Notes and Editorial Reviews
This disc features the Boston-based organization Videmus performing art songs and spirituals by the African-American composer, William Grant Still. The CD also includes the premiere recording of the Caribbean Suite. This work is an arrangement of pieces from Caribbean Melodies by Still, in collaboration with African-American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, who collected and annotated the melodies while in the Bahamas during the 1930s. Still had a continuing interest in folk settings - a musical genre he would re-visit and explore many times in his long career. There are seventeen songs in his 1941 arrangement, eleven of which Vivian Taylor has set in the Caribbean Suite. In the original version, many songs were only one page in length.
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The Caribbean Suite expands these pieces through repetition (with alternating instrumentation), variation, and improvisation. Still's rhythm and harmonies remain unaltered. The disc also contains nine spirituals and art songs. Read less
Works on This Recording
1.
Caribbean Suite by William Grant Still
Performer:
Louise Toppin (Soprano),
Stan Strickland (Saxophone),
Vivian Taylor (Piano),
Ruth Hamilton (Alto),
Robert Honeysucker (Baritone)
Conductor:
Mark Ford
Orchestra/Ensemble:
East Carolina University Steel Orchestra,
Videmus
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1941; USA
Notes: Arranger: Vivian Taylor.
2.
Didn't Ma Lord Deliver Daniel by William Grant Still
Performer:
Stan Strickland (Saxophone),
Robert Honeysucker (Baritone),
Vivian Taylor (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
Notes: Arranged: Vivian Taylor
3.
Hard Trials by William Grant Still
Performer:
Vivian Taylor (Piano),
Louise Toppin (Soprano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
4.
Gwinter Sing All along de Way by William Grant Still
Performer:
Vivian Taylor (Piano),
Robert Honeysucker (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
5.
Here's One by William Grant Still
Performer:
Ruth Hamilton (Alto),
Stan Strickland (Saxophone),
Vivian Taylor (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1941; USA
Notes: Arranged: Vivian Taylor
6.
Breath of a Rose by William Grant Still
Performer:
Louise Toppin (Soprano),
Vivian Taylor (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
7.
Grief by William Grant Still
Performer:
Robert Honeysucker (Baritone),
Vivian Taylor (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
8.
Bayou Home by William Grant Still
Performer:
Vivian Taylor (Piano),
Robert Honeysucker (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
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