To reiterate, the compact disc reissue of CBS Records’ landmark Black Composers Series – available complete for the first time in over 40 years – though lamentably underpublicized, is an event of enormous significance.
These visionary recordings, made under the direction of conductor Paul Freeman (pictured) and employing world class orchestras and soloists, were originally released on vinyl between 1974 and 1978, providing rare exposure to 200 years worth of neglected music at a time when most of it was essentially unknown.
Tune in tonight for the third in a four-part survey of highlights from this exciting boxed set, which was released by Sony Classical just in time for #BlackHistoryMonth.
José Silvestre de los Dolores White y Lafitte (or José or Joseph White, for short) was one of the great romantic violinists. Born in Cuba in 1835, he made his public debut at the age of 18 with the most celebrated North American pianist of the day, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. It was Gottschalk who encouraged White to study at the Paris Conservatory and who raised the money to send him there. This launched the young man on a globetrotting trajectory that sent him all over Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, and the Northeastern United States.
White died in Paris in 1918. We’ll hear his Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor, played by the prolific and committed Aaron Rosand. Why this is not a repertory piece is anybody’s guess.
David Baker, born in 1931, was professor of jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a program he founded. From 1991 to 2012, he was also director and conductor of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. On top of everything else, he was extraordinarily productive as a writer and recording artist, leaving over 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles.
Baker died in 2016. He was trained as a trombonist – he was active as a jazz performer throughout the 1940s and early ‘50s – but a facial injury suffered in an automobile accident caused him to switch to the cello. We’ll hear Baker’s Cello Sonata, composed in 1973 for the great Janos Starker, who will perform it with Alain Planès at the keyboard.
Finally, Roque Cordero was born in Panama City in 1917. He studied composition with Ernst Krenek and conducting with Dmitri Mitropolous. He became director of Panama’s Institute of Music and artistic director and conductor of its National Symphony. Later, he was assistant director of the Latin American Music Center, professor of composition at Indiana University, and, from 1972, distinguished professor emeritus at Illinois State University. Cordero died in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008, at the age of 91.
Fascinatingly, Cordero’s music tends to balance Panamanian folklore with more advanced techniques. The boxed set contains not only his Violin Concerto, with Sanford Allen the soloist, but also “Eight Miniatures for Small Orchestra” of 1948. We’ll hear Paul Freeman conduct the latter with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
I hope you’ll join me for “Black to the Future, Part III,” yet another program of highlights from the Sony Classical reissue of CBS Records’ forward-looking Black Composers Series, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
