The latest episode of Zsolt Bognar’s Living the Classical Life features pianist Michelle Cann. Michelle, 35, is a leading piano professor at the Curtis Inistitute. But her mission in music is to revive the music of Florence Price.
Fascinating chat.
We’ve been given to understand that tonight’s Lebrecht…
Pablo Casals conducts a gloriously old-fashioned 1971 performance…
From the last Lebrecht Album of the Week…
The Chinese-Australian pair of comedy fiddlers have called…
Session expired
Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.
An average, somewhat soporific composer. After all the manicured hype and hysteria about Price, I tried like hell to enjoy Yannick’s Philly symphonies recording. Jerome Kern meets (2nd rate) Dvorak. My review (still going strong on Google) is an outlier.
They can play it in their sleep and compared to his Rach series, not particularly well recorded.
Price’s salon pieces are very pleasant but the larger scale works are not her forte.
Discovery and promotion in a (well meaning) attempt to promote diversity.
Price had a pretty miserable life (racism and a very bad marriage) but she was trained at top institutions (NEC) and was lauded by Stock and the CSO.
Discovered? There are 40 recordings of Price’s music on Roon.
Completely agree.
The supercharged hype around her invariably promises more than the music delivers. It’s competent but often derivative and otherwise unremarkable — just like the music of so many of her white contemporaries whose music is now virtually forgotten.
There’s a reason we hear a lot of Copland and Ives (and for that matter Duke Ellington) and very little of John Alden Carpenter or Daniel Gregory Mason. Sometimes it takes time, even decades, but all great art eventually rises to the surface. Of course there’s room for all kinds of music, of a range of quality, from composers of various backgrounds. Less familiar music, even if not the greatest, helps create a richer, more complex picture of the milieu in which it was created. I enjoy plenty of second and third-tier composers. But there’s a reason that Brahms has endured while Raff has not, and it doesn’t involve an elaborate conspiracy.
We also need an honest, dispassionate evaluation of the music itself, understanding the distinctions between music whose interest is mainly historical and music whose quality and originality and influence lift it into a completely different realm.
Music should, finally, sink or swim on its own intrinsic qualities—regardless of the composer’s identity. I believe any self-respecting composer would feel the same of his/her own work.
Endless concerts of mediocre music to satisfy some political point will result in fewer people attending concerts with inevitable consequences.
“Less familiar music, even if not the greatest, helps create a richer, more complex picture of the milieu in which it was created.” Yes, okay, I like where this is going. I would agree that Florence Price’s music is “less familiar and not the greatest but still important in other social ways.”
“Endless concerts of mediocre music to satisfy some political point will result in fewer people attending concerts with inevitable consequences.” Nope, nevermind.
How can one make the first statement, only to dismiss it as being “political”? Diversity is seen as political only by those who dismiss diversity.
“Endless concerts”? Do you really think there are endless concerts of Florence Price’s (and similar ilk) music? I’d say periodic at best. Let’s not dramatize how often this music is being programmed.
Programming Florence Price is more likely to find a new audience than “result in fewer people attending concerts.” And if you don’t attend a concert simply because Florence Price is represented at the concert, then the problem is likely with you, not her.
Your point is well stated. I would disagree about John Alden Carpenter (coincidentally, a supporter of Price); he is one of America’s greats and his oeuvre has not been explored nearly to the degree it deserves. In the process of making a recording of his music, I had to take a very deep dive into his catalog. Please take my word for it and find what you can of his music. He’s an original that should stand in the company of the greats you mentioned. There is nothing quite like Carpenter’s music in the American canon. Time and exposure will bear me out, just as you wrote.
“An average, somewhat soporific composer”
Yeah you can same the same about Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc…don’t even know they are played to be honest. They’re irrelevant.
You are welcome to her. Nobody is still talking about this totally derivative, deservedly obscure 1/2 talent. That was a George Floyd / Corona knee-jerk moment.
Yeah you can same the same about Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc…don’t even know they are played to be honest. They’re irrelevant.
It would be more honest and accurate to simply say that Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms are “irrelevant” – to YOU. Stating your opinion in the manner above is nothing more than wishful thinking. It’s akin to clicking your heels together three times and wishing you were back in Kansas.
You’re a moron if you believe any word of what I said. #sarcasm
Also, why aren’t you defending Price like you’re defending Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms?
“Also, why aren’t you defending Price like you’re defending Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms?”
You’re a moron if you have to ask.
I agree – had her large-scale works been by a white male composer, they would have vanished without trace. Alongside Scott Joplin and Samuel Coleridge Taylor and William Grant Still she comes nowhere. Surely Beethoven was the greatest black composer…
You mean the pleasant but unremarkable Price who, incidentally, was far from neglected in her lifetime and is only now being played to death largely to soothe the guilty consciences of woke white liberals. It’ll pass.
I have no guilt, do you? I’m just curious to hear some composers I haven’t heard much of before. And given how racism and sexism no doubt kept her and others from getting exposure they might otherwise have gotten, I’m willing to give it a go. Just like I want to hear more of Korngold’s Symphony in F, Harold Shapero’s Symphony for Classical Orchestra (which to me belies the assertion that great music eventually finds its way, since this one hasn’t), and Miklos Rozsa’s Violing Concerto. And virtually anything by Jean Francaix.
“pleasant but unremarkable”
Yeah you can same the same about Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc…don’t even know they are played to be honest. They’re irrelevant.