Adoration
Florence Price
(b. April 9, 1887 in Little Rock; d. June 3, 1953 in Chicago)
If you believe in prayer, settle in quietly, assume a prayerful countenance, and focus intently on the music. In less than 4 minutes the piece is over, the listener dumbstruck. The melody is simple, every note is purposeful, and no note is wasted. Price originally wrote the piece for organ, sometime before 1951, when it was published. It was up to others to grasp its special nature and arrange it for many different ensembles, including tonight’s version by Elaine Fine for string orchestra.
It is a simple ABA form with a very short coda. Harmonically the B section serves to move the tonal center from C Major to D Major. The higher pitch makes the reprise of the A section more brilliant and intense.
Florence Price got her 15 minutes of fame in 1933 in a fairy-tale story that began when she broke her foot and was housebound for an extended period. Needing something to do, she sat at her kitchen table, wrote out a four movement Symphony in E Minor, and submitted it for the Wanamaker Foundation Awards. She won first prize!
Her good fortune continued when Chicago Symphony conductor Frederick Stock chose the work and premiered it at a Century of Progress Exposition concert in June 1933. It was the first work composed by a Black woman ever played by a major symphony and it was a gala occasion. George Gershwin attended. Roland Hayes, especially famous to Chattanoogans, performed.
Unfortunately vicious Jim Crow was the law of the South and the de facto law of the rest of the country. What she faced–as described in Women’s Voices for Change, March 8, 2013–was “an uphill battle – a battle much larger than any war that pure talent and musical skill could win. It was a battle in which the nation was embroiled – a dangerous mélange of segregation, Jim Crow laws, entrenched racism, and sexism.”
Born in the South right after the Civil War, when Reconstruction had not yet been dismantled, Florence Price was fortunate to grow up in an integrated setting in Little Rock. Her father was a well-respected Black dentist who served both Black and White patients, including a White governor of the state. Her musical talent was recognized early and she received superior instruction, advancing quickly. By 1906 she had earned two diplomas at the New England Conservatory of Music. She married a lawyer, Thomas J. Price, in 1912, and settled back in Little Rock where his practice was. Because Jim Crow had resegregated Little Rock by then, she found no work. Instead she began teaching piano privately, something she continued to do until shortly before her death.
The Prices decided to move after a 1927 lynching amid racial strife in Little Rock, joining the Great Migration and settling in Chicago. In 1931 she divorced her husband, who had become abusive, and moved in with a student where she began raising her two daughters as a single mother. Florence had been achieving substantial recognition for her compositions, piano works and song mainly, but was barely noticed outside the Black community.
Our CSO and countless other musicians owe a debt to arranger and composer Elaine Fine. All her arrangements and her own compositions as well are royalty free as a gift to help other musicians.
(c) 2023, 2024 by Steven Hollingsworth,
Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0
United States License.
Contact steve@trecorde.net