Forty Negro Spirituals: Compiled and Arranged for Solo Voice
(From back cover... "Clarence Cameron White has done a fin...)
From back cover... "Clarence Cameron White has done a fine piece of work in these superior arrangements for solo singing. Throughout, the authentic, traditional harmonies, which are such a distinguishing feature of negro group singing, are cleverly preserved. Presented in the serious mood in which they are meant to be sung, these spirituals prove a noteworthy addition to recital or concert program"
Clarence Cameron White was an African-American neoromantic composer and concert violinist.
Background
Clarence Cameron White was born on August 10, 1880 in Clarksville, Tenn. , the son of James William White and Virginia Caroline Scott. He grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, where his father was a doctor. Apparently at an early age he showed an interest in and a talent for music.
Education
After a year at Howard University, he studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, from which he graduated in 1901. White then went to Boston for advanced studies in violin with private tutors.
Career
In 1903 he became a teacher at the Washington Conservatory of Music while also performing as a concert violinist. In 1908 he went to England, where he appeared as a guest artist and studied for a time with the noted black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. He returned to the United States in 1910. From 1910 to 1923 he ran a music studio in Boston. In 1924 White was named director of music at West Virginia State College, a position he held for six years. During the mid-1920's he produced some of his most popular works: Bandanna Sketches; Cabin Memories, for solo voice and piano; and From the Cotton Fields, for violin and piano. His Forty Negro Spirituals was published in 1927. White began work on Ouanga, a three-act opera based on Haitian history, in 1928. The libretto, written by John Frederick Matheus, a colleague of White's at West Virginia State, was based on the life of Jean Jacques Dessalines, the slave who helped to lead his people in revolt and became emperor of Haiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Having won the Harmon Foundation Prize for distinguished service to music in 1928, White used the award of $400 to spend a few months in Haiti, studying native folk music and observing the voodoo ceremonies of the peasants. In 1930 he received a Julius Rosenwald fellowship that enabled him to study for several years in Paris with Raoul Laparra, whose operas were produced in both France and the United States. In 1932, Ouanga, which means "voodoo spell" or "voodoo charm, " won the David Bisham Medal, presented annually by the American Opera Society of Chicago for the best operatic work by an American. From 1932 to 1935, White was music director at Hampton Institute. He served as a music specialist with the National Recreation Association from 1937 to 1942, organizing community music groups. In 1940 he published Traditional Negro Spirituals, his arrangements of twenty spirituals for concert and community choruses. Ouanga was staged for the first time in 1949, when it was presented by the Burleigh Music Society of South Bend, Ind. Generally well received, it was performed many times thereafter. In 1951 White published "Lonesome Road, " "This Train, " and "Tambour, " a Haitian dance for symphonic band. The following year he completed Concertino in D Minor for violin, Four Caribbean Dances for piano, and an opera for college workshops entitled Carnival Romance. In 1954 he won the Edward B. Benjamin Award for "tranquil music" with his orchestral work Elegy, a piece written some years earlier in memory of his first wife. The Benjamin award was established by a New Orleans industrialist to encourage American composers to produce "short, tranquil and reposeful music, " Elegy, a smoothly flowing work that was one of seventy-two entries in the Benjamin competition, was given its premier performance on March 16, 1954, by the New Orleans Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. On April 8, 1954, Kermit Moore, in an appearance at Salle Pleyel in Paris, introduced White's Fantasie for cello. White's anthem, "If I Had a Hammer, " was included in the hymnal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1955). In the same year White completed Dance Rhapsody and Poeme for orchestra, and a piece commissioned by Kermit Moore for cello and piano. His Spiritual Suite for four clarinets was released in 1956. The premiere of his Poeme for orchestra took place in January 1958, during the Festival of American Music at Hunter College. One of White's last works, completed in 1959, was Heritage, a "musical statement" for soprano or tenor, speaking and mixed choruses, and orchestra. The text for this piece was written by the poet Countee Cullen. During his lengthy career as a composer, White compiled an imposing list of published and unpublished works for violin, voice, cello, clarinet, piano, orchestra, band, and choral groups. His violin pieces in particular were popular program numbers, and were performed by such accomplished concert artists as Fritz Kreisler and Albert Spalding. White died in New York City.
On April 24, 1905, White married Beatrice Louise Warrick; they had two sons. His first wife died in 1942, and on December 26, 1943, he married Pura Belpré.