>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:04 [ Silence ] ^M00:00:22

>> Nicholas Brown: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Library of congress, my name is Nicholas Brown and I'm a music specialist here in the music division and one of the producers of the Library's concert series. We're so pleased to have you here tonight for a lecture by Jean Snyder on Harry T. Burleigh. And Jean of course has recently published a book on Mr. Burleigh and will be getting into all kinds of wonderful information  about his music and his impact which has been immense on American music.

Just a bit about this evening and our concert  series, the lecture will be about an hour, there will be a Q & A period for the Q & A we ask that you wait for a microphone to be brought after you've raised your hand because we are filming the event for our digital collections, the video will go out on the libraries website, loc.gov. And also on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/library of congress. Feel free to subscribe to video and email alerts on any of those platforms to get all kinds of wonderful content from events that perhaps you aren't able to attend.

Following the conclusion of the talk there will be an opportunity to purchase copies of  Jean's book which are available over there courtesy of the Libraries shop they are at a discounted price of $28, which is really exciting so thank the library for that. And Jean will be signing books at the table just over there at the conclusion. This event is being presented as part of the libraries African-American history month celebrations. You can visit our online portal for African-American history month which is africanamericanhistorymonth.gov.

It is a partnership between the Library of  Congress, the Smithsonian and the National Archives as well as other entities within the federal government.  And just a word about our collections and Harry T. Burleigh in the collections, we have a huge amount of his music, a lot of it came to us through a copy write deposit and if you visit our website  loc.gov in the top search box you can type in his name. And you will get all kinds of wonderful resources.

Some of those resources are under copy write so you might only be able to pull them up in full high resolution onsite here at the library but definitely check those out, there's some great resources and a lot of wonderful articles written in conjunction with some of the sheet music on there. And if you are working with our collections at a distance you can contact the reference librarians any time, loc.gov and then in the top menu click down on the menu and you'll get an Ask a Librarian option. 

So if you need to for example get a scan of something for a paper or you want a frame, a picture of Mr. Burleigh you are totally welcome to connect with our staff to figure that out. A couple of other exciting events coming up, we have one of our Library of Congress jazz scholars appearing for the first time this season on March 1, that is Ingrid Monson who is a distinguished jazz scholar and is an acting Dean up at Harvard right now. And then coming up later in the spring we have a bunch of wonderful other string quartet performances, jazz saxophonist Steve Coleman has been commissioned by the library and we'll be premiering a new piece of his in April. 

And then Ambrose Akinmusire who is a wonderful trumpeter will be performing in May on the 20 and he is a recipient of the Thelonious Monk award and prize which is a big deal. So he's going to be really great to hear. And stay tuned to our websites for some really cool event announcements coming up. The two places to check are loc.gov/concerts, you can also visit our Facebook page, Library of Congress performing arts. 

If you just type in Library of Congress you'll find us on there. All of our programs are free and they are made possible by private contributions to the Library. So if you're interested in learning more about our friends of music program you can visit our website again or visit loc.gov/philanthropy to learn more about making tax deductible contributions. 

Because without you there would be none of these types of programming here, so we appreciate your investment in the community in making these events possible. Without further ado we'll welcome up Dr. Snyder and she'll introduce herself. ^M00:04:13 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:19

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Thank you very much, Nick, he's been great to work with in planning this event. Good evening, I'm honored to be here with you, to tell the story of Harry T. Burleigh. Distinguished baritone, art song composer, music editor and pioneer arranger of spirituals. I'm especially grateful to have been invited to speak at the Library of congress where I spent many hours on numerous occasions exploring the treasury of the music divisions resources of sheet music, music journals, recordings, collections of personal papers, of composers.

And being guided by the wisdom of librarians like the legendary but now retired, Wayne Shirley. Libraries are my favorite places and this library is the best of all. Now before I go further I need to introduce  a couple of very special guests. Burleigh's great grandson, Harry T. Burleigh, III is with us. ^M00:05:17 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:22 and let me also introduce Dewan Reese who is the Music and Performing Arts curator at the new Smithsonian Museum of African-American history and culture. ^M00:05:32 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:34

And Harry's sister Marie is on her way but stuck in traffic so when she comes I'll be sure to acknowledge her too. Exactly 100 years ago in the 1916-1917 concert season Harry T. Burleigh's art song arrangements of spirituals literally hit the charts. Critics in New York and Boston reported that Burleigh's arrangement of Deep River was the song most often performed in recitals that season. In addition, to advertisements by his publisher in a musical America that listed singers who were performing it.

The cover of one 1917 edition of Deep River featured the names of 21 famous singers who were singing it. President Woodrow Wilson's daughter Margaret sang it, composer Dudley Buck's voice student sang it, African-American tenors Roland Hayes and Sidney Woodward sang it. Deep River was one of 14 Burleigh spiritual arrangements published that season bringing the powerful songs created by African-Americans during the dark days of slavery to the concert stage and to choir lofts around the country and far beyond our American shores.

