The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

You don’t have to know much about classical music to know that an awful lot of guff has been written about its ‘universal’ message and ‘worldwide’ appeal. If that is so, how come so many of its key figures are dead, white, and male (or, in snappier terms: male, pale, and stale)? For many younger audiences, the Beethovenian ideal of ‘universal brotherhood’ will not only seem archaically exclusive, but also suspiciously binary. Among those who have long been relegated to the sidelines of western art music – when not completely invisible/inaudible – are black composers and performing musicians. For all the starry exceptions – mainly singers of the stature of Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman – many have been neglected for far too long. The Guardian recently ran a fascinating profile of baritone Robert McFerrin (father of Bobby McFerrin), ‘the first Black man to sing a title role at the Met’ (Rigoletto in 1956); but when will some enterprising company make more widely available the recordings of Dean Dixon, whose posts included a notable period as principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1974?

In the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter protests, the need to address this systemic neglect is greater than ever. Yet even if the proportion of black musicians in European orchestras is still scandalously low, and cut-backs mean that a rounded music education is only affordable to the very comfortably well-off, there are at least signs that black ‘classical’ composers are belatedly beginning to win the recognition they deserve. The music of Florence Price (1887–1953) – the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major American orchestra (her First Symphony was played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933) – has been winning over more listeners in recent years, particularly since the release of her First and Fourth Symphonies by the Fort Smith Symphony on Naxos in 2019. Most recently, her long-lost, deeply atmospheric Piano Quintet in A minor features on the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective’s debut album on Chandos, while three of her violin pieces are included on the forthcoming album ‘Roots’ from Itzhak Perlman protégé Randall Goosby. ‘Roots' includes music by two of the better-known among black composers, Croydon-born Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) and African-American William Grant Still (1895–1978), whose engaging Suite for Violin and Piano also appears on the stunning 2018 album ‘Blues Dialogues’ from violinist Rachel Barton Pine on the Chicago-based Cedille label. Both Barton Pine and Cedille have done much to raise the profile of black composers, and ‘Blues Dialogues’ is as good a place as any to beginning exploring the many riches on offer, with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s dazzlingly virtuosic Blue/s Forms, Noel Da Costa’s similarly demanding Set of Dances, Dolores White’s Blues Dialogues and Errollyn Wallen’s Woogie Boogie all making strong impressions. (Classical music ‘purists’ may blanche, but art music has shown a perpetual willingness to embrace, and develop from, more popular idioms ever since the middle ages.)

A more recent Cedille release is just as compelling: baritone Will Liverman’s album ‘Dreams of a New Day’ features songs ranging from the Five Songs of Laurence Hope by Henry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949, best known for introducing Dvořák to Black American music) right up to the present day. Liverman’s rich-toned, multi-faceted singing is a joy from start to finish, but most affecting of all is the work he commissioned from Shawn E. Okpebholo, Two Black Churches, which sets poems by Dudley Randall and Marcus Amaker commemorating two fatal attacks on black churches: the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young schoolgirls were killed, and the 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which claimed nine lives. This is music that goes straight to the heart of the matter, hard-hitting in its emotional impact, combining fragility, broadly tonal appeal, moments of explosive edginess, and an uncompromising social message.

Another recent vocal release shines the spotlight on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (still, more than a century after his death, known almost exclusively for his once wildly-popular choral setting of Longfellow’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast). ‘Heart & Hereafter’ presents a generous selection of his songs, radiantly sung by soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn with superb support from pianist Simon Lepper, and including the Six Sorrow Songs (to texts by Christina Rossetti), and the seven African Romances (rather fanciful, as Coleridge-Taylor never visited the continent, yet undeniably inventive and atmospheric). Throughout, the composer’s sure melodic gift is abundantly evident: maybe now is the time for someone to explore the music of his daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903–1998)?

At the contemporary end of the spectrum, the Chineke! Orchestra (founded by double bass player Chi-chi Nwanoku to offer top-class playing opportunities to Black and Minority Ethnic musicians) has released ‘Spark Catchers’ on the NMC label, ranging from American-infused neoclassicism (Errollyn Wallen’s Concerto Grosso) to a distinctive slant on minimalism in James Wilson’s The Green Fuse. But the stand-out items (for this listener at least) are Daniel Kidane’s Dream Song (a thoroughly modern setting of Martin Luther King’s historic ‘I have a dream’ speech), sung with mesmerising nobility by baritone Roderick Williams, and Hannah Kendall’s splendidly vibrant orchestral work The Spark Catchers, inspired by Lemn Sissay’s eponymous poem. For a more rounded selection of Wallen’s music, including such substantial works as the Cello Concerto and Hunger, try ‘Photography’ (also on NMC), which amply demonstrates why she has been hailed as one of today’s most imaginative and free-spirited composers.

Classical music, if it is to flourish and develop, needs to be so much more than a sonic museum to an immutable roster of dead white males, a cultural nostalgia-trip for those of advancing years or privileged upbringing. All the music mentioned here matters not because it ticks some imaginary boxes on a PC checklist, but because it is compelling, persuasive and immersive in its own right, regardless of class, gender, ethnicity or belief. It deserves to be embraced in with a generous and welcoming spirit. With such a wide array of talent out there, and so little still recorded, we can only hope to give a glimpse here, but we hope it will encourage you to explore these too-long-neglected avenues with renewed urgency.

The Albums (click on catalogue number for link):
- American Quintets (Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective) CHAN20224
- Roots (Randall Goosby) 4851664
- Blues Dialogues (Rachel Barton Pine) CDR90000182
- Dreams of a New Day (Will Liverman) CDR90000200
- Heart & Hereafter (Elizabeth Llewellyn) ORC100164
- Spark Catchers (Chineke! Orchestra) NMCD250
- Wallen - Photography (Orchestra X) NMCD221