Concert Spiritual
Located in 1 route
The African American spiritual re-set as concert-hall art song — a trained classical voice with piano or orchestra delivering formal arrangements of folk spirituals, distinct from congregational or gospel-choir performance in its recital framing, notated arrangements, and art-song vocal technique. The repertoire keeps the melodies and texts of the folk spirituals while the settings adopt the harmonic language of the European art song, and the delivery demands operatic breath, diction, and dynamic control; by tradition the group of spirituals closes the Black classical recital. The form is both artistic statement and historical argument — placing the spiritual beside Schubert on the recital program asserted its standing as art music.
History
Harry T. Burleigh's 1916 art-song arrangement of "Deep River" created the form, and his 1919 disc for Broome Special Phonograph — the first Black-owned US label — is the only surviving recording of his voice; tenor Roland Hayes, contralto Marian Anderson (whose "Deep River" was her 1923 Victor debut), and bass Paul Robeson with pianist-arranger Lawrence Brown carried spirituals onto the world's recital stages through the 1920s–40s, making them the customary close of the Black classical recital; Leontyne Price's 1962 RCA album with Leonard de Paur continued the line, and Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman's Spirituals in Concert (Carnegie Hall, 1990, with Marian Anderson in attendance) renewed it for a new generation, while choral arrangers such as Moses Hogan extended the concert spiritual into the a cappella choir world.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Go Down, Moses(1919) — Harry T. BurleighSpotifyYouTube
- Deep River(1923) — Marian AndersonSpotifyYouTube
- Were You There — Roland HayesSpotifyYouTube
- Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child — Paul RobesonSpotifyYouTube
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot(1962) — Leontyne PriceSpotifyYouTube
- He's Got the Whole World in His Hands(1990) — Kathleen BattleSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Library of Congress National Jukebox, Marian Anderson "Deep River" (Victor, 1923)
- Archeophone Records, "Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry" (Burleigh/Broome 1919)
- Leontyne Price, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: Fourteen Spirituals" (RCA LM-2600, 1962), Discogs
- Deutsche Grammophon, "Spirituals in Concert" (429 790-2, recorded Carnegie Hall, 18 March 1990)