Primary Source Summary Project Instructions remain posted on
- Slides: 11
Primary Source Summary Project • Instructions remain posted on course website • READ and FOLLOW all instructions • Paper due TODAY, 10 Feb 20 @ 5: 00 pm
Friendly Alert Instructions for the “Music Description Project” are now posted on the course web site
Chapter Five “A Language of Feeling” : Cultivating Musical Tastes in Antebellum America
Classical Music in NYC • Philharmonic Society of New York (1842) - “the advancement of instrumental music” - European immigrant and trained musicians • William Henry Fry (1813 -1864) - composer, critic, & promoter of US music - 1 st (? ) US symphony: Santa Claus Symphony (1853) - Grand operas, including Leonora (1845) • George Bristow (1825 -1898) - composer, performer & advocate of US music - symphonic: Symphony No. 2 (1854), etc. • A. P. Heinrich (1781 -1861)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk • Child prodigy in NOLA • Age 13 to Paris - rejected by Conservatoire - private study • Debut Salle Pleyel (age 16) - praised by Chopin (!) - “Creole” compositions “exotic” b. 1829, New Orleans; d. 1869, Rio de Janeiro • Bamboula, danse des negres, Op. 2 (cf. , next slide) • Gottschalk - The Banjo, Fantaisie Grotesque, Op. 15 (LG 5. 2 - p. 110)
“The Bamboula” by E. W. Kremble for The Century Magazine (1886)
Gottschalk (2) • Touring piano virtuoso - US (to west coast) - Latin America • Compositions draw on: - Afro-Cuban - US (folk, trad. , etc. ) • Souvenir de Porto Rico (1857) • The Union (1862) • Fiesta criolla from La Nuit des Tropiques (1858 -59) • First American musician to achieve international fame
Chapter Six “The Ethiopian Business” : Minstrelsy and Popular Song through the Civil War
Minstrelsy (defined) • • Uniquely US popular form Widespread from 1840 s to 1880 s (& beyond) Origins in NYC (& elsewhere) “Variety show” format - song & dance - jokes & comic dialogue/monologues • Blackface (“covers”)
George Washington Dixon (1801? -1861) • • • First (? ) important US blackface performer Working class background (NYC) Circus act – singer & reciter of poems “Ethiopian songs” 1829 – “Coal Black Rose” (NYC, Bowery) - Coal Black Rose – You. Tube (solo banjo) - Coal Black Rose (1829) (vocal) • Political satire & commentary • 1834 – “Long Tail Blue” (see following slide) - Long Tail Blue (solo banjo) - Long Tail Blue (banjo w/ voice)
Dixon as “Zip Coon” Music Example: Zip Coon Music Example: The Skillet Lickers-Turkey In The Straw Music Example: Tennessee Mafia Jug Band "Turkey In The Straw"
