William Grant Still: Summerland
Naxos

Of the many noteworthy things about the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's album of music by William Grant Still (1895-1978), perhaps the one most guaranteed to raise an eyebrow is the fact that all nine of the works presented are world premiere recordings. If I'm understanding the term correctly, that means that none of the material has been available in this particular recorded form until now, a wrong that the RSNO and conductor Avlana Eisenberg have now thankfully righted. That music of such charm, humanity, and character should not have been in peoples' lives outside of a live performance seems like a crime of some kind. Adding to the considerable appeal of the hour-long set, recorded in August 2018 at the RSNO Centre in Glasgow, is the appearance of California-born violinist Zina Schiff, Eisenberg's mother, on four pieces; Schiff even met the composer during childhood in rehearsals of the Peter Meremblum California Junior Symphony in Los Angeles. She's released recordings featuring works by Bach, Vivaldi, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, Bloch, and Barber, and sounds equally comfortable inhabiting Still's musical milieu, as do Eisenberg and the RSNO.

The Mississippi-born Still, often referred to as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas where he was sung hymns and spirituals by his grandmother and exposed to opera recordings and theatre by his stepfather. That informal musical education carried on when Still took violin lessons and taught himself cello, oboe, and clarinet. He would later play oboe in the orchestra of Shuffle Along, a Broadway show featuring Josephine Baker, and write the score for the 1936 movie Pennies From Heaven and many other films and TV shows. The prolific Still composed nearly 200 works, including nine operas, five symphonies, and four ballets and received eight honorary doctorates and numerous other awards in recognition of his work. The music he created is easy to embrace for its melodic richness and its artful integration of jazz, blues, folk, and gospel into its classical frameworks.

Certainly one of the most appealing things about the release is its variety. Folk-informed pieces appear alongside works of a more formal classical design, as well as pastoral serenades, a work created in Sibelius's memory, and even a minute-long fanfare. With rhythms designed to capture the sound of construction gangs setting railroad tracks, Can't You Line 'Em (1940) makes for an endearing introduction, packed as it is with energy and folk charm; the rather Copland-esque piece is so evocative, in fact, it's easy to visualize workers toiling at the tracks on a blistering hot day. Energized too are Quit Dat Fool'nish (1935), a jazzy romp Still wrote with his mischievous dog, Shep, in mind, and the declamatory Fanfare for the 99th Fighter Squadron (1945), written in honour of the Tuskegee Airmen who served in World War II.

“Summerland,” originally the second movement of 3 Visions (1936), is Still's lyrical rendering of heaven into musical form, and Schiff's sublime performance conveys magnificently the serenity and sweetness Still was aiming for. Complementary to it is Pastorela (1946), an alternately dramatic and tender tone poem-styled evocation of a California landscape that could also pass for a single-movement concerto for violin and orchestra. Ably supported by the sensitive voicings of the RSNO, Schiff excels in the featured role (as she also does in the Violin Suite), with her pure tone, singing vibrato, and precisely articulated double stops things of beauty throughout. As lovely is Serenade (1957), originally intended as a cello concerto but which instead became an alluring orchestral setting.

The earliest piece included, American Suite (c. 1918), was written while Still was attending Wilberforce University in Ohio and is his first symphonic work. Though he was only in his early twenties, his gifts as a composer are wholly evident in the range of the material, as a touching love song is followed by a light-footed dance episode and lustrous lament. Structured in three parts also is Violin Suite (1943), Still's musical impressions of three artworks: African Dancer, a bronze statue; Mother and Child, a coloured lithograph; and Gamin, a bronze bust. Again, strong contrasts in mood and style are evident, with the impishness of the framing movements far different from the gentle tenderness of the second. A commission to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth, Threnody: In Memory of Jean Sibelius (1965) is a moving homage by Still that manages to evoke the solemn majesty of Sibelius's writing whilst also staying true to the melodic, folk-inflected character of Still's own writing.

June 2022