Q...Please tell us about one of the earliest important figures in American music history, Harry T. Burleigh...
de Lerma... I think Harry T Burleigh was extraordinary. He was born after the mid part of the 19th Century. He was a contemporary of Scott Joplin... Burleigh was certainly exposed to ragtime and other popular music of the time. But Burleigh had a different orientation.
He had grown up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and, as the story goes, one snowy night he was attracted to the sounds of music coming from a woman's home. He had his ear up to the window, and the woman of the house could tell that he was just a small boy who loved music. She dressed him up as if he were a servant, so that he could come into the home and listen to the music firsthand. At this gathering, was the mother of composer Edward MacDowell. MacDowell was, at that time, associated with the National Conservatory of Music in NY.
She made arrangements for Burleigh to gain admission to the Conservatory. Burleigh got there just about the same time Mrs. Thurber [who ran the school] invited [composer Antonin] Dvorak to take over the management of it.
Dvorak was asked in 1893 about whether this country would ever produce a fully indigenous music. And Dvorak's comment was that it would. He said the music would come from our Blackand Native American heritage.
Dvorak was very excited to meet Burleigh. Burleigh did not study formally with Dvorak, but they did spend quite a bit of time together.
After graduating from conservatory, Burleigh flirted with Minstrelsy-- but instead, he became more involved with things more reflective of dignity. He was a very distinguished individual-- White haired, wax mustache-- trilled his R's...
In the first decade of the century, Burleigh secured a position with [the music publishers] Maxwell, then with [another publishing firm] Ricordi. In his position as music editor, Burleigh was in a position to see that some of the music he wrote down-- music from the Black church-- got published.
Burleigh was one of the first to take the spiritual and adapt it as art song--these are still some of the spirituals that we know best today--like Deep River.
Burleigh was engaged to sing in Boston, performing the work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. One piece he did was a Cantata based on a Longfellow text. The work became one of the three most popular choral works in England, next to the [Handel's] Messiah and Elijah.
In 1904, the African Methodist Episcopal church in Washington brought Coleridge-Taylor for a performance of his Hiawatha's Wedding Feast--performed by a very distinguished group, including players who had played with John Philip Sousa, and some of the best singers from local churches--
When many in the music world became aware of Burleigh's enormous talent, it was their first opportunity to know of the genius of Black talent quite apart from ragtime, and popular forms. I consider it to be a sign of the birth of a particularly American musical consciousness.
Burleigh attracted the attention of J.P. Morgan, who hired him as the music director of his church. He was a soloist there for 50 years, and performed at J.P. Morgan's funeral. He also served for thirty-five years at the Temple Emanuel in New York, and, if you can imagine, was known for singing the spiritual Deep River there in Hebrew.
I've met some people who heard Burleigh sing. In fact, he lived until 1949-- and there are some recordings of his voice. (Ed's Note: You can hear Burleigh's voice as part of Robert Winter's magnificent CD-ROM about Dvorak's
de Lerma... R. Nathaniel Dett might be the next to discuss. His family was from the Baltimore area. Avoiding slavery, they had gotten on the underground railroad, and ended up in Canada, where there was a large Black population.
Dett went to Oberlin [College, in Ohio] and there he studied piano, and composition. While he was there he heard a string quartet --the Kneisel Quartet--perform the American Quartet that Dvorak had written. I see only Dvorak in these works, but Dett sees American influence. He was reminded of spirituals. And so, he dedicated the rest of his live toward preservation of these spirituals. His settings reflect his work on campuses, and specific choral requirements of the groups he worked with. His most important connection was at the Hampton Institute, 1913-1931, where he established the musical reputation of this school The Hampton choir toured US and Europe.
Dett met Nadia Boulanger, in Europe, who didn't want to take him on. She said she had nothing that she could teach him he didn't already know.
Probably one of his most famous works is a piano suite called In the Bottoms. This attracted the attention of Percy Grainger and others. Last movement called Juba. It's a folkloric dance-- this was idealized by Dett in the finale. Despite the fact that Dett was really a choral musician, this work became popular in the repertoire of all Black pianists, all the way through Natalie Hinderas--- probably she was the first person who recorded the suite, in 1970.
Dett was incredibly thirsty for education. Throughout his life, he found so much time for additional study.
de Lerma ...Actually, the period between 1968 and 1970 was one of tremendous excitement. We were acknowledging the fact that Black music was older than anybody had really documented. And the primary thrust was with regard to concert music. We began to find out who the composers were in the past, get our hands on the music, see what music had been published.
