william grant still’s three rhythmic spirituals · which was located at 6207 sunset boulevard in...

40 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 9

William Grant Stil l, frequently referred

to as “the Dean” of African American

composers, was born in Woodville, Mis-

sissippi, in 1895. Still was a prolifi c com-

poser who wrote music for all idioms and

was the fi rst African American to have his

works performed by a major American

symphony orchestra; conduct a major

symphony orchestra in the United States

(Los Angeles Philharmonic, 1936); and

selected to compose theme music for

the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.

Though Still broke down many barriers

for African Americans in the world of

classical music, he still found it diffi cult to

fi nd groups to program his music. As a re-

sult, many of his compositions never had

noted performances until long after he

had written them. At the time of his death

in 1978, very few people were perform-

ing the music of William Grant Still, and

William Grant Still’s Three Rhythmic SpiritualsJeff rey L. Webb

Jeff rey L. WebbAssociate Professor of MusicUniversity of Pittsburgh at Johnstownjeff [email protected]

only recently have major symphony orchestras

begun to program Still’s symphonic works such

as the Afro-American Symphony. Still was equally adept at writing works for

the voice, both solo and choral. Along with

peers such as William L. Dawson (1899-1990),

Still was especially fond of composing and

arranging African American Spirituals and

wrote dozens of spiritual arrangements for

a variety of vocalists. While Dawson’s cho-

ral arrangements of spirituals are showcased

quite often, Still’s contributions are still not as

readily performed. Three Rhythmic Spirituals is a

collection of three separate pieces arranged by

William Grant Still: “Lord, I Looked Down the

Road,” “Hard Trials,” and “Holy Spirit, Don’t

You Leave Me.” The following article provides

a short biography of Still, a history of Three Rhythmic Spiriuals, and performance consider-

ations for readers looking to perform this work

with their own choirs.


BackgroundWilliam Grant Still was fi rst introduced to spirituals by

his maternal grandmother, Sarah Antoniette “Anne” Fam-bro. She used to sing Negro Spirituals around the house while Still was a young boy. In addition, his mother, Car-rie Fambro, would take him to church services, where he would further experience American music and its intrinsic rhythmic content.1 He seems to have been intrigued not only by the music heard in the churches but in the way the pieces were presented in this setting, which clearly infl uenced how he chose to compose and arrange spiri-tuals. In fact, the music of these small churches was the initial inspiration for the style and presentation of Three Rhythmic Spirituals. The inscription Still included with the solo voice/piano version reads in part:

“During the years in which I have been engaged principally in composing symphonic and operatic works, I have also made it a point to visit small Negro churches in diff erent parts of America for the purpose of observing fi rst-hand the growth of this kind of American music. In most instances, I have found that spirituals, when sung in such surroundings, are quite unlike those usually ar-ranged for the public—though no less devout.”2

Still favored the simplicity in the music that he heard in these church settings over more elaborate arrangements of spirituals. This approach is in contrast to William Dawson, who was creating more complex arrangements of Negro spirituals for the Tuskegee Institute Choir.3

History of Three Rhythmic Spirituals

The history of Three Rhythmic Spirituals is a long, com-plicated, and varied one. Though Still wanted the set to accentuate specifi c rhythmic qualities, he was still capable of giving each spiritual its own unique character. For example, “Lord, I Looked Down the Road” uses steady staccato notes in the accompaniment to aid in producing a driving rhythm, while “Holy Spirit, Don’t You Leave Me” is a slow blues that seems to echo the same lyrical feel pro-duced in the main theme of Still’s Afro-American Symphony.

William Grant Still kept relatively detailed journals throughout his adulthood, keeping note of his daily life,

including what compositions he worked on from day to day. After his death in 1978, Still’s personal items—includ-ing photographs, original manuscripts, music typewriter, and journals—were given to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville by his widow, Verna Arvey, and daughter, Judith Anne Still. The journals are currently part of the William Grant Still/Verna Arvey Papers housed in the library at the University of Arkansas. It is through these journals that one is able to trace as much of the history of Three Rhythmic Spirituals as possible. There are, how-ever, some diffi culties in tracing the precise history of the work. The fi rst is that there is a large gap in the years of the surviving journals. The fi rst journal, dated July 1930- December 1930, is followed by an almost eight-year gap. As a result, it is unclear exactly what work may have been done on the pieces during that time. Still’s records start again in 1938 and are relatively intact for the next two decades.

The second diffi culty in tracing an exact history of the pieces is that during Still’s lifetime, he wrote the spirituals in a variety of settings. As it pertains to the complete set itself, Still wrote Three Rhythmic Spirituals in three diff erent versions: solo voice with piano, solo voice with orchestra, and mixed choir with piano. Rarely in his journal entries does Still refer to the specifi c version of the pieces he was working on at any given time.

