Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Florence Price (1887-1953) is rightly, if rather belatedly, recognised today as one of America’s most important composers of the twentieth century.
Price had some success during her lifetime, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuting her Symphony No. 1 in E minor, marking the first major orchestral performance of music by a black woman. Several of her works were published while she was alive, but it seems her estate did not effectively preserve her legacy, and sadly most of her music was forgotten in the years following her death.
Then, in 2009 an unsuspecting couple renovating the property that had once been Price’s summer home discovered hundreds of abandoned manuscripts packed in boxes there. Bringing this wealth of music to a wider market has been a complex process, but with her music no longer in copyright, it can finally be evaluated and made more widely available to musicians.
Florence Price: Rediscovered Gems for solo piano is a landmark publication, brought to us by Hal Leonard, and delivering a selection of twenty previously unpublished works suitable for intermediate players, around Grades 4-6, arranged by editor Michael Clark in approximate order of difficulty.
Florence Price’s Music
In her Foreword to this publication, Dr. Leah Claiborne (whose own collections Expanding the Repertoire: Piano Music of Black Composer I have previously reviewed here) assesses the importance of Price thus:
“Florence Price is known not only for her groundbreaking and advanced musical compositions, but also for her profound understanding of pedagogy in piano literature. Her pedagogical piano works, often infused with elements of African American folk traditions, spirituals, and classical techniques, create a rich tapestry of sound that challenges and inspires both piano students and teachers.”
Price was born into a dual heritage family in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her father was an African American dentist, her mother a music teacher. Taught by her mother, Florence took to music from a young age. From 1903-1906, she then continued her studies at the New England Conservatory, gaining a double degree in organ performance and piano pedagogy, before returning to the South to become a teacher.
In 1912, she married Thomas J. Price, a lawyer, and moved with him back to Little Rock. By this turbulent time, the town was racially segregated and it was difficult to find work. After the lynching of a local black man in 1927, the Price family moved to Chicago to begin afresh.
Over the coming decade, Price flourished both as a teacher and composer. Her first published work, At the Cotton Gin: A Southern Sketch had been issued by G. Schirmer in 1926, and several works quickly followed.
Price went on to compose more than two hundred piano pieces, from small pieces written for beginners right through to virtuosic concert works, as well as four symphonies, concertos, orchestral, chamber, instrumental, vocal music and songs.
In her own words, the composer explained in 1943:
“Having been born in the South and having spent most of my childhood there I believe I can truthfully say that I understand the real Negro music. In some of my work I make use of that idiom undiluted. Again, at other times it merely flavours my themes. And at still other times thoughts come in the garb of the other side of my mixed racial background. I have tried for practical purposes to cultivate and preserve a facility of expression in both idioms, although I have an unwavering and compelling faith that a national music very beautiful and very American can come from the melting pot just as the nation itself has done.”
Rediscovered Gems
The pieces that make up the new publication are previously unpublished, and come from throughout Price’s life, encompassing a range of musical styles and technical challenges.
Five of the pieces were left without titles; Michael Clark has suggested his own, including some that the composer had ‘brainstormed’ in the margins of manuscripts. For this edition, the pieces are thus:
- Sailing Through Clouds
- Scherzetto in C Major
- Absence
- Far Afield
- In Summer Fields
- When Dusk Falls
- On the Top of a Tree
- A Sprite Kissed a Rose
- Longing for Home
- A Wee Bit of Erin
- A Photograph
- A Poem
- Forest Scenes
- Dainty Feet
- My Rocking Chair
- Romance in D Major
- The Mill
- Happy in Shadows
- Southern Sketches
- Rhapsody in E flat Major
Playing through the collection, the musical style and range was as I expected from Claiborne’s and the composer’s own descriptions. These are heartfelt miniatures which will undoubtedly be popular with learners, as well as in concert settings, often blessed with highly singable melodies rooted in the riches of the African American tradition.
The shadow of the great African American composer Harry T. Burleigh certainly looms, and the pieces offer a technically easier counterpart to the piano music of British composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor, whose music was hugely popular in America at that time.
With their easy appeal and pedagogic slant, the pieces are also a wonderful precursor to those of John Thompson, William Gillock, and other great American educational composers who followed, thereby establishing a clear and continuing line in the progression of American domestic and educational music during the middle decades of the twentieth century.
Overall, there’s a genuine wealth of material here. I confidently expect that many of these pieces will find their way into exam syllabi, festival, and school concert programmes. More importantly, I have no doubt that the world over, intermediate players of all ages will take them to heart.
Michael Clark’s Edition
The publication itself appears in Hal Leonard’s typical house style, with a striking matt cover featuring a gorgeous still life by the African American painter Charles Ethan Porter (1847-1923). Within, the book has white paper, staple binding, and 64 pages.
Claiborne’s Foreword is followed by a more in-depth consideration of the composer’s life, works and the edition itself. This is written by Clark, and includes information about his editorial procedures. He notes that the included fingering suggestions are the composer’s where available, otherwise his, and that the pedalling indications are also editorial. He has also redistributed some notes between the hands for added clarity and ease.
Clark has also provided a Critical Commentary for the collection, which incredibly stretches to 23 pages. Sensibly, this is available as a separate download rather than within the book itself. That it proves so substantial a document illustrates the point that in the absence of a first published edition, considerable work was involved in developing a modern score for publication, based on Price’s handwritten manuscripts alone.
Combining superb scholarship, methodical transcription, and his own (clearly top-rate) understanding of pedagogy, Clark has delivered an outstanding score, which undoubtedly sets a very high bar for any others who choose to follow him into the Florence Price archives!
Closing Thoughts
Florence Price’s music is superbly crafted, melodically invigorating, harmonically rich, and musically rewarding: everything that today’s players are looking for. All of which makes this publication, as Claiborne suggests,
“…an essential resource for piano teachers seeking to introduce their intermediate students to a broad spectrum of cultural influences. By integrating elements of her heritage into her teaching repertoire, Price encourages students to connect with music on a deeper level, fostering not only technical skills but also a sense of identity and belonging.”
Claiborne’s point is well made, but I would go further. These are pieces of substance and quality that will universally delight, motivate, inspire, and win over players and audiences everywhere. They are indeed rediscovered gems!
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