Black Composers who Changed Music History

 Black History Month

Black Composers who changed Music History

If you studied Music at GCSE or A Level or even at any point during your School life, take a moment to pause and reflect on this question…. Did you study any Black composers? 

In both of my courses for GCSE and A Level, none of the composers for instrumental or vocal music (Potentially in all of the Areas of Study) were of a Black Heritage. I studied Mozart, Bach, Vaughn-Williams, Beethoven, Purcell and all of these were white composers. Yes, they were talented and they do possess an amazing talent but where is the diversity within the course. Where is the mention of the talented composers of Black heritage? I have studied Music since year 7 and before I started researching it this week, I could not name you a single Black Composer as my education has simply been filled with white Composers. 

Recently, Pearson's Edexcel had to change their syllabus slightly after people complained that there were no female composers (with that they added one!). But where is the representation of Black composers who are just as talented as the ones we learned about. That is why this post is focused on Black Composers who changed Music History who are neglected and ignored in Music. 

1. Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745 - 1799)

Joseph is remembered as the first classical composer of African origins and is often coined as ‘Le Mozart noir’ (Black Mozart). He was born into a wealthy plantation owner and quickly became a prolific composer who wrote string Quartets, symphonies and concertos. He received recognition from John Adams, former US president, as “the most accomplished man in Europe” yet he isn’t taught about in schools. He also led one of the best orchestras in Europe (Le Concert des Amateurs).

The person who was most jealous of Joseph’s work and talent was no other than Mozart who was struggling to get his own music heard. Some people believe that Joseph was actually the inspiration behind the villainous Black character Monostatos in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. However due to ethnicity and race, Mozart became the famous one who went on to have his pieces performed everywhere both in their day of writing and in the future as well as being taught throughout Music in schools.

                                              

2. Florence Price (1887 - 1953)

Price was the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra in 1933. Her work was declared as “a faultless work … that speaks its own message with restraint and yet with passion … worthy of a place in the regular symphonic repertoire.”

She was a deeply religious person who brought the music of the African-American church into her music. She was inspired by Dborak, Tchaikovsky and other European Romantic composers. She won first prize in the Wanamaker Competition with her Symphony in E minor. Only a minority of her piano music has been recorded. As a female, African-American, Price would have greatly struggled to even be heard in everyday life providing her with an even bigger challenge.

3. Scott Joplin (1868 - 1917)

Joplin became known as the ‘King of Ragtime’. He was one of the most important and influential composers during the start of the 20th century. His ideas on harmony and his complex bass patterns and sporadic syncopated rhythms are imitated by composers even today.

His death (caused by Syphilis and Dementia) marked the end of ragtime and a sad environment surrounding his music. However his compositions were rediscovered and rose in popularity during the early 1970s when Joshua Rifkin produced an extremely successful album of his pieces. Joplin’s compositions were then used in the Academy Award winning 1973 film The String” including ‘The Entertainer’ and ‘Solace’.

4. George Bridgetower (1778 - 1860)

Bridgetower was an Afro-European virtuoso violinist and composer who is mostly recognised from Immortal Beloved. He has been described in the film as ‘the famous virtuoso from Africa’. In the scene, Bridgetower plays Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Violin Sonata No. 9 - a piece which was in fact dedicated to Bridgetower. It recounts a real life falling out between the two which resulted in Bridgetower withdrawing his dedication. 

Bridgetower’s name soon got lost in history and he died in Peckham out of poverty where his name was forgotten. 

5. William Grant Still (1895 - 1978)

Still was dubbed ‘The Dean’ of African-American composers for being the first to do many things:

• The first African American to conduct a major American Symphony Orchestra

• The first to have an opera produced by a major opera Company

• The first to have a Symphony performed by a leading orchestra

• The first to have an opera performed on National TV

He composed more than 150 works in his lifetime including 5 symphonies and 8 operas - the most famous one being his ‘Afro-American’ Symphony No. 1. He found time moonlight as an oboist, conductor and jazz arranger.

6. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875 - 1912)

Coleridge-Taylor fought against racial prejudice in his whole life time. He combined African-American folk music with concert music, composing his African Suite, African Romances and Twenty-Four Negro Melodies. He is often referred to by white New York Musicians as “African Mahler”. 

His most famous work is his three Cantatas based on the epic poem “Song of Hiawatha”. This is the piece that he is most known for. He was recommended by Edward Elgar to the Three Choirs Festival where his Ballade in A minor was premiered. August Jaeger, a highly influential music critic and editor, advised Elgar that Taylor was ‘a genius’.

7. George Walker (1922 - 2018)

The first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his work Lilacs in 1996 yet still not discussed in Schools, despite his work being more recent. He was also the first black graduate of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia in 1945, the first black musician to play New York’s Town Hall (in 1945 as well), the first black recipient of a doctorate from the Eastman School in 1955 AND the first black faculty member to receive tenure at Smith College in 1961 yet he is still neglected and his achievements ignored in the education system.

He passed away recently in 2018 and his most famous and most performed work remains his Lyric for Strings (1946) - a piece for a string orchestra. He also brought the Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ legacy to society’s attention in 2010 through his Foils for Orchestra (Homage a Saint George).

8. Francis Johnson (1792 - 1844)

Johnson was a celebrated and widely published Philadelphia composer - known as the first African American composer to have his work printed as sheet music. He played the violin and keyed bugle and wrote over 200 pieces (including Ethiopian Songs, Operatic airs and marches).

His influential work and pioneering brass band has been described as “the leading military band at all the famous parades and fashionable functions”.

9. Wynton Marsalis (Born 1961)

The last one that I would like to discuss today is Wynton Marsalis who was a trumpeter and one of the biggest stars in Jazz. His inventive jazz, gospel and spiritual-infused compositions have become some of the most important new works to hit classical concert halls. 

Marsalis became the first Jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1977 after his Oratorio Blood on the Fields. His violin concerto has been a highly influential piece in 2019 where Nicola Benedetti (the violinist that the concerto was composed for) had been playing the piece around the world.

Here are just nine composers who changed the history of Music who are often neglected or ignored throughout society due to the colour of their skin. I urge you to research more into these composers and listen to their songs so that you are able to appreciate all of the composers in our world.