William Levi Dawson Essentials

The Black American composer and conductor William Levi Dawson is most widely loved for his choral arrangements of spirituals, but caused the greatest sensation with his self-titled Negro Folk Symphony, a work which eloquently conveys the anguish of a people wrenched from their homeland, while ultimately ending with an upbeat sense of hope and optimism. Dawson was one of several Black musicians inspired by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who during his time teaching in the US in the 1890s urged American composers to find their own national style by drawing on Black American and Native American folk melodies. Taking Dvořák’s words and practical example of the “New World” Symphony to heart, Dawson composed his own symphony, which was so warmly received by the audience at the 1934 premiere in Philadelphia that its conductor, Leopold Stokowski, gave a follow-up performance that same year at Carnegie Hall. Dawson had already won admiration for his many choral arrangements of spirituals, their luscious and expressive harmonies derived from the singing of Black American laborers and their enslaved forebears (Delius’ very similar harmonic style was directly inspired by the singing of Black workers in Florida’s orange groves). “Ezekiel saw de Wheel” (1942), a work composed some time after the success of his symphony, is one of his finest arrangements with its exuberant style and variety of choral textures he conjures from his voices. Dawson was by then founding director of the School of Music at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), and had transformed the Institute’s already established choir into an ensemble of such excellence that it was invited to perform in 1933 at the grand opening of Radio City Music Hall in New York City. He also conducted the choir at Carnegie Hall and the White House. Dawson travelled extensively abroad both as an acclaimed choral conductor and as a researcher. From December 1952 through February 1953, he travelled around West Africa with a tape recorder, and made more than 140 recordings of indigenous folk music. Referring to this material, he revised his Folk Symphony, adding some authentic African rhythms to its first movement, which you may hear in the recording featured on the playlist.