Best known, perhaps, for his choral music, Hailstork has completed more than 250 works in all genres, including five symphonies.  Among his other notable compositions, we might mention the frequently-performed An American Port of Call, the monumental Whitman’s Journey for baritone solo, chorus and orchestra, as well as Rise for Freedom, an opera about the Underground Railroad.  A committed traditionalist, Hailstork has often described his own style as “authenticism,” in the sense that he is guided only by his own instincts, his background (in which elements of African-American and European elements happily co-exist), and the personal ideas which he expresses in his music.

Hailstork’s Symphony No. 1 was written for the Shore Festival of Classics in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where the premiere was given by the festival orchestra under the composer’s direction on August 1, 1988.   The work has been repeatedly compared to Prokofiev’s First, the “Classical” Symphony, on the grounds that both are 20^th-century symphonies scored for a small Classical orchestra, as found in the works of Haydn or Mozart.  Yet, just as America in 1988 was a very different place from Russia in 1917, the two works differ not only in their style but also in their artistic intent.  Whereas Prokofiev’s allusions to the music of the 18^th century were often distorted in a rather humorous way, Hailstork is more straightforward:  one never has the feeling that the composer is wearing a “mask” of any sort; indeed, he always wears his heart on his sleeve.  The classical four-movement symphonic form is not placed within quotation marks, and while the conventions are observed faithfully, the composer knows how to make the classical forms sound fresh. 

Commentators have detected many sources of influence in the work, from jazz to African or South American music.  Just before writing the symphony, Hailstork spent time in Guyana on a Fulbright scholarship, and, according to some critics, traces of shanto (a genre of Guyanese music related to calypso) may be found in the piece.  The jaunty rhythms of the first movement, the sweet melodies of the second, the lively third-movement scherzo and the vigorous dance tunes of the finale add up to a symphony that is upbeat and joyful, entirely in the spirit of the summer festival for which it was composed.