The Colorado statesman., 1917-05-26

pldnIdIlOH melOuleS WHICH ne COulpheu
in the effort to save them from falling
into oblivion. The small group of
songs by which he is best known in
clude Deep River" "The Grey Wolf"
to words by Arthur Symons; superb
setting of Walt Whitman's Ethiopia
Saluting the Colors,' THE Soldier"
and Jean"
1.-The Five Songs of Lawrence
Hope," writes a critic in the Boston
Transcript of March 10. probably rep
resent Mr.. Burleigh's best work. Here
are haunting melodies. accompani-
ments rich in detail, yet not overwrit-
ten, striking bits of delineation, and
much skill in the wedding of music to
words"
Regarding "The Soldier" A. Walter
Kramer in Musical America wrote:
Wars produce a mass of inconsequen-
tial literary and music stuff. The
present European conflict is no excep-
ton. But | think that this
Burleigh setting of Rupert Brooke's in
spire6i tines will be among the immor-
tai art-products of the Great War,
when the record is made
And these creative achievements
have necessarily been snatched from
life of routine musical toll by which
Mr.. Burlegh has earned his daily
bread. Since S94 he has been soloist
at st. Georges Church, one of New
York's most aristocratic congrega
tions, and for seventeen years he has
sung at the Temple Emanuel as well.
These achievements become doubly
significant when one realizes how Mr..
Burleigh has worked his way forward
almost without aid, handicapped by
color as well as poverty. 1t is related
how Mr.. Burleigh as boy in Erie, Pa,
contracted pneumonia from standing
in the snow outside the drawing-room
window of Mrs. Elizabeth Russell,
where his family was in service, in
order to hear Rafael Joseffy play; and
was given a chance to open the door
for the guests when later Teresa Car
reno played at the Russell home in
consequence. Working there as a
stenographer until he was 26. in 1892,
he came to New York and out of 500
applicants was given scholarship in
the National Conservatory of Music,
where he studied for four years. BY
,rin ic OF there
gether with assisting the secretary,
the mother of the well known Amerl-
can composer, E. A. Mac Dowell, he
was able to liquidate his Indebtedness
to the founder of the institution. Dur
ing one summer he worked at hotel
in Saratoga in order to make enuough
to carry him through until the follow
ing Christmas. But when in 1894 the
Young musician, standing upon the
threshold of his career, secured the
position of soloist at st. Georges in
competition with sixty other appll-
cants, his path became much easier
His talent for Interpretation of his
own folk songs became widely known
and he was in demand to sing in con-
certs and in the musical programs OF
the leading mansions OF fashionable
New York and elsewhere. The achieve
ments last year which won Mr.. Bur
leight the Spingarn medal are but the
mature fruitage of a long life of con-
secrated labor.
This is the third year the medal
has been awarded The first was pre-
sented to Dr. E. E. Just of Howard
University for original researches in
biology, Governor Whitman making
the presentation in New York. Last
year the governor of Massachusetts
presented the second medal in Boston
to Lieut.. Col. Charles Young of the
Tenth Cavalry, U. S. Army, for his
services in reorganizing the constab-
ulary of Liberia.