SPOTLIGHT: A Shared Humanity
Dawson, Beethoven & Bernstein: A Shared Humanity by ANNE ARENSTEIN
Out of Obscurity: William L. Dawson’s The Negro Folk Symphony by ANNE ARENSTEIN
James Conlon, ©Bonnie Perkinson
In an industry where conductors are often akin to ships passing in the night, May Festival Music Director Laureate James Conlon and Louis Langrée have known each other for more than 25 years. “I have great admiration for James,” Langrée said. “He is generous, supportive—he embodies that humanity. I always love when music says something bigger than itself and his program is a perfect example of this.” At first glance, the works in Conlon’s program might seem unconnected, but they find common ground in their themes. Each is an expression of cultural identity. Conlon calls the program’s structure “no accident,” having built it to echo a program focusing on brotherhood he had created for the 2002 May Festival, the year after a police shooting sparked riots in downtown Cincinnati. William Dawson’s The Negro Folk Symphony is an astonishing work that garnered great critical acclaim at its 1934 Carnegie Hall premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra before falling into relative obscurity (see sidebar). Although the late Michael Morgan conducted the first movement for the CSO’s 2011 Classical Roots concert, these performances mark the Orchestra’s first performance of the entire symphony. Conlon, a passionate advocate for suppressed music, discovered it while investigating neglected Black composers in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story, an updated recasting of continued, p. 16
In a program note he penned for The Negro Symphony for its Carnegie Hall premiere with Leopold Stokowski and The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, William L. Dawson wanted listeners to know his work was “unmistakably not the work of a white man.” He wrote, “In this composition, the composer has employed three themes taken from typical melodies over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother’s knee.” Dawson challenged the conventional symphonic form, constructing his William L. Dawson work in three movements. “I love that he did that,” said Dr. Tammy Kernodle, Distinguished University Professor of Musicology at Miami University. “And the narrative he tries to tell is so compelling.” James Conlon acknowledges that he hadn’t heard the piece until George Floyd’s murder led him to investigate neglected Black composers. Although the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák made a famous admonition to American composers to seek their own material, Conlon cites a story about a performance of the New World Symphony Dawson attended. “He was angered by what I guess he perceived as the use of indigenous people’s music or the references that were made. He felt, why not us? And of course, he was right.” “You’ll definitely hear fragments that are reminiscent of Dvořák. And of course, the extended English horn solo at the beginning of the second movement suggests Dvořák, at least in the background.” `` cincinnatisymphony.org | FANFARE CINCINNATI | 15
