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Forgotten Masterpiece Friday: William Levi Dawson, Negro Folk Symphony
It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
The first three African-American composers to have symphonies performed by major orchestras emerged in surprisingly rapid succession. Just two years after William Grant Still's "Afro-American" Symphony No. 1 made its debut on the concert stage in 1930, Florence Price followed with her own 1st Symphony. The third composer was William Levi Dawson (1899-1990), whose Negro Folk Symphony was played by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1934. Dawson eventually gained a reputation as a choral composer and conductor, which largely overshadowed his own instrumental music.
Dawson was born in 1899, the first of seven children in a poor family in rural Alabama. His father, a former slave, was an illiterate day laborer. At the age of 13, he ran away from home to study music as a pre-college student at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), paying his tuition in part by working as the school's music librarian and in part through farm work. He learned to play most of the instruments in the orchestra while in high school, and his job in the music library allowed him plenty of time to study scores. As a result, he began his conducting career early. While an undergraduate at Washburn College in Kansas, he supported himself by directing high school bands. While completing a master's degree in composition at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, he won several prestigious competitions as a band director. In 1930, he returned to the Tuskegee Institute as director of its School of Music, a position he held for 25 years. During that time, he personally directed the Tuskegee Institute Choir, making it one of the nation's best collegiate choral ensembles. Most of his compositions were written for the Tuskegee Institute Choir and many are still regularly performed today. After Dawson retired from the Tuskegee Institute in 1956, he continued to be a sought-after conductor for choral festivals and workshops around the world.
The Negro Folk Symphony was one of his few important instrumental works. Following the Romantic nationalist music that had come into vogue first in Europe and increasingly in the Americas, Dawson composed with the late Romantic harmonic and orchestral palette, while weaving blues scales and melodies from African-American folk songs and spirituals throughout the symphony. It received great acclaim and was performed more than thirty times across the United States before the end of 1934; one newspaper review called it "the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has been so far achieved." But the Negro Folk Symphony's main effect on Dawson's career seems to have been to draw attention to his choral music. Though Dawson became famous, the symphony became an occasionally-performed footnote in his biography. In 1952, after returning from a tour of West Africa, Dawson revised the symphony to include more African rhythms, writing that he wanted to re-introduce "the missing elements that were lost when Africans came into bondage outside their homeland." The revision resulted in a handful of performances and recordings, but nothing resembling the sensation that greeted its premiere; it was only after 2010 that the symphony began to see a real revival.
The first three African-American composers to have symphonies performed by major orchestras emerged in surprisingly rapid succession. Just two years after William Grant Still's "Afro-American" Symphony No. 1 made its debut on the concert stage in 1930, Florence Price followed with her own 1st Symphony. The third composer was William Levi Dawson (1899-1990), whose Negro Folk Symphony was played by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1934. Dawson eventually gained a reputation as a choral composer and conductor, which largely overshadowed his own instrumental music.
Dawson was born in 1899, the first of seven children in a poor family in rural Alabama. His father, a former slave, was an illiterate day laborer. At the age of 13, he ran away from home to study music as a pre-college student at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), paying his tuition in part by working as the school's music librarian and in part through farm work. He learned to play most of the instruments in the orchestra while in high school, and his job in the music library allowed him plenty of time to study scores. As a result, he began his conducting career early. While an undergraduate at Washburn College in Kansas, he supported himself by directing high school bands. While completing a master's degree in composition at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, he won several prestigious competitions as a band director. In 1930, he returned to the Tuskegee Institute as director of its School of Music, a position he held for 25 years. During that time, he personally directed the Tuskegee Institute Choir, making it one of the nation's best collegiate choral ensembles. Most of his compositions were written for the Tuskegee Institute Choir and many are still regularly performed today. After Dawson retired from the Tuskegee Institute in 1956, he continued to be a sought-after conductor for choral festivals and workshops around the world.
The Negro Folk Symphony was one of his few important instrumental works. Following the Romantic nationalist music that had come into vogue first in Europe and increasingly in the Americas, Dawson composed with the late Romantic harmonic and orchestral palette, while weaving blues scales and melodies from African-American folk songs and spirituals throughout the symphony. It received great acclaim and was performed more than thirty times across the United States before the end of 1934; one newspaper review called it "the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has been so far achieved." But the Negro Folk Symphony's main effect on Dawson's career seems to have been to draw attention to his choral music. Though Dawson became famous, the symphony became an occasionally-performed footnote in his biography. In 1952, after returning from a tour of West Africa, Dawson revised the symphony to include more African rhythms, writing that he wanted to re-introduce "the missing elements that were lost when Africans came into bondage outside their homeland." The revision resulted in a handful of performances and recordings, but nothing resembling the sensation that greeted its premiere; it was only after 2010 that the symphony began to see a real revival.