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William Grant Still: Symphony No 1 ‘Afro-American'

William Grant Still: Symphony No 1 ‘Afro-American’; Duke Ellington: ‘The River’ —Detroit Symphony/Neeme Järvi Chandos 9154)

In 1993, the Gramophone review read, in part: “This is an imaginative coupling of two major figures in black American music. A modern recording of the Still is a real discovery which ought to bring this first Afro-American symphony to a wide audience. The style is accessible, the scoring sophisticated and colorful and, although there are blue notes and syncopated rhythms, the work is not under the shadow of Gershwin…Each of the four movements is related to fragments of poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar, quoted in the score, and the whole work is inscribed by the composer "with humble thanks to God, the source of inspiration"…The ending is nobly cast, reflecting Afro-American idealism of the 1920s. Altogether there is no reason why this symphony should not become as popular as Gershwin's concert works…Ellington wrote his ballet score, The River, for American Ballet Theatre in 1970…Ron Collier's orchestration is mostly Hollywood with occasional glimpses of better things which suggest the arrangements of Nelson Riddle. But fragments of the Duke survive, which is surely justification enough.”