Darker America

Hailed in his lifetime as the “Dean of African-American Composers,” William Grant Still began his musical career making arrangements for a Memphis ensemble headed by W. C. Handy. Following military service in World War I, he played as an oboist in the pit orchestra for Shuffle Along, by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle. Formal study ensued privately with George Chadwick, who urged him to seek an identifiably American voice, and Edgard Varèse, who promoted avant-garde proclivities. Black music and culture inspired his music from the mid-1920s through about 1940. By the mid-’30s his works on African-American themes drew national attention as unique contributions in an era of fervent musical Americanism.

Still composed his tone poem Darker America in 1924-25, and Varèse helped arrange its premiere at a high-profile concert of the International Composers’ Guild. Still’s first large-scale composition, it combines themes and rhythms derived from African-American music with some of the modernist sounds Varèse espoused. In a program note, he stated: “Darker America, as its title suggests, is representative of the American Negro. His serious side is presented and is intended to suggest the triumph of a people over their sorrows through fervent prayer. At the beginning the theme of the American Negro is announced by the strings in unison. Following a short development of this, the English horn announces the sorrow theme which is followed immediately by the theme of hope, given to muted brass accompanied by strings and woodwind.” These two themes skirmish, with sorrow getting the upper hand. “Then the prayer is heard (given to oboe); the prayer of numbed rather than anguished souls. Strongly contrasted moods follow, leading up to the triumph of the people near the end, at which point the three principal themes are combined.”

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
     Allegro con brio
     Largo
     Rondo: Allegro

Anyone writing a piano concerto in Vienna in the last decade of the 18th century did so in the shadow of the late lamented Mozart, several of whose concertos Beethoven had in his performance repertoire. Indeed, there is much that is Mozartian in his Piano Concerto No. 1, especially in sections that make prominent use of the trumpets, horns, and timpani that Mozart was similarly fond of using in C-major orchestral pieces. But on the whole, this concerto exhibits assertive originality. The first movement displays the subtlety of a profound musical intelligence, and connoisseurs can profitably investigate its structural niceties, particularly in the magical development section in its middle. The Largo is moody and contemplative, prefiguring such famous slow movements as that of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, which would follow within a few years. But it is in the finale that we glimpse the most unmistakably Beethovenian traits, including a boisterous sense of humor, an appetite for mixing high sophistication with less elevated references, and an abiding fondness for surprise.

The work struck its early listeners as very avant-garde. An anonymous review of a Berlin performance, published in 1804, was both appreciative and wary: “A new fortepiano concerto by Beethoven, provided with chromatic passages and enharmonic changes, occasionally to the point of bizarrerie, concluded the first part. … The first movement was splendidly worked out, but the modulations were far too excessive; the Adagio in A-flat major was an extremely pleasant piece, richly melodic, and was greatly embellished by the obbligato clarinet. The last movement, All’ Inglese, distinguished itself only by its unusual rhythms.” A contemporary piano method clarified that All’ Inglese (“in the English style”) “is for the most part of a very spirited character which often borders on the moderately comic.”

Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique
     Adagio—Allegro non troppo—Andante
       Allegro vivo—Andante come prima
       Andante mosso
     Allegro con grazia
     Allegro molto vivace
     Adagio lamentoso—Andante

Most symphonic subtitles are appended after the fact without the composer’s involvement. True to form, the name Pathétique (connoting “infused with pathos”) was attached after this work was first heard, but barely. Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest proposed it the day after the premiere, and the composer embraced it enthusiastically—for about 24 hours. Then he sent a note to his publisher asking that the name not be printed on the title page, a request the publisher ignored.

In any case, it was an improvement on the title that had identified the work at its premiere: Program Symphony. At the premiere, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov asked Tchaikovsky what the program was, to which Tchaikovsky replied that “there was one, of course, but he did not wish to announce it.” Months earlier, Tchaikovsky had told his nephew, Bob Davidov (to whom the symphony is dedicated), that the piece would have “a program of a kind that would remain an enigma to all …, [a] program saturated with subjective feeling.” He had his way: the exact program remains a mystery.

There are mysterious things in these pages: a symphony that emerges slowly out of nothingness; an ardent theme for strings that all but quotes the “Flower Song” from Bizet’s Carmen; allusions to Russian liturgical chant; a waltz in off-kilter 5/4 meter; a sinister march in a finale that finally fades away into nothingness. The audience at the premiere didn’t know what to make of it. Tchaikovsky died nine days after the Pathétique’s premiere, apparently the victim of cholera. Three weeks later, his final symphony received its second performance. “This time,” Rimsky- Korsakov wrote, “the public greeted it rapturously, and since that moment the fame of the symphony has kept growing and growing, spreading gradually over Russia and Europe.”