Today 100 years later we are still singing Harry T. Burleigh's solo and choral arrangements of spirituals. You can check them on YouTube and you can also check his ever expanding discography, you'll find one on my website, harrytburleigh.com. Who was Harry T. Burleigh and why are the spirituals important. First of all as I'm sure you know, Harry T. Burleigh was born 150 years ago in Erie, Pennsylvania on December 2, 1866. 

We've just been celebrating his sesquicentennial. He was a third generation free man whose grandfather had been a slave in Summerset County, Maryland. And with his grandfather, Hamilton Waters, begins what we know of the story of Harry T. Burleigh. It is a quintessential American story one that can tell us and our children more about who we are and who we can be. What was it that prepared Harry T. Burleigh to move with such distinction, first as a baritone soloist in his home town much in demand.

Then at age 25 to study at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City and as a singer throughout the eastern seaboard and as far west as Minneapolis. Then nationally and internationally as a composer of art songs. Songs written for a trained singer, secular songs, usually accompanied by piano. As a highly respected music editor at the New York office of the Recording Music Company and finally as a pioneering arranger and singer of and esteemed lecturer on the spirituals. 

A vast repertoire of music that has generated many of Americas most vibrant music traditions. What was it that equipped Burleigh to move far beyond his African-American community in Erie. First of all there was no question that it was his family who had nurtured him, who supported him in moving toward the fulfillment of his impossible dreams. Who demonstrated a determined love for education and a staunch moral integrity as well as a love for music. 

They endowed him by inheritance with rare musical gifts, more specifically his grandfather Hamilton Waters who purchased his freedom for $50 and his mother's freedom for $5 in 1832. His mother, Elizabeth Waters Burleigh Elmendorf who graduated from Avery college in Pittsburgh in 1855. Burleigh credited her with keeping him focused on his highest goals. 

His Aunt Louisa Waters who paid for his first piano lessons and in whom he confided when as a teenager his suffered taunts and bullying from his classmates. His father, Henry Thacker Burleigh, a union Navy veteran who in 1871 was the first African-American to serve on a jury in Erie County. His step-father John Edgar Elmendorf also a veteran of the Union Navy who modeled for him and active involvement in public life. 

Including directly challenging the republican establishment that betrayed it's promises to the man who had delivered Erie's black vote in the election of 1888. Burleigh's grandfather, Hamilton Waters was said to have an exceptionally melodious voice and here you see him with two year old Harry and 4 year old Reginald. This is about 1869. He shared with Harry and his brother Reginald the precious heritage of the songs and storied created by the slaves. 

In later years Burleigh often referred to his grandfather and as his father died when he was only 6 years old it is likely that his grandfather and his step-father influenced him more profoundly. Much more could be said about Burleigh's family but let's move to the musical soundscape that shaped Burleigh's early life. He commented that the first music he ever heard was the rumble of trains and the songs of stevedores. 

It was a short walk from his home on 3rd street to the docks at the north end of state street and the train tracks that ran along the bay front. Long before Burleigh worked as a pantry man on the lake steamers, he heard the singing of dock workers and  stevedores, many of whom were from the south. Did he hear jubilees or spirituals on the docks as well as well as from his grandfather and his mother? 

Perhaps this is where he first heard the roust about sound, Oh, Rock Me Julie, which he arranged for publication in 1914. Burleigh said I don't recall when I first started singing, it seems I've been doing so since infancy. The whole family was very musical and they often had family concerts in their home. The first newspaper accounts of Burleigh singing were as part of a family quartet. 

He described his mother as a natural singer and credited her as his first music teacher. He learned spirituals from her as well as from his grandfather. In his mother Burleigh saw a love for art music combined with an appreciation of black music at a time when many educated African-Americans wanted to forget those reminders of slavery. Burleigh's life-long commitment to church music and to an episcopal of mode of worship was nurtured at the episcopal cathedral of St. Paul where he and his family were taken in as members just a few years after the Civil War. 

Burleigh attended St. Paul's on Sunday mornings with his mother. The congregation was known for its fine singing and he was a charter member of the St. Paul men and boys' choir, you see him in the third row at the right and you'll also see two young soprano's African-Americans, Charles Fisher and Charles Franklin. The congregation was known for its fine singing, I said that.

A survey of the hymns, anthems and liturgical responses chosen by the organist and choir director with whom Burleigh sang shows that his years at St. Paul's introduced him to composers of church music such as Palestrina, Tallis, Hydn, Beethoven, Voreth, Stainer and many others. Given the importance of Burleigh's role in preserving and promoting the spirituals, it is important to know when and where he heard and sang them in Erie. 

