Collection Items
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Article" Ol' Marse Winter" by Gena Branscombe Article. Branscombe's SSA setting of poetry by Mary Alice Ogden (1858-1926) was published by Arthur P. Schmidt Co., Boston, in 1914. Ogden's verse was used by permission of The Smart Set Co., a New York literary and cultural magazine edited by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan between 1914 and 1923. Branscombe sets the text, written in African-American dialect, to constant eighth notes,...
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Article" Balm in Gilead" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. As with most of Burleigh's works for chorus, Balm in Gilead was originally set for solo voice. He dedicated the solo arrangement to John Wesley Work of Fisk University, author of the treatise Folk Songs of the American Negro (1915). The SSA version, arranged for women's chorus by Burleigh, is inscribed to the Schumann Club, conducted by Percy Rector Stephens. Balm in Gilead...
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Article"De Gospel Train ('Git on bo'd lit'l children')" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh's setting of De Gospel Train has its roots in several sources, but most likely originated from the Bahamian spiritual Get on Board. A revival song featuring a pentatonic melody, De Gospel Train is one of several African-American spirituals that became closely associated with the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad. Burleigh's arrangement was published in 1921 in separate versions for solo voice...
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Article" Deep River" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh's 1917 setting of Deep River for solo voice, published by G. Ricordi & Co., New York, is one of the composer's most beloved works. It was so well-received, it inspired the publication of nearly a dozen more spirituals the same year. In addition to the original versions for solo voice, men's chorus, and women's chorus, Deep River received transcriptions for string quartet,...
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Article" Dig My Grave," one of "Two Negro Spirituals" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. In 1914, G. Schirmer published the collection Afro-American Folksongs, edited by scholar and music critic Henry E. Krehbiel (1854-1923). The collection included eleven spiritual arrangements for unison chorus by Burleigh. Dig My Grave was among those arrangements, in a section on funeral music. The four-part, unaccompanied arrangement was published in 1914 along with Deep River by G. Schirmer, New York.
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Article" He Met Her in a Meadow" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh's He Met Her in a Meadow was first published for solo male voice in 1921. G. Ricordi & Co., New York, published versions for mixed chorus, men's chorus, and women's chorus in 1922. Burleigh wrote the song's lyrics about a young farmer's late-evening flirtation. The musical setting is melodramatic and sentimental, foreshadowed in the tempo direction, Andante con molto sentimento. The ostensible...
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Article" Nobody Knows de Trouble I've Seen" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Following the success of Deep River in 1917, Burleigh arranged and published nearly a dozen more settings of African-American spirituals in the same year, including Nobody Knows de Trouble I've Seen. Burleigh's simpler arrangement of the spiritual for unison chorus had previously appeared in Afro-American Folksongs (1914), edited by Henry E. Krehbiel. G. Ricordi & Co., New York published versions for solo voice,...
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Article" Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh arranged Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child for solo voice in 1918. He created a setting for women's chorus the following year, dedicated to The Schumann Club, conducted by Percy Rector Stephens.
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Article" Southern Lullaby" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. One of Burleigh's original compositions, Southern Lullaby, was published in 1920 by G. Ricordi & Co., New York, in editions for both solo voice and for unaccompanied mixed chorus with soprano and tenor solos. The text is by poet George V. Hobart (1867-1926), a Burleigh acquaintance from Nova Scotia. They both became charter members of the American Association of Composers, Authors, and Publishers...
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Article" Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh's arrangement of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was originally published for solo voice in 1917 following the success of Deep River. This famous spiritual was first introduced to the concert stage by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871. While the biblical basis for the spiritual's text can be found in II Kings: 2, 11, the origin of the piece is more closely associated...
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Article" Weepin' Mary" by Harry Thacker Burleigh Article. Burleigh's brief setting of Weepin' Mary was published in 1917 in versions for solo voice and women's chorus by G. Ricordi & Co., New York. The women's chorus version was arranged by Nathaniel Clifford Page (1866-1956). Only thirty-one measures in length, the setting is a quiet, introspective piece in AAB form. The text is a commentary on a biblical passage: "But Mary stood...