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Florence Price's Sonata in E Minor, Andante by Sue Sobolewski
From Sue:
Of late, in many artistic spheres, there has been a deliberate effort to bring to the global audience voices that might not have been given a proper hearing in their own time. The composer whose work you will hear me play in this edition is one such voice. Florence Price, an African-American woman, was born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and had a career as a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer, that spanned nearly fifty years.* Her biggest claim to fame, prior to this latter day reexamination of her prolific output was that she was the first African-American woman whose symphonic work was performed by a major symphony orchestra—the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The work you will hear in this edition comes from the Sonata in E Minor for piano, which like her Symphony in E Minor, won top honors at the 1932 Rodman Wanamaker Musical Contest. The second movement of the Sonata, marked Andante, typifies Ms. Price’s hymn-like melodic writing. Her harmonic language and musical syntax are conservative—especially at a time when long strides in Western Classical style had been taken toward atonality, serialism, aleatoric music, to name a few of the trendier avant garde techniques in fashion. Her adherence to a tried and tested form—the rondo form—also hearkens back to the Classical period. The main ‘tune’ is featured three times (all in the original key), in between which there are two contrasting episodes. These, too, are woven around melodies that spin and meander at their own pace—unhurriedly, peaceful, possibly prayerful. After the last climactic statement of the original theme, there is a short ‘coda’ or last rendering of the tune fragment. One can slowly exhale.
*A thoughtful background piece on Ms. Price by music critic Alex Ross appeared in the February 5, 2018 edition of the New Yorker
**You may hear some birdsong in the distance. While I cannot claim credit for inviting the collaboration, I am delighted to have been joined by those unknown voices.
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By Young Episcopalians of Saint Saviour (YESS)From Sue:
Of late, in many artistic spheres, there has been a deliberate effort to bring to the global audience voices that might not have been given a proper hearing in their own time. The composer whose work you will hear me play in this edition is one such voice. Florence Price, an African-American woman, was born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and had a career as a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer, that spanned nearly fifty years.* Her biggest claim to fame, prior to this latter day reexamination of her prolific output was that she was the first African-American woman whose symphonic work was performed by a major symphony orchestra—the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
The work you will hear in this edition comes from the Sonata in E Minor for piano, which like her Symphony in E Minor, won top honors at the 1932 Rodman Wanamaker Musical Contest. The second movement of the Sonata, marked Andante, typifies Ms. Price’s hymn-like melodic writing. Her harmonic language and musical syntax are conservative—especially at a time when long strides in Western Classical style had been taken toward atonality, serialism, aleatoric music, to name a few of the trendier avant garde techniques in fashion. Her adherence to a tried and tested form—the rondo form—also hearkens back to the Classical period. The main ‘tune’ is featured three times (all in the original key), in between which there are two contrasting episodes. These, too, are woven around melodies that spin and meander at their own pace—unhurriedly, peaceful, possibly prayerful. After the last climactic statement of the original theme, there is a short ‘coda’ or last rendering of the tune fragment. One can slowly exhale.
*A thoughtful background piece on Ms. Price by music critic Alex Ross appeared in the February 5, 2018 edition of the New Yorker
**You may hear some birdsong in the distance. While I cannot claim credit for inviting the collaboration, I am delighted to have been joined by those unknown voices.