Erie's newspapers seldom recorded performances of spirituals by black citizens, though this main mean that they rarely sang them publicly rather than they didn't sing them at all. The St. James A.M.E. church was established in 1874 and though Burleigh and  his mother attended St. Paul's the families social life centered at St. James.  The early leaders of the African, Methodist, Episcopal or A.M.E. church wanted their members to demonstrate their ability to move into more enlightened American culture.

And they did not encourage the use of the songs, the cornfield ditties, as Bishop Payne called them. Created by their unschooled ancestors. However the folks of St. James did sing spirituals occasionally at fund raising events. Burleigh's grandfather was a lifelong member of the Himrod Mission which offered instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic as well as Bible instruction. 

One place we know Burleigh sang spirituals was in the choir at the Himrod Mission where he led his blind grandfather on Sunday afternoons. Burleigh would have heard several of the groups of Jubilee singers that proliferated from the 1870's on. The success in the early 1870's of the Fisk jubilee singers in raising money for their Nashville School inspired many imitators who raised money for their black schools in the south. 

Jubilee performances were announced in the Erie newspapers along with vaudeville, minstrel, popular theater and opera troops coming to town. Black performers were not allowed to stay in local hotels so black families provided hospitality. And it was common for travelling musicians to perform at a reception or gathering after the concert. Burleigh would have heard and no doubt met some of the finest black singers of his time before he left for New York City. 

When the New Orleans University jubilee singers came to Erie in May 1888 Burleigh joined the troop. Travelling with them until they returned to Erie in December. So Burleigh was familiar with the diverse repertoire presented by the touring jubilee singers. Jubilee songs, sacred songs, secular plantation songs, alongside ballads and power songs. Burleigh's fine voice was discovered in elementary school and in his late teens while he was attending high school.

While he was also taking business courses at Clark's Business College, he was increasingly in demand for solos and ensembles at church and community events. We know Burleigh as a singer  but he gained proficiency on the guitar, the violin, the bass violin and the timpani as well. A survey of the Erie Morning Dispatch and the Cleveland Gazette a black newspaper founded in 1883, shows that by the time Burleigh left Erie in 1892 he was considered one of the finest classical singers in the city. 

In addition to singing in the men and boys' choir at St. Paul's he was a paid soloist at Park Presbyterian church, First Presbyterian church and the Hebrew Synagogue. By 1890 his solo repertoire had become quite sophisticated including opera arias in addition to German leader and ballads and art songs by  European and American composers. 

In September 1891 Burleigh again left Erie to join a jubilee troop. Frederick Louden from Ravenna, Ohio was now manager of the Fisk Jubilee singers. Who had just returned from a six year tour abroad. Louden recruited Burleigh who stopped in Cleveland to visit friends. But Burleigh's Erie fans didn't want to let him go. The Pastor and congregation at the first Presbyterian Church sent a telegram urging him to decline the flattering offer to join the Fisk tour. They made their plea irresistible by raising his salary. 

Burleigh aborted his trip to Ravenna and returned to Erie but only a few months later the opportunity to audition at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City proved even more compelling and now offer from Erie Presbyterian's could hold him back. The National Conservatory of Music was founded by the indomitable Jeanette Therber and she needs her own biography. 

Trained at the Paris Conservatory where talented French musicians received the best music education regardless of their ability to pay. Therber believed young American musicians deserved the same opportunity. American singers and composers should not have to travel to Europe to learn their craft. They should receive the best possible music education here where they could find their own distinctively American voices. 

Burleigh was one of 200 applicants for four tuition scholarships for the artists course at the conservatory. Which would prepare them for professional performing careers and he was awarded one of the four scholarships. Burleigh quickly took his place as one of the best students at the conservatory. His music history teacher, Henry Theophilus Finck, music editor of the New York Evening Post, reported that Burleigh was the best student in music history he ever had.

He had trained as a stenographer at the Clark Business College and he copied his lectures down verbatim in shorthand. Therber had gathered a stellar faculty and Burleigh's accomplishments as a student paved the way for many opportunities throughout his career. For example his counter point teacher, Max Spicher [phonetic] was instrumental in his being hired in 1900 at the wealthy Temple Emanuel where he sang for 25 years. 

Even faculty members who didn't actually teach Burleigh, such as organ teacher Horatio Parker remined his friends and supporters. Burleigh didn't study cello with Victor Herbert but in 1914 Herbert invited him to be one of the founding members of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. 

^M00:20:06

But of course the most consequential connection Burleigh made at the conservatory was with Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. Who arrived in late September to be the director as Burleigh was beginning his second semester at the conservatory. Two faculty members published the erroneous report that Burleigh studied composition with Dvorak. As Burleigh later explained he was not advanced enough to be in Dvorak's composition class. 

