Homage – Chamber Music from the African Continent and Diaspora
Bongani Ndodana-Breen (b.1975)
Safika: Three Tales from African Migration for piano quintet (2011)
Zenobia Powell-Perry (1908-2004)
Homage (1990)
Undine Smith-Moore (1904-1989)
Soweto for piano trio (1987)
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Moorish Dance Op55 (1904)
Frederick C Tillis (1930-2020)
Spiritual Fantasy No.12 for string quartet (1988)
Samantha Ege (piano)
Castle of Our Skin
rec. 2022
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
Lorelt LNT147 [61]
This pioneering recording from the Boston based chamber music group Castle of Our Skin might be seen as a kind of two for one offer. It not only celebrates the legacy of Black composers but it also adds to the equally important reappraisal of the contributions of woman composers to the history of music by the inclusion of the music of two black female composers. It is rather depressing, not least when faced with a recording as exuberant and infectious as this one, that both sets of revivals of interest have got mired in what is referred to as “culture wars” which in my experience tends to mean ill-informed people shouting online. Why anyone would not want to explore neglected corners of the repertoire is a mystery to me.
Classical music, itself, far from being the stuck in the mud bunch of old fuddy duddies it is sometimes portrayed as, has always shown a remarkable capacity of reappraisal and change. One of the first beneficiaries of this capacity was, remarkably, JS Bach whose music was revived by the likes of Mendelssohn during the 1840s. Poor old Mozart had to wait another half a century or more before his fortunes revived thanks to the efforts of Mahler and Richard Strauss. Mahler himself, was the most famous beneficiary of this process of rediscovery during the 60s.
I am reasonably confident that MWI colleagues specialising in the area will be fully aware of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and have probably signed off reviews of recordings of his music with the fond hope that it might spark off a revival of interest in his music. Indeed, Coleridge-Taylor was extremely popular during his heyday. Sadly, for all concerned the main culprit for his fall from grace was The Rite of Spring and the dramatic change in musical taste after the First World War. The history of music can be merciless which is why rediscoveries such as this are so important.
This brings to mind the conductor Furtwängler’s famous question querying whether learning an entire Mahler symphony was worth the effort. I don’t think it does anyone involved any favours to style Coleridge-Taylor ‘the black Mahler’ irresistible though the idea has proven to ill informed features writers but just because a composer isn’t of the rank of a Mozart or Bach doesn’t make them not worth the effort. Happily, all the composers featured on this disc most certainly are and I am intensely grateful to the musicians of Castle of Our Skin and the pianist Samantha Ege for their efforts in bringing these works before the public.
Not that all the music included is from the past. The recording kicks off with three works by the South African composer Bongani Ndodani-Breen who is still very much alive and kicking. It is infused with the rhythms, melodies, modes and language of Africa to evoke what the sleeve notes refer to as the “dispossession, migration and translocation” experienced by the black peoples of the region.
Zenobia Powell Perry’s contribution to the programme, her 1990 solo piano piece Homage gives its name to the whole collection. It was written as a tribute to her teacher, the Harlem Renaissance era composer William L. Dawson and references one of his favourite spirituals. The piece’s musical character bears more than a trace of one of her other teachers, Darius Milhaud.
All of the pieces chosen for this recording are somewhat conservative in character being tonal and melodic as well as using instruments in a traditional manner. Even the most abrasive piece, Undine Smith Moore’s Soweto for piano trio, stays within the limits of conventional classicism in describing in terms alternately ferocious and plangent, her responses to Southern African apartheid as viewed from the Southern states of America. The interest of all the composers featured seems to have been on interweaving features of African and African American music into the mainstream rather than developing the classical tradition per se.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Moorish Dance is a well made piece albeit one with more than a whiff of the salon about it for all its impressive scale. I’m sorry to say I found it a largely forgettable piece of Edwardian piano music though I suspect devotees of the period will get a lot more from it than I did not least because of the elegant advocacy of Samantha Ege’s playing.
My favourite and certainly the most substantial piece recorded is Frank C Tillis’ Spiritual Fantasy No.12 for string quartet. Once again the language is traditional – think the Ravel or Debussy String Quartets and you probably have a good idea of the style – yet Tillis’ responses to those great reservoirs of African American music, the spirituals, brim with invention.
Probably the single most impressive features of this recording are the performances which quiver with the excitement of new discovery combined with the passion of advocacy. They are very well recorded too. There has been a lot of interest lately in those twentieth century composers who unfashionably stuck with more traditional compositional virtues over more progressive ideas and as a result fell into neglect. I know many collectors have found great joy in rediscovering these overlooked musicians. It is to such listeners that I would first commend this beautifully produced and performed collection of thoroughly enjoyable music. It is certainly time the classical mainstream made room for them.
David McDade
Availability: Lorelt
Recording details
The Warehouse (Safika, Soweto), Ensemble Room, Music Faculty, University of Oxford (Spiritual Fantasy), PATS Studio One, University of Surrey (Homage, Moorish Dance)
