The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-23
WORLD of
MUSIC
Philadelphia Orchestra Plays
DaWsOH'S Negro Folk
Symphony
Reviewed by
CARL SANDS

OAhL BANDS
CTOKOWSKI, indefatigable inno-
" vator, went in for a flock of
academic novelties in his third pro-
gram of the seasons series at Car
negie Hall, on Tuesday night, salt
ing them down with Ravels "Rhap-
sodie Espagnole" NOV q years ODD
just to show, perhaps, where the
professors got much of their stuff
and where they still might get a
lot more. Its sleek brilliance is like
a record Of a gay party where
everyone was very witty but no one
can remember any of the hits.
1t contrastsd strangely with the
other works, but showed unmiStsk-
ably the same basic pattern-chaot1c
jumping together Of diverse and
unrelated material, discontinuity,
full of quick changes from one idea
to another-one hundred men going
repeatedly through evolutions of
amazing technical display to por-
tray the flip of cats tail, the wink
Of sophisticated play girl, or the
thunderous applause to a bon-mot.
We would like to know the reac-
ton to McDonald's Santa Fe Trail"
among the denizens of a HOBO
jungle anywhere along the present
line of the old route. Brake-rods,
handouts, forced labor, jail-we
live in 1894, Mcdonald, and you
missed 1e49.
Manuel Ponce's "Chapultepec" is
as little Mexican as the eclectic,
pseudo international mannerisms of
which the bulk of it is made up.
Any American professor could have
written it. The recipe is: copy not
one famous predecessor, not one ma
tional style, but a number of them,
mix them up together and attach a
label-Mexico, Napoleon at Elba,
Congress Meets, Symphony in B
Flat.
THE outstanding work among the
L novelties was william l.. Daw-
sons Negro Folk Symphony" The
composer is a Negro, born in Ala
bama in 1899. He ran away from
home to enter Tuskegee Institute,
where he arrived pennilesS. He
worked on the farm and was finally
admitted 10 study. He learned many
instruments, playing later first
trombone under Stock in Chicago,
singing in the Institute choir,
teaching school in Kansas, in 1880
returning to his Alma Mater to
organize and direct the School of
Music.
The Symphony is based upon
Negro folk-music. 1t has three
movements" The Bond Of Africa"
Hope in the Night" and 20, Lem
me Shine" 1t constitutes one more
decisive refutation of the old charge
that the Negro cannot attain dis
tinction in the culture of this coun-
try 1t is not great music; it is not
new music 1t is, except at one
point, very commonplace, not be-
cause it is by Negro but because
1t is by professor. 1t shows that
the same cultural forces are at work
in a Negroes musical life as in any
white persons, once they get into
the same rut.
But while the same cultural
forces are here at work that can
be seen in the composition of Pro-
fessors Mason and Smith, there are,
clearly, some forces that cannot be
in the work of those men at all.
Dawson is a Negro, member of an
exploited and Inundated race. The
folk-music of that race expresses
most eloquently its suffering and its
aspirations, its gayeSy and its vital
ity. But in Dawson's symphony
these qualities are sucked out of it,
by the treatment, just as they are
sucked out of the academic compo-
sitions of most OF the white men
who exploit the Negro melodies,
hoping to be able to infuse their dry
counterpart with the tears and
laughtert hat the polite audience
wants to have exhibited for it-com-
modities they cannot produce for
themselves.
OAWSON'S "The Bond of Africa"
~ is a sterile Standardization of
no moment. Has he ever heard the
music of Africa? There are mag
nificent records of it. Superb music
as complex, as masterful as any in
the world-not art" but primitive
music. 1t is probably as incompre-
hensible TO him as to any untaught
white man. His 20, Lem-me Shine"
is of the same texture, ending with
blatantly theatrical and optimistic
fanfare. He has chosen the servile,
not the fighting, folk-songs.
But the second movement, Hope
in the Night" is a fine composition
at the beginning and at the climax.
1t is beautiful, well-written and
deeply moving music.
1t is a pity that this composer is
still enmeshed in the love Of old
and dead gods. Perhaps some day
he will hear one of the revolutionary
songs of the Negro workers that
Lawrence Gellert has collected (soon
to be published by the Workers
Music League. Perhaps it will
awaken him. Perhaps he has it in
him to make the turn and become
true son of his people and give
up trying to be an imitator of lot
Of imitators.
At any rate, we shall watch
william Dawson.