But when Dvorak heard him sing he invited Burleigh to come to the apartment where he and his family lived to sing the plantation songs and spirituals he'd learned from his grandfather. Burleigh would sit down at the Steinway piano, loaned by William Steinway whose store was nearby. And accompanying himself would sing the songs of the slaves.

The music in which the composer was keenly interested. Dvorak listened intently and when struck by a distinctive note he would jump up and stop Burleigh to demand is that really the way the slaves sang it? But Dvorak was interested not only in the distinctive characteristics of the music, Burleigh said he asked hundreds of questions about the lives of the slaves that created it.

He urged Burleigh to give those melodies to the world and this mandate would eventually become a primary mission for Burleigh. Burleigh was a music librarian of the conservatory orchestra, directed by Dvorak. And he often accompanied the composer on his jaunts through the city and to the shipyards and the railway yards which Dvorak loved to visit. 

Beautiful penmanship was stressed in his business training and Burleigh's superb manuscript writing made him an invaluable assistant. He helped to copy the orchestral parts for the premier of the New World Symphony performed in manuscript before it was published. And this is an example of his manuscript writing, this is a song that was dedicated to Sophie Braslau, here she is. I found that at the Boston Public Library.

Dvorak believed in the intrinsic value of the music of ordinary Czech people. He had used traditional Bohemian songs and dances in his compositions. Now Dvorak was to fulfill Jeanette Therber's intention that the conservatory would help American musicians find their American voice. As John c. Tibbets observed in his 1998 essay the missing title page, Dvorak and the American National Song and this is a long quote. 

Quote, Dvorak's American adventure was fraught with significant and controversy. The most modest of mean he was himself a preacher of contradictions. Born a Czech villager, a minority figure in a German dominated musical establishment. Dvorak became a cosmopolitan artist fettered in all the musical capitals of Europe, Russia and America. Many of his countrymen accused him of turning his back on his own roots.

And conversely the German musical establishment criticized him for his inordinate employment of folk idioms in his music. The truth is he lived in both worlds exploiting the idioms of his own culture in a vocabulary befitting the academic or classical style. He was precisely the right person to assume the leadership of the national conservatory, end of quote.

And we might add the precisely the right mentor for Harry T. Burleigh. Dvorak modeled a way to live in two worlds. How to succeed in the world of western European influenced art music while introducing his own African derived music heritage into that world. In W.E.B. Du Boas' memorable phrase, Burleigh would ever feel his tunis [phonetic]. Even though in much of his career he worked within the white music establishment, Burleigh's goal was always to be a worthy representative of his race. 

Dvorak made music history in May 1893 just after he had finished composing this New World Symphony. By telling an interviewer that he found in the music of African-Americans quote, all that is needed for an American school of music, end quote. As you can imagine Burleigh's comments were extremely controversial, but for Burleigh and other African-American musicians his words were electrifying.

In August 1894 several months after he had been hired as baritone soloist at St. George's Episcopal church on Stuveysant Square where he sang from more than 50 years. Burleigh and Paul Bolin another African-American student were appointed to teach a new cohort of black students who were admitted to the conservatory. Burleigh taught voice and soul-phage [phonetic]. 

By this time as the Chicago Observer reported Burleigh was well-known in the best sets read, elite black communities of New York city and Brooklyn as well as Philadelphia, Washington and other eastern cities. He was becoming known not only for his singing but also for his compositions. Burleigh's first published composition was a simple Christmas song for junior choir published in 1896 by St. George's.

In 1898 his first set of three art songs and so began Burleigh's little known, but significant contribution to American music. His first art songs we're published by G. Shirmer but in 1902 William Maxwell became Burleigh's primary publisher. By 1903 when German contralto Earnestine Schumann Heink made Mammy's Lil' Baby part of her repertoire, more singers were singing and recording Burleigh's songs. 

And I wanted you to see this cover because Louise Alston Burleigh who wrote the lyrics was Burleigh's wife. I'd like you to hear Tenor Richard Crooks sing Burleigh's 1904 setting of the wedding song, O Perfect Love. ^M00:26:42 [ Background noise ] ^M00:26:48 [ Music ] ^M00:27:57 From 1912 when William Maxwell's brother George became the New York representative of G. Ricordi and Company based Milan, Italy Recording became Burleigh's publisher. 

George Maxwell also hired Burleigh as a music editor, this securing him extraordinary access to publication of his music. For years Burleigh's songs made up a significant section of the Ricordi vocal catalogue. He also facilitated publication of music by other black composers. Jester Harrison told me that he and other younger composers would bring their music to the Ricordi office for Burleigh's suggestions.

Harrison said he always had time for us. One of the strongest supporters of Burleigh's work was A. Walter Kramer, the music reviewer of the Journal Musical America. Kramer wrote overwhelmingly positive reviews of Burleigh's songs but he proclaimed that gospel of high culture, calling Burleigh to ascend it's heights by writing serious art songs rather than waste his talent in writing the love ballads that singers often used as encores.

