DVOŘÁK’S PROPHECY – A New Narrative for American Classical Music

Film 3: The Souls of Black Folk and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music

Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff

If George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess – the highest creative achievement in American classical music – embodies a glorious (and controversial) fulfilment of Dvořák’s prophecy, there also exists a buried lineage of exceptional compositions by Black composers following in Dvořák’s wake. Coming first was his assistant Harry Burleigh, whose seminal settings of Deep River are as much compositions as transcriptions. Burleigh’s initiative was sealed by singers like Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. But William Levi Dawson’s oracular Negro Folk Symphony, though triumphantly premiered by Leopold Stokowski and his Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, gathered dust – and Dawson was never to create the symphonic catalogue he seemed destined to undertake. Our commentators here include George Shirley, the most legendary name in present-day Black classical music, also Kevin Deas, who sings Burleigh with singular authority, and the conductors Roderick Cox and the late Michael Morgan. – J.H.

Music:
Harry Burleigh
William Levi Dawson
Florence Price
William Grant Still

with
Kevin Deas
Arthur Fagan
James Jeter
Roderick Cox
Joseph Horowitz
Michael Morgan
George Shirley

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Audio language: English
Running time: 78 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)