VocalEssence
Skyward My People Rose:
Music of William Grant Still
There certainly has never been any question about William Grant Still’s standing in
Black music history, and hardly any justification for signaling him as a major
person to define American music. Further, one immediately claim his afro-American
symphony of 1930 as being the culmination of the aspirations of the Harlem Renaissance.
“elevating” the folkloric to the idealization of the concert world (this, despite
the rise of Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith by that time). Still grew up in the
legacy of the blues and jazz, never disdaining either, but reaching for the world
of the symphony and opera. His passion for the latter genre was frustrated in
what should have been a major breakthrough. Troubled island received it première
and only production during his life by the New York City Opera. It fate was
determined after only three performances in 1949 by a cabal of racist critics,
defying the audience enthusiasm and twenty-two curtain calls (The story is told
in the richly documented Just tell the story; Troubled island by Judith Anne Still
and Lisa M. Headlee – Flagstaff: The Master-Player Library, 2006).
The works heard on this CD, several for the very first time) come both before and
after that unfortunate event. First is his choral setting of Stephen Foster’s Swanee river.
The poignant cantata, And they lynched him on a tree, was written in 1940 to a
text by Catherine Garrison Chapin. For this performance, Brunelle has called on
the stellar forces of Hilda Harris, the late William Warfield, with the African
American chorus, Robert L. Morris’ Leigh Morris Chorale providing a sympathetic
counterpart to the singers of VocalEssence.
Miss Sally’s party is a ballet, the scenario provided by the composer’s
multi-gifted wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey. It centers around
mischievous boys who misbehave, failing to win the concluding cakewalk.
The last two works are performed by the conductor, now as organist. The pair
come from 1961 and 1963, and could well serve as meditative occasional pieces.
One feature that is in included on all of these recordings is the specification
of publishers (many of the Still works are available from William Grant Still
in Flagstaff, operated by the composer’s daughter, who has a virtual archive
of no end of materials related to all aspects of her father’s life and
works – jazz arrangements and recordings from the 1920s as well as film
scores from the early days of sound movies, when Still’s distinctive orchestral
sonorities established the Klangideal even for Russian films of the time).