Burleigh continued to write some lighter ballad style songs but many of his later songs reflected his conscious movement from ballads to the more serious art songs. In 1914 Burleigh's first song cycle, Saracen songs was published. This was an example of Burleigh's interest in what was called orientalism. A set of 7 songs with lyrics set in the middle eastern desert. The following year Ricordi published five songs by Lawrence Hope and Passionale. 

The Lawrence Hope songs were Burleigh's last orientalist pieces. You see the requisite Lotus Blooms and the Sari like, that's s-a-r-I, dress of the young woman. Lawrence Hope was the pin name of Adela Florence Nicholson who had grown up in India. These are considered to be among the best of Burleigh's art songs and like many of his songs they are written for lyric tenor. John McCormick performed at least 26 of Burleigh's art songs including the five songs of Lawrence Hope.

He often premiered them and he recorded at least four of them. He also sang at least four of the spiritual arrangements. When McCormick premiered the Lawrence Hope songs for an overflow audience that included 600 people seated on the stage, he had to repeat the last song, Till I Wake. One reviewer called this the worthiest of the five songs. Let's hear tenor Roderick George sing, Till I Wake. ^M00:30:45 [ Background noise ] ^M00:30:53 [ Music ] ^M00:34:54 

Burleigh's third song cycle, Passionale featured four poems by Burleigh's friend James Weldon Johnson, each of these songs was dedicated to one of four tenors whom Burleigh knew could sing them, John McCormick, Evan Williams, Ben Davies and George Hamlin. In June 1915 musical America band featuring a column entitled some compositions by Americans who are worthy of recognition. 

The first list included Burleigh's 19o03 song, Jean and the Saracen songs. Following issues listed Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, He Sent Me You, Just You and the Glory of the Day was in Her Face, the last of the Passionale songs. In October 1915 Musical America featured 27 noted concert artists who listed their 10 favorite American songs. Six of these singers listed songs by Burleigh, of the other 21 singers at least 10 performed Burleigh's songs at various times. 

When Zabetta Brenska, a contralto who often performed with her husband, tenor Paul Althouse was asked to name her favorite American song, she found it difficult to choose only one, but she said if I had to narrow my choice down to one composer I should select Harry Burleigh's songs. Most of Burleigh's more than 100 art songs did not announce his identity as an African-American though some were setting of verse by African-American poets. 

They were songs about love, beauty, nature, universal themes that have occupied poets and composers for centuries. But Burleigh's penultimate published art song is definitely a black pride song. His setting of the Langston Hughes poem, Lovely Dark and Lonely one. I've given you the lyrics on your handout. Burleigh wrote it with Marianne Anderson's voice in mind, but I don't know that she ever performed it publicly. 

Anderson's approach to the racial divide was to bridge it through her own very personal dignity and grace. But I believe it is a fitting combination of Burleigh's art song catalogue. Along with his setting of the John Oxenham hymn, In Christ there is no East or West, based on a spiritual the angels changed my name. 

Samual Clorage Taylor had arranged this song for his 1905 piano collection, 24 Negro Melodies. The hymn, In Christ there is no East of West affirms Burleigh's life-long hope that through their art African-American would help to heal America's deepest wounds. We need that healing now more than ever.

I've given you the lyrics to both of these songs but what of the spiritual arrangements? As early as 1901 Burleigh was recognized as a promoter of the intrinsic, artistic worth of African-American traditional music. In his recitals he always performed at least one set of songs reflecting this music heritage. And as early as 1903 his own arrangements of spirituals. 

This was more than a decade before he began to publish the solo and choral arrangements for which we now know him today. I've given you a copy of a recital program from 1908 that illustrates this. In 1901 the Chap Book, everybody's magazine published three Burleigh's settings of plantation verse written by Maria Howard Weeden. She published it under the name Howard Weeden. 

The editor's note accompanying each song shows that as early as 1901, nine years after he arrived in New York city, Burleigh was championing the artistic value of African-American music. This is a quote, Mr. Burleigh well known as a baritone at St. George's church New York and as a composer has long been working to show that the true Negro music is really worthy of serious attention.

And is by no means adequately represented by the cheap Koontz [phonetic] songs that have so much vogue, end of quote. From 1900 to 1915 Burleigh often accompanied Booker T. Washington on his tours through New England raising money for Tuskegee Institute. Burleigh's singing opened the purse strings of wealthy donors. It was in these appearances that Burleigh developed his arrangements of spirituals.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have video recordings of these improvisatory performances. So we could study the development of his style of arranging spirituals. Burleigh's reputation of one of the best American composers of art songs prepared for the immediate reception of the spiritual arrangements that were published in the 1916, 1917 concert season. 

