In 2020, during the fiery days of Black Lives Matter protests all over the country, I devoted a lot of time to listening to music by Black composers, under the expectation that I’d find a lot of fantastic music that nobody much knew anything about. This expectation was more than met, and I find myself needing to get back to those composers and more.
One composer I “discovered” was Florence Price, whose music has enjoyed something of a Renaissance over the last few years, which much study, preservation of scores, and ultimately performance and recording of her works. She was a deeply gifted composer who, like many composers, produced music that was hardly deserving of being hidden under the proverbial bushel…but in her case there is an added racial element and also an added gender element. I continue to wonder how many more Mozarts, Beethovens, and, well, Florence Prices humanity would celebrate if we hadn’t insisted on devoting so much of our time to idiotic prejudices.
But anyway, here’s a lovely little work–it’s all of two minutes long!–for chorus and piano, called “Song for Snow”. The text is by poet Elizabeth Coatsworth:
The earth is lighter than the sky,
The world is wider than in spring,
Along white roads the sleighs go by,
Icily sweet the sleigh-bells ring.
The birds are gone into the south,
The leaves are fallen to the ground;
But singing shakes each sleigh-bell’s mouth,
And leaf-like ears turn towards the sound.
I suppose it’s more of a winter piece than a specifically Christmas one, but that’s fine.
I didn’t know Florence Price until you highlighted her. Thanks!