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III. Juba Dance: Allegro
mm. 80-97 |
Skills & Techniques: Accuracy, Finger Fluency, Scale Practice, Soft Playing
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Horn 1-4 (F)
Due to restrictions, sheet music for this excerpt is not provided.
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Philadelphia Orchestra (2021)
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New Black Repertory Ensemble (N/A)
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Composer & Composition Information
Florence Price (1887-1953)
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Florence Beatrice (Smith) Price became the first black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra when Music Director Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played the world premiere of her Symphony No. 1 in E minor on June 15, 1933, on one of four concerts presented at The Auditorium Theatre from June 14 through June 17 during Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition. The historic June 15th concert entitled “The Negro in Music” also included works by Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and John Alden Carpenter performed by Margaret A. Bonds, pianist and tenor Roland Hayes with the orchestra. Florence Price’s symphony had come to the attention of Stock when it won first prize in the prestigious Wanamaker Competition held the previous year.
The text & image are reprinted from the FlorencePrice.com where more information about the composer can be found. |
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Symphony No. 1 in E minor
Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor consists of four movements. The first, Allegro non troppo, is in traditional sonata form and that lasts nearly fifteen minutes. This movement deliberately hearkens to Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 “From the New World”—a self-conscious nod to newly solidified conventions in the American orchestral sound and a claim on ten part of Price to being an integral part of this new, national symphonic tradition. The second movement, Largo, is a ten-part brass choir playing a newly composed hymn, accompanied by drumming. The third movement is notable for its expressive name, “Juba Dance,” which evokes an African-derived folk dance that was popular among slaves in the antebellum South, and for its brevity—the movement does not last four minutes. Price plays here with the expectation of a dance as the third movement of a classical symphony (which in European symphonies is often a minuet) and explores an African American musical style anchored in the South of the United States. Its concise format allows it to pass for a work of popular music. The last movement, Finale, is a fast movement of about five minutes in the form of a modified rondo. The use of the pentatonic scale, vital to African American musical idioms such as jazz and blues, is prominent throughout the work.
The text is written by & reprinted from UNC College of Arts and Science where more information about the composition can be found.
The text is written by & reprinted from UNC College of Arts and Science where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2023)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2021)
Cleveland Orchestra (2020)
BBC Scottish Symphony (2019)
Dallas Symphony Orchestra (2023)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (2021)
Cleveland Orchestra (2020)
BBC Scottish Symphony (2019)