Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major, “Afro-American”

Composer: STILL, William Grant
  • Still composed this symphony in 1930. It premiered in a performance by the Rochester Philharmonic in 1931, making Still the first African-American composer to have a composition premiered by a major American orchestra.1
  • The “Afro-American” Symphony is based on a blues-style theme. In his notebook of sketches for the  “Afro-American” Symphony, Still discussed this artistic choice.2 (He was concerned that blues would be considered too low-brow for the concert hall.)3

“I harbor no delusions as to the triviality of Blues, the secular folk music of the American Negro, despite their lowly origin and the homely sentiment of their texts. The pathos of their melodic content bespeaks the anguish of human hearts and belies the banality of their lyrics. What is more, they, unlike many Spirituals, do not exhibit the influence of Caucasian music. 

The Afro-American Symphony, as its title implies, is representative of the American Negro. In it I have placed stress on a motif in Blues idiom. It is employed originally as the principal theme of the first movement. It appears also in various forms in the succeeding movements, where I have sought to present it in a characteristic manner.” 

William Grant Still, on blues idiom in his his  “Afro-American” Symphony 4
  • Still offered descriptive subtitles for the symphony’s four movements:5
  1. Longing 
  2. Sorrow 
  3. Humor  
  4. Aspiration 
  • Still also included epigraphs quoted from African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in each movement of the  “Afro-American” Symphony.)6
    • Please note that Dunbar wrote sometimes in transcribed vernacular, and sometimes in standard English. The vernacular can come across as dated. All the quotations may be found in pp. 49-50 of Catherine Parsons Smith’s biography William Grant Still. 

Sources

  1. Gayle Murchison and Catherine Parsons Smith, “Still, William Grant,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed June 9, 2021, https://oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000026776.
  2. Catherine Parsons Smith, William Grant Still (American Composers) (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 20080, 48.
  3. Considering Rhapsody in Blue had premiered in 1924, Still’s concern points out a double standard which Black composers had to contend with.
  4. Quoted in Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid., 49.

Cut IDs

48840 48842 48843 48844 48845