This release gives evidence that the rediscovery of music by African Americans is spreading beyond American shores, even if the conductor here,
Kellen Gray
, is of southern American background. He leads the
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
confidently in music that was probably new to all involved, even
Gray
himself. It speaks well of the young conductor that he has programmed some unusual works.
William Grant Still
's
Symphony No. 1 ("Afro-American")
of 1930 was for many years the most frequently performed American symphony, and there is still no shortage of recordings for it, but
's reading is an attractive one, assigning full weight to the heavy jazz influences in the score without giving the music entirely over to them. The other two works are considerably less often heard.
George Walker
's early
Lyric for Strings
is not written in his usual high modernist style but is closer to
Samuel Barber
and does not suffer from the comparison. The neglect of
William Levi Dawson
Negro Folk Symphony
is inexplicable inasmuch as almost anyone who has sung in a high school choir has encountered
Dawson
's arrangements of spirituals. The work draws on African American folk materials as much as one might expect from its title, but the integration of them into the orchestral texture is subtle, with an effect quite different from the peppy tunes that populate the increasingly popular symphonies of
Florence Beatrice Price
. This release will interest both those who want to explore the African American repertory and those who will be pleased to hear an original and rising young conductor. ~ James Manheim