Revival

Revival is an apt title for Michelle Cann’s solo debut album. The American pianist restores life to music by Florence Price and her pupil Margaret Bonds, exceptional talents who overcame racism and misogyny in the US to achieve recognition, albeit fast-fading, during their lifetimes. It’s both saddening and uplifting to consider what two women whose lives were blighted by prejudice might have made of the poetic beauty and compassion that Cann brings to every note of their music. “This album is very dear to my heart because Florence Price makes a huge appearance on it,” Cann tells Apple Music Classical. “She was the beginning of my journey into discovering all of these composers of colour from the past.” That journey only began after Cann had concluded years of formal training. “When I first discovered Florence Price’s music in 2016, specifically her Piano Concerto, I became very interested in seeing if there were other names.” Bonds, a close friend of the poet Langston Hughes, was the second African American composer to cross Cann’s radar. Bonds, who inherited her father’s passion for civil rights, confronted social injustice in several of her songs. “Florence Price and Margaret Bonds explore different styles and genres that seemingly should be separate,” Cann observes. “But they actually combine them in the same work in a really powerful and fascinating way.” Price’s Piano Sonata, a substantial product of the early 1930s, bears witness to the Romantic breadth of her musical invention. Cann captures the aching nostalgia of the work’s slow movement and brings out the French flavour of its finale. She’s equally persuasive in three of Price’s Fantasies nègres, minor-key pieces that evoke the atmosphere of spirituals sung by Black plantation workers. It’s these fantasies, along with the sonata, that Cann suggests “tell a story of Florence Price’s compositional journey,” showcasing the different ways she was inspired as a pianist and composer throughout her life from spirituals to African dances, and the great Romantic composers. Revival closes with Bonds’ Spiritual Suite, a statement piece designed to display pride in the creative achievements of African Americans. “It’s a wonderful set of arrangements of three well-known spirituals,” concludes Cann.