the introduction to his anthology entitled “Negro spirituals.” He writes that black people were:

“Given an ingenuous native capacity for rhythmic musical expression, the gift of improvisation, a primitive but intense emotionalism, a condition of life that ranged from the most naïve light-heartedness to tragic somberness, and an utter dependence for consolation upon faith in invisible realities, often tinged with lingering elements from a barbaric past, and you have that truly unique product – the Spiritual with its background of torch-lit groves, swaying bodies and half-closed eyes.”

Sheet music to “Goin’ home”

In this quote Fisher throws one stereotype after another at his reader, while attempting to recognizing the greatness of the genre. So since the spiritual is, as Fisher asserts, “a truly unique product” then why did Fisher not have any qualms about writing music for this genre? Lastly, as I watch videos and listen to recordings of “Goin’ home” being performed, I am reminded of the commercial purposes that this setting of text to already established music serves. The vocal version of this piece increases its accessibility, and provides many more opportunities for performance and commercial consumption. Fisher builds on the success of Dvorak, in a time where it would’ve been prudent to expand the boundaries of this symphonic work.

Sources

  1. Beckerman, Michael. “The Real Value of Yellow Journalism: James Creelman and Antonín Dvorák.” Musical Quarterly 77, no. 4 (1993): 749. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/742357.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A44e9b3926e7a50b8f624e4eafb225c8b
  2. Dvorak, Antonin and New W. Symphony. 95 Adelaide: Cawthornes Ltd, 1922. (retrieved October 23, 2017). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-166692271/view?partId=nla.obj-166692390#page/n1/mode/1up
  3. Karl Kroeger. “Fisher, William Arms.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed October 24, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/0974
  4. “The Looking Glass.” The Crisis, February 1927, 210-11.
  5. “[Front Matter].” In Seventy Negro Spirituals, edited by William Arms Fisher, 1-42. Oropesa, Castilla-La Mancha: Oliver Ditson &, 1926. http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cdocument%7C3399955