Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Renaissance (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780252039942)

Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949) played a leading role in American music and culture in the twentieth century. Celebrated for his arrangements of spirituals, Burleigh was also the first African American composer to create a significant body of art song. An international roster of opera and recital singers performed his works and praised them as among the best of their time.

Jean E. Snyder traces Burleigh's life from his Pennsylvania childhood through his fifty-year tenure as soloist at St. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan. As a composer, Burleigh's pioneering work preserved and transformed the African American spiritual; as a music editor, he facilitated the work of other black composers; as a role model, vocal coach, and mentor, he profoundly influenced American song; and in private life he was friends with Anton? Dvoř疚, Marian Anderson, and Will Marion Cook. Snyder provides rich historical, social, and political contexts that explore Burleigh's professional and personal life within an era complicated by changes in race relations, class expectations, and musical tastes.

Drawing on exhaustive research into archives and family histories, Harry T. Burleigh reclaims the life and art of an essential American composer.

Author: Jean E. Snyder
ISBN-10: 0252039947
ISBN-13: 9780252039942
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 02/19/2016
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 2.00lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.20w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2017