William Grant Still's rain-delayed premiere

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

A New Yorker scanning the music pages of the New York Times for June 23, 1940 might have caught a headline announcing a new work by American composer William Grant Still, scheduled for its premiere the following day at an open-air concert by the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium. As bad luck would have it, storm clouds postponed the premiere until June 25.

Storm clouds of war were also on the horizon in Europe in 1940, but Still’s new piece dealt with violence of a different sort. And They Lynched Him on a Tree was a choral setting of a poem describing the aftermath of a racially motivated killing.

A crowd of 13,000 attended the Lewisohn Stadium program, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodzinski, and singers from the New York Schola Cantorum and Wen Talbert Negro Choir.

Still was not present; in the summer of 1940 he was writing movie music in Hollywood. In 1943, he would resign from a lucrative studio contract, in part to protest the depiction of African-Americans in the film Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller.

Music Played in Today's Program

William Grant Still (1895-1978): And They Lynched Him on a Tree; Plymouth Music Series Singers; Leigh Morris Chorale; Philip Brunelle, conductor; Collins Classics 14542