I would not say this was the first time we had an assemblage of individuals that were concerned with Black music, but first time with so much support. I had been longtime friend of T.J. Anderson. He was a man of extraordinary intellect, and power. We had met early in the 60s in Oklahoma, and kept in touch through the years. Through T.J., I met many other individuals, like Hale Smith, and Ulysses Kay, and so I identified as many of the figures as possible to bring them together in a conference, to address-- where do we stand with regard to research, repertoire, attitudes of composers and students. We attracted an enormous amount of attention.
Gunther Schuller was also tremendously important. And so I invited him to come as my guest. But he was much too busy and told me he could not get away. Much to my surprise, Gunther showed up, and was very helpful, and provocative. It was, of course, a great honor to have William Grant Still there, as well as his wife Verna Arvey-- That added all the more to the dramatic excitement of the time.
What we identified was important, even though some ideas are now rather dated. TJ made the comment that it didn't matter whether the composer was good or bad, just that they were Black, while others strongly disagreed. There were two ideas that emerged-- one was that if you were a Black composer there were ideas you had to address and things you needed to say. Another faction said that race shouldn't matter at all in the actual music. We then began to go a little further, with more comprehensive evaluations, seeking trends and tendencies. The entire experience was stimulating, influential, and helped us establish some better understanding of our traditions. The conference took place in 1969, right on the heels of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
[Composer] Hale Smith, who has a strong, charming sense of his own identity-- says his music doesn't belong on Black-only events--that his music is good enough that it should be performed not just in February.
I certainly doubt that any Black musical activity in the past few decades has taken place without Smith. He says that what he likes best is that the audience finds out he's Black when he stands up to take a bow after the work has been performed.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a matter of objecting to any philosophy laid on in advance.
de Lerma ...I have a great deal of concern about sociological aspects of music. I see efforts, great energy, and potential spent by composers who try to step outside what they see as restrictions.
When it's a success, it's an enormous victory. When not, one has to have compassion.
The ability to secure results even while battling restrictions is wonderful. Take James P. Johnson. He was an incredible piano player. Very fertile, creative imagination. I'm thinking of Beethoven, who really wanted to be accepted as a major figure, and wouldn't be unless he wrote opera. With Johnson, he was certainly not repudiating his career in more popular forms, but he always wanted to find the opportunity to write extended works.
I feel badly about Johnson, when the time came for him to settle back home in Brooklyn, he tried to dedicate attention to these projects, but then his health began to fail, and he had some strokes. In his lifetime, the extended works not published and not recorded.
In the case of Scott Joplin, his opera Treemonisha was not played until 1971.
He was, of course, famous for his rags. Rags are character pieces in just the same tradition as Polonaises of Chopin or the waltzes of Schubert. I'm sorry Joplin destroyed his third opera, and destroyed his symphony. He wanted to do more than society allowed him---
As for Duke Ellington, his suites, and sacred works should be better known. And when he died, his opera Queenie was left unfinished.
de Lerma ...There is still a kind of resistance, rooted in remnants of racism, rooted in cultural inferiority not to accept anything that smacks of jazz as worthy of serious consideration. There were even problems in that regard with [George Gershwin's opera] Porgy and Bess--
I feel that America is already aware of the contribution of Blacks, whether we're discussing music that actually comes from a Black pen or not. And still some Americans feel that to admit a music's "American-ness," puts it in category that is lesser. That kind of concern is a problem. I rejoice in ethnic expressions. I am very concerned about the nature of German, Italian, French music, and so forth. And I think many American music listeners-- certainly those who have been academically trained-- think that as soon as something musical is identified as American, there is something wrong with it.
For American listeners, I would recommend a few composers of today-- for instance, Adolphus Hailstork, Daniel Roumain from the University of Michigan, William Banfield, who teaches in Bloomington.
This is a matter of exposure. And the realization that music doesn't exist for the sole purpose of entertaining.
Let's face it, when you're speaking of African Americans, you're speaking of people of mixed race Take Roque Cordero-- he comes from Panama. In the Black Composers series [of recordings originally on the CBS label] -- he said "Why are you calling me a Black composer? I am African, Indian, Spanish. All of my life, I've been dedicated to incorporating all three elements of heritage."
For some further illumination of these issues, you might visit the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University in Bloomington.