Many of the performers who were singing his art songs now greeted his spiritual arrangements with delight. Two singes played a significant role in bringing Burleigh's spiritual arrangements to the floor. The contralto soloist at Temple Emanuel was Mary Jordan, a renowned recitalist and opera singer who performed a number of Burleigh's art songs several of which he dedicated to her. 

Burleigh dedicated his arrangement of Deep River to Jordan and she sang and recorded it. Baritone Oscar Seagle, the son of a minster in Tennessee who had gone to the camp meetings with his father, had searched for appropriate arrangements of the songs he had learned to love. When he found Burleigh's arrangements he immediately made them an important part of his repertoire. 

In May 1917 Seagle ended a recital in Brooklyn with a group of Burleigh's spiritual arrangements. Burleigh said he sang like a black preacher preaches. And other singers followed Seagle's example by ending their programs with a group of spirituals. Now Burleigh's solo appearances shifted to lecture recitals on the spirituals. And in the late 1920's as radio waves began to cover the country Burleigh's voice was heard from the east to the Midwest and as far south as Texas.

Singing spirituals and speaking about their history and importance to American history, we need a doctoral dissertation to see when recordings first started to be made of those radio programs. Let's listen to a high school choir, the Central Islip concert choir from New York State, singing Burleigh's choral arrangement from arrangement of, My Lord What a Morning. ^M00:41:50 [ Background noise ] ^M00:41:57 [ Music ] ^M00:45:34

You notice that is not -- there is no accompaniment. Burleigh's choral arrangements were mostly meant to be sung acapella and they're not easy, so this is a really wonderful choir. The St. George's annual vesper service of Negro spirituals which began in 1924 drew overflow crowds, sometimes the police needed to help. The newspaper announced them ahead of time and carried extensive reviews afterward.

This is the program for the first of them, it was Burleigh's 30th anniversary at St. George's and they featured Burleigh as he appeared in 1894 and his 1924 photo. The programs always featured choral and solo arrangements by Burleigh and came to include other arrangements by other composers such as Hall Johnson, Nathanial Dett, Eva Jesse, John Work and Florence Price. 

These annual service continued until 1955, six years after Burleigh died in 1949. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the emergence of Burleigh's art song spiritual arrangements 100 years ago. Other composers black and white immediately followed with their own arrangements  and by 1925 James Weldon Johnson commented that the spirituals had a vogue. 

At first Burleigh's arrangements were used more extensively by white than by black singers but the enthusiastic reception of his arrangements was noted within the black community. The 1917 Spingarn Award acknowledged his contribution in bringing the spirituals to the attention of the distinguished audiences nationwide and in Europe. 

The honorary master of arts degree from Atlanta University in 1918 and the honorary Doctor of Music degree from Howard University in 1920. Also recognized his role in helping African-Americans reclaim spirituals as an artistic heritage, rescuing them from their association with minstrelsy and vaudeville. And making them accessible to singers, and music lovers of every cultural background.

And that was very important to Burleigh. In his prefaces to the two books of American Negro spirituals published in 1925 and 1926, James Walden Johnson went so far as to say that Burleigh's work had been the principle factor in reclaiming the spiritual as a universally valuable artistic expression. This process had helped African-American artists develop a black esthetic.

The emergence of these artists and I quote, zealous to be racial or to put it better, to be true to themselves, to look for their artistic material within rather than with out. Got its first impulse from the new evaluation of the spiritual reached by the Negro himself. Almost suddenly the realization broke upon the Negro that in the spirituals the race had produced one of the finest examples of folk art in the world. 

The result was a leaping pride, coupled with the consciousness of innate racial talents and powers that gave rise to a new school of Negro artists, end of quote. The new vogue that the spirituals enjoyed crowned in Johnson's words a long and steady development in the recognition of their worth. This swelling interest and pride in the spirituals released new levels of creativity among black artists in the movement now known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Or as some of its leaders preferred to call it. The New Negro Renaissance, that extended far beyond Harlem. At the end of his life Burleigh expressed regret that his many art songs had fallen out of use. But he took satisfaction in the continuing popularity of his spiritual arrangements. He had helped to ensure that what he called this great free fountain of pure melody would continue to flow.

That the spirituals with their message of hope for freedom and human family hood would continue to be sung. His work had helped in the image he often used to unlock the musical treasure of the spiritual. He had helped to coin that treasure in universal currency. He had as Antonin Dvorak urged helped to give those melodies to the world, thank you. ^M00:50:13 [ Applause ] ^M00:50:18 Do you have questions or comments? ^M00:50:21 [ Background noise ] ^M00:50:26

>> Just wondering if there are any extent recordings of him singing?

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: That's a good question, Dr. Burleigh, Harry T. Burleigh, II would always tell people that there wasn't one but when I asked him I think he knew that I knew and he sort of took a deep breath and said well, there was one but he didn't like it. It was recorded in 1919, this is very early in recording technology. Now as long as Dr. Burleigh was alive I referred people to him.

