Every Time I Feel the Spirit
Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) / Arr. Jeff Tyzik

THE STORY

Composer, arranger, and noted baritone Harry T. Burleigh is one of America’s foremost composers of art song, with over 200 works in the genre. During the first few decades of the 20th century, Burleigh’s art songs—especially his arrangements of spirituals for voice and piano—populated the concert programs of singers throughout the country, offering a uniquely American music that arose from the hopes and struggles of the formerly enslaved. Burleigh’s popularization of the concert spiritual served to not only raise the spiritual to the level of art music, but also educated audiences on the African-American experience and contribution to American culture.

Jeff Tyzik’s work in honor of Harry T. Burleigh, Every Time I Feel the Spirit, celebrates the African-American spiritual arrangements of Burleigh, and includes renditions of “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” all of whose melodies originated with pre-Civil-War enslaved peoples. 

LISTEN FOR

• The plaintive quality of the melodies, emotionally charged with spiritual connotations of hope and deliverance

• The use of pentatonic (five-note) scales in the melody of each spiritual—a common feature of African-American traditional music

INSTRUMENTATION

Flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, timpani, percussion, strings