PROGRAM NOTES

FLORENCE PRICE VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 2

Composer: born April 9, 1887, Little Rock, AR; died June 3, 1953, Chicago

Work composed: Price wrote this concerto in 1952 for violinist Minnie Cedargreen Jernberg, who soloed often with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the early 20th century.

World premiere: Jernberg first publicly played Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in a piano reduction at a Musician’s Club of Chicago recital in 1955.

As the first Black female American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, Florence Price enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Her compositional skill and fame notwithstanding, however, the entrenched institutional racism and sexism of the white male classical music establishment effectively erased Price and her music from general awareness for decades after her death in 1953. More than 50 years later, in 2009, a large collection of scores and unpublished works by Price were discovered in a house in rural Illinois. Since then, many ensembles and individual musicians have begun including Price’s music in concerts, so that audiences can discover her rich, distinctive, and polished body of work for the first time.

The daughter of a musical mother, Price was a prodigy, giving her first recital at age four and publishing her first composition at 11. During her childhood and teens in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price’s mother was the guiding force behind her piano and composition studies. In 1903, at age 16, Price won admittance to New England Conservatory (she had to “pass” as Mexican and listed her hometown as Pueblo, Mexico, to circumvent prevailing racial bias against Blacks), where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early advocate for women as composers, which was highly unusual at the time, and he believed that American composers generally should incorporate the rich traditions of American vernacular sounds into their own music, rather than trying to imitate European styles. Price, already inclined in this direction, was encouraged by Chadwick, and many of her works reflect the expressive, distinctive idioms of what were then referred to as “Negro” traditions: spirituals, ragtime, and folkdance rhythms whose origins trace back to Africa.

Throughout her career, Price wrote several works featuring solo violin, including two violin concertos. The first, completed in 1939, adheres to the typical concerto format: three movements (fast-slow-fast), using a musical

Program Notes

language that juxtaposes White European classical traditions with the styles of Black American vernacular music. The second violin concerto, Price’s last completed orchestral work, reflects the evolution of her musical voice. In one movement with four sections, this episodic music features several interludes of different character: drama, lyricism, pensive reflection, and bold pronouncements. The orchestra and soloist work together, rather than vying for prominence. The freer form evokes a fantasia rather than a typical concerto, and reveals Price’s confident mastery of a mid-20th-century tonal language all her own.

Pablo De Sarasate

Concert fantasies on Carmen, Op. 25

Composer: born March 10, 1844, Pamplona, Spain; died September 20, 1908, Biarritz, France

Work composed: 1883. Dedicated to Joseph Hellmesberger, Sr., director of the Vienna Conservatory.

World premiere: undocumented

During his lifetime, violinist Pablo de Sarasate dazzled audiences around the world with his eye-popping technique and laser-like precision. Composers including Camille Saint-Saëns, Max Bruch, and Édouard Lalo all wrote and dedicated compositions to Sarasate, which have entered the standard violin orchestral repertoire.

Along with other 19th century violin virtuosos, most notably Nicolò Paganini and Joseph Joachim, Sarasate also wrote music. His compositions, quite naturally, were designed to showcase his particular strengths. In performance, Sarasate gave the impression of total ease, no matter how complicated, fast, or intricate the music. Although he did not possess a particularly large or full tone, Sarasate did excel at playing in the violin’s highest register; he also executed harmonics and portamento (sliding passages) with deft, meticulous flare.

The Carmen Fantasy, probably Sarasate’s most famous work, showcases these effects to great advantage. Sarasate links five well-known passages from Georges Bizet’s opera together, beginning with the Aragonaise from Act IV. Even those unfamiliar with Carmen will recognize other favorite moments, as the soloist flirts in the Habañera, teases in the Seguidilla, and expresses the vivacious joy of the Gypsy Dance.