Harry Burleigh
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| Harry Burleigh | |
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 Harry Burleigh
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Harry Thacker Burleigh |
| Born | December 2, 1866 Erie, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Origin | New York City |
| Died | December 12, 1949 (aged 83) New York, New York, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, composer, arranger |
| Voice type(s) | Baritone |
Harry Thacker Burleigh (December 2, 1866–December 12, 1949), a baritone, was an African American classical composer, arranger, and professional singer. He was the first black composer to be instrumental in the development of a characteristically American music and he helped to make black music available to classically-trained artists both by introducing them to the music and by arranging the music in a more classical form[1].
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[edit] Early Life and Education
Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. With the aid of a scholarship (obtained with the help of Francis MacDowell[1], the mother of composer Edward MacDowell), Burleigh was accepted to the prestigious National Conservatory of Music in New York, eventually playing double bass in the Conservatory's orchestra. In 1893, he assisted the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Most of the work that Burleigh did for Dvořák was copy work, transferring the manuscript of Dvořák's 9th symphony for the parts for various instruments. However, Burleigh's role in introducing Dvořák to African American folk music was substantial. It was written that "The first time a Negro song became a major theme in a great symphonic work... was in 1893, when Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony was played" [2].
[edit] Singing career
Burleigh's career as a professional singer began in earnest in 1894, when he became a soloist for St. George's Episcopal church in New York City. There was opposition to hiring Burleigh at the all-white church from some parishioners, because of his race[1], at a time when other white New York Episcopal churches were forbidding black people to worship. J. P. Morgan, a member of St. George's at that time, cast the deciding vote to hire Burleigh[2]. In spite of the initial problems obtaining the appointment, Burleigh became close to many of the members during his long tenure as a soloist at the church. In the late 1890s, Burleigh gained a reputation as a concert soloist, singing art songs, opera selections, as well as African American folk songs. From 1900 to 1925, Burleigh was also a member of the synagogue choir at the Temple Emanu-El in New York, the only African-American to sing there[2].
[edit] Arrangements and compositions
In the late 1890s, he also began to publish his own arrangements of art songs. About 1898 he began to compose his own songs[1] and by the late 1910s, Burleigh was one of America's best-known composers of art songs. Beginning around 1910, Burleigh began to be a music editor for G. Ricordi, an Italian music publisher that had offices in New York.
After publishing several versions of "Deep River" in 1916 and 1917, Burleigh became known for his arrangements of the spiritual for voice and piano. Prior to this time, spirituals were sung only by ensembles and choruses. His arrangements were the first to make spirituals available to concert singers[1].
Burleigh also made the first formal orchestral arrangements for more than 100 Negro spirituals, including Nobody Knows (the Trouble I've Seen)[2]. Burleigh's best-known compositions are his arrangements of these spirituals, as art songs. They were so popular during the late 1910s and 1920s, that almost no vocal recitalist gave a concert in a major city without occasionally singing them. John McCormack sang a number of Burleigh's songs in concert, including Little Mother of Mine (1917), Dear Old Pal of Mine (1918), Under a Blazing Star (1918), and In the Great Somewhere (1919)[1]. In many ways, the popularity of Burleigh's settings contributed to an explosion of popularity for the genre during the 1920s.
During an interview in 1924, Burleigh said:
In Negro spirituals my race has pure gold, and they should be taken as the Negro's contribution to artistic possessions. In them we show a spiritual security as old as the ages.[cite this quote]
Through the 1920s and 1930s, Burleigh continued to promote the spirituals through publications, lectures, and arrangements. His life-long advocacy for the spiritual eclipsed his singing career, and his arrangements of art songs. With the success of Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson, among others, his seminal role in carving out a place on America's recitals had been eclipsed. His many popular art songs from the early twentieth century have often been out of print since the composer's death. Nevertheless, Burleigh's position as one of America's most important composers from the early twentieth century remains.
[edit] Works by Harry Burleigh
[edit] Violin and piano
- Six Plantation Melodies for Violin and Piano (1901)
- Southland Sketches (1916)
[edit] Piano
- From the Southland (1914)
[edit] Art Songs
- I Love My Jean (Robert Burns poem, 1914)
- Saracen Songs (1914)
- The Prayer (1915)
- The Young Warrior (poem of James Weldon Johnson, 1916)
- Ethiopia Saluting the Colors (poem of Walt Whitman, 1916)
- Little Mother of Mine (1917)
- Dear Old Pal of Mine (1918)
- Under a Blazing Star (1918)
- In the Great Somewhere (1919)
- Five Songs (poems of Lawrence Hope, 1919)
- Lovely Dark and Lonely One (poem of Langston Hughes, 1935)