He's no longer with us but someone has posted that recording on YouTube and the problem for me is that I don't think Burleigh sounded to his audiences. I think the technology was intimidating and I don't think -- he sounds stilted in that recording and I don't think that's the way he sounded to his audiences. The reviews are glowing in describing his engaging performance. 

So, unfortunately he would never agree to another recording, he did accompany Edward Boltner on another recording and these were made by the George W. Broom recording company. And Broom was one of Burleigh's friends, this was the earliest black recording company. There were recordings made at the 50th anniversary in 1946 but obviously Burleigh's voice was long past his prime by that time and those recordings were not made public, they were made available to people at St. George's, people who sang with him in the choir. I haven't seen those but unfortunately we don't have a recording of how he really sounded. 

>> [inaudible] history of it [inaudible] since Burleigh's time and enter to the modern world. Because I know we've gone through periods of people you know, making it more white in terms of pronunciation of the language.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Are you talking about the use of dialect?

>> Yes, dialect.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Yes, okay. Burleigh commented that the dialect softened the harshness of the Anglo-Saxon language. Some of his spiritual arrangements are written in what we call standard English, some of them use dialect. He didn't think -- he acknowledged that the dialect had been caricatured but he didn't think that was a reason not to use it. He was always concerned that spirituals be performed with dignity.

And if you see any of his spiritual arrangements in their original publication there was always in the inside front cover a statement by Burleigh of how to perform the spirituals, with dignity and respect. He didn't think that only black people could sing them, there was an interview of Burleigh and his son Alston. In which they talked about the fact that some black singers don't know how to sing spirituals and there are white people that sing them better.

The important thing is the heart, the understanding and presenting them with dignity. Does that -- yes.

>> Thank you for the comment on the Burleigh recording I was going to ask something about that. Maybe you said this, it is of his arrangement of Go Down Moses.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Yes, I didn't say that, thank you.

>> That's the one you recorded, actually it's in a -- if any of you want to get a CD of it, it can be purchased, it's on a two CD set called, Lost Sounds. Issued by the Arceophone label and that's how they got the upload to YouTube. My guess, he sounds stilted I think he wanted to be sure that the primitive of technology picked all the pronunciation of the word, so he over did it a bit.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Yeah.

>> But at least it's something. 

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Thank you and that of course is the recording that accompanies Lost Sounds by Tim Brooks.

>> It's based on the book, yes.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: And that's history of recorded sound African-Americans.

>> So I had a few questions I'll try and do them quickly, that 1893 interview with Dvorak you mentioned, he also referred to Indian or Native American music as being another possible source for an American national music. That didn't go quite as far as African-American but I wondered if by chance Burleigh ever thought of that source. The reason I ask that is at least to my ears the song Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, sounds slightly Native American as well.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: You're not the first person that said that. I worked through these songs with James Sample who was a retired conductor and he didn't like that song, Ethiopia Saluting the Colors and he commented that those chords at the beginning, that was typical Indian music. But yeah, Burleigh commented, he was interviewed in 1911 when there was a performance of the New World Symphony about his relationship with Dvorak and his influence.

And the influence of African-American music on Dvorak writing. And he said you know, there was a time when people understood and recognized that I  had worked with Dvorak and had influenced him but now people seemed to have forgotten that. But he did comment in that interview and it's in the book. He did comment about Dvorak's interest in Native American music and the influence that, that also had on the New World Symphony.

>> Definitely. Are there any extent recordings or transcriptions of those radio talks he gave?

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: That's what I don't know, somebody needs to find that out.

>> And did he ever get to meet Samuel Coleridge Taylor?

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Yes, he did, in fact yeah that's an interesting story. He met him in London but he also and Dvorak, when Coleridge Taylor came to the United States in 1904, 1906 and 1910, he sang and he travelled with. In fact he arranged the tour in 1906 which came to Pittsburg as well as a number of other places.

Yeah, they were good friends and there's interesting correspondence between them. In fact Coleridge Taylor called Burleigh the greatest singer of my songs.

>> Something I just wanted to throw in that goes along with the question about whether there were any recordings. Over the years my father obviously had heard his grandfather sing but had heard a lot of other people sing his work. And he said that Oral Moses sounded more like his grandfather than anyone else he'd ever heard. So if you want to get a better feel for what the old man sounded like listen to some recordings that Dr. Oral Moses did.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: It's called Deep River, Songs and spirituals by Harry T. Burleigh, you got it, great. Yes, it's published now, it was originally issued by Northeastern records but it's been reissued by Albany records and it's easy to get. I beg your pardon? Oral Moses, O-r-a-l Moses, the bass-baritone from Kennesaw University in Marietta, Georgia.

>> Thank you very much for playing that beautiful recording of My Lord What a Morning. I actually had the opportunity to participate in a performance of that same arrangement in a series of concerts last year in New York City. St. Bart's, Brooklyn Cathedral, a few others. We also did the Hall Johnson arrangement of, When I was Sinking Down and you're right it's very challenging with the acapella setting like that.

But my colleague Diane Sayer conducted it and ironically it was part of a concert which was joined with the Mozart Requiem on the anniversary of September 11. And it was a huge audience and it was very emotional but it was amazing to see how starting with that setting captured the audience and in a colloquial, in an English language of beautiful classical piece of music that Burleigh did. And then brought them into this performance of Mozart's Requiem. 

So it was an amazing experience, I wanted to mention that as I said this choir which performed that is going to be participating in a performance in Carnegie Hall this coming June 29, which is going to be a 100 birthday celebration of Mrs. Silvia Olden Lee.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: And I'll be there.

>> Wonderful and it's going to be joined, this is the Schiller Institute Choir, the Foundation for the revival of classical culture and the Harlem Opera Theater. 

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: That's wonderful.

>> And it's I think going to include some of the performances of Harry Burleigh's choral settings and also some of the solo settings of the spirituals, so. Thank you very much.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: That's great, thank is so much. Silvia Olden Lee if you don't know was a coach at the Metropolitan Opera and she coached people like Kathleen Battle and lots of others. Very important person and Adolphus Hailstork has written a song called, Who is Silvia? It's great.

I wanted to say you can also find a Mormon Tabernacle Choir recording of this song but I love that high school choir singing, they do it so beautifully. 

>> Nick Brown: There's time for one more, if anyone got one, yes.

>> I just wondered about, thank you, I just wondered about Louise Burleigh because that's a fascinating part of the story.

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: It is a fascinating part of the story, Louise Alston Burleigh was considerably younger than Burleigh but they met, I'm not sure when they met but Burleigh sang in D.C., she was born and raised in Brooklyn which is now part of the Washington, D.C. I think when they married they hoped to have a creative partnership, but eventually I think the stage wasn't big enough for both of them.

And first she wrote a lot of dialect poetry which she was very successful in doing readings of her poems. But the marriage, they were separated I think in 1913, the marriage ended in 1915. And she had discovered another part of her heritage which was Native American. And she left New York city with an Indian man named Albert, his last name is escaping me.

She settled in the Dells in Wisconsin where she had a little cabin and she became Princess Nadonis Shawa. And she could get away with it because she was a very credible Indian princess. But she couldn't allow anyone to know that her husband and her son were African-Americans because she couldn't have owned property and she was very successful in [inaudible] programs and [inaudible]. But her life was very separate from her husband and her son.

That caused problems at his death in claiming some of his estate. That's another story, it's told in the book. Yeah, it's you know, it's an American story, her audiences didn't understand enough about Native American culture to know that what she was presenting was her fiction. And she was a very fine performer. She commented in a letter to her son that she would have liked to be a vaudeville performer. So you know, there ways diverged. Yes, sure.

>> His mother was a college graduate, right. 

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: Yes, she graduated from Avery College.

>> How did that influence and inspire him to be able to go forward [inaudible].

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: No question, this was an abolitionist college and it wasn't the first college for African-Americans but it was probably the first that had an African-American faculty. And it was a classical education, she learned Greek and French and Latin at her graduation she gave as the Pittsburgh Newspaper said, an essay in French. And she was very good at it, she also gave a speech in which she adverted in terms of sorrow to the many people of her race who were still enslaved. 

She was a very well educated woman and the Erie papers, pick up, the Pittsburgh story and said oh, she's qualified to teach in the best seminary in the land but could she get a job teaching at the Erie public school? No, she could get a job as janitor. But two of her daughters became teachers in the Erie public school in the 1890's. Burleigh's sister Eva was hired in 1890 and Burleigh's half-sister, Bessie Elmendorf Marshall taught music in the school where her mother had been janitress. 

So but she taught for a number of years in the colored school which was established partly by her father, Hamilton Waters. There were sometimes 300 students in that school, so she was very gifted, but frustrated. 

>> Do you know if Burleigh knew Emily Beech?

>> Dr. Jean E. Snyder: I don't know if he knew her personally, he sang some of her songs and interesting when Dvorak made that startling statement someone interviewed European composers and Boston composers of whom Emily Beech was one, she was one of the boys. And she said well, I'm not a Native American or an African-American I'm from Scotch Irish ancestry. 

And she wrote her Celtic symphony as a direct kind of reflection of Dvorak's New World Symphony, it was in the same key but she quoted and wrote in the style of Celtic folksongs. I don't know, it would be really interesting to know if they ever met personally, I don't know that. 

>> Nick Brown: Well, thank you all so much for being here and thank you to Dr. Snyder for sharing. ^M01:06:43 [ Applause ] ^M01:06:49

>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.