This author could fi nd nothing within the writings of Still’s journals to explain why Still chose the three spirituals he did. His journals do indicate that he had worked on some arrangements (orchestral and vocal) of the individual pieces that make up Three Rhythmic Spiritu-als at diff erent times over the course of his career. The inscription that he wrote for the solo voice/piano version indicates that the three pieces he chose for the set best enabled him to showcase the element of the music that was the most important to him—the rhythm. The inscrip-tion reads in part:

“In presenting these three spirituals, I have tried to arrange them as I heard them sung by folk singers, and to emphasize, as they did, the natural rhythmic content of the music.”4

Still seems to have intended for his arrangements of these spirituals to retain the free and simplistic natures of the

William Grant Still’s Three Rhythmic Spirituals

CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 56 Number 9 43

spirituals he heard in the Negro churches he visited and no doubt the ones he heard his grandmother sing to him as a child. Yet, he also wanted the spirituals to maintain their rhythmic excitement and intensity. This is an aspect of spiritual writing that Still talks about repeatedly in his journals and in discussing the diff erent spirituals he ar-ranged throughout his career.

The earliest mention of any of the three spirituals that would eventually make up Three Rhythmic Spirituals is in a journal entry from August 20, 1930, which reads: “Map-ping out spirituals for Birchard. ‘Holy Spirit Don’t You Leave Me’ the fi rst.”5

In journal entries from earlier in the year, Still mentions his relationship with Clarence C. Birchard, founder of the C.C. Birchard & Company Publishing Company in Boston, Massachusetts. The entries mention the two men discussing other compositions Still had completed and the possible publication of those pieces. The August 20 entry implies that Still was, at the very least, considering com-

posing multiple spiritual arrangements in hopes of publi-cation and had settled on one of the pieces he wanted to arrange. On August 29, he wrote in an entry that he had received a message regarding publication of “Holy Spirit Don’t You Leave Me” from the C.C. Birchard Publishing Company; however, it is unclear if the piece was accepted for publication, since the Birchard library does not include any pieces written by William Grant Still, nor is there any documentation in the William Grant Still/Verna Arvey Papers that states the piece was accepted.

At the behest of Verna Arvey, Still wrote several pages about his life and career that were to be included in Arvey’s biography of Still, titled In One Lifetime.6 While some of what he wrote in these pages made it into the biography, a great deal was left out, and the pages were thought to be lost. In 2008, Still’s daughter, Judith Anne, found the missing pages in a box of photocopies of the manuscript for In One Lifetime. She took these pages and published them as the book My Life, My Words: The Au-tobiography of William Grant Still.7 It is in these pages that there is a mention of “Lord, I Looked Down the Road,” another spiritual that would eventually make its way into Three Rhythmic Spirituals. “Lord, I Looked Down the Road” was a piece he arranged during his time with The Deep River Orchestra (1931-1932). The Deep River Orchestra was founded by Willard Robison and became the featured orchestra on the “Deep River Hour” radio program. Ro-bison hired Still to write arrangements for the orchestra, and Still eventually took over as conductor for a short time. A second mention of “Lord” came via a journal entry in 1940 in which Still wrote that he was working on another arrangement of the piece.

What we learn from these journal entries and other writings by Still is that he had worked on arrangements of at least two of the three spirituals long before he decided to put them together as a set. Due to the large gap in the surviving journals, it is unclear whether Still worked on an arrangement of “Hard Trials,” the third piece of the set, before he decided to put the three spirituals together. The surviving journal entries make no specifi c mention of the piece during the time Still initially worked on the arrangements of the other two spirituals. We do, however, know from the August 20 entry that he had plans to work on multiple spirituals that he hoped would be of interest to C. C. Birchard.

William Grant Still in June 1937.


It is clear that Three Rhythmic Spirituals was initially conceived as a work to feature solo voice. What is less clear is which version was created fi rst: solo voice with piano or solo voice with orchestra. Manuscripts of two of the three spirituals in the solo voice with piano version still exist in the William Grant Still/Verna Arvey Papers. Unfortunately, there is no date on these manuscript scores. The scores for the solo voice and orchestra version are in manuscript form and are owned by the William Grant Still Estate.8 The pages are copied on paper that came from the Accurate Photocopy and Blueprint Company, which was located at 6207 Sunset Boulevard in Holly-wood, California, and there are several entries in Still’s journals that confi rm this was the place where he would take his scores to be copied once he completed the manu-script. Although there is no date of completion listed on the score, one can infer that the solo voice/orchestra ver-sion was completed after Still had moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 1934. The inscription that Still included with the solo voice/piano version of the spirituals does not appear on the score of the solo voice/orchestra ver-sion, which gives the impression that the solo voice/piano version was written fi rst. Journal entries from May 1951 state that Still was working on “Lord, I Looked Down the Road”; it is again unclear, however, which version he may have been arranging at that time.

The most extensive documentation of Still’s work on the spirituals comes in 1954. Journal entries indicate that he had formulated a plan to refi ne Three Rhythmic Spirituals. In February 1954, Still penned several entries concerning working on a set of spirituals that he intended to send to a publisher at a later date. Still’s entry from February 19 provides the best details of the work he was doing; he mentions working on “Lord, I Looked Down the Road” and also states he had received interest in the pieces from the Silver Burdett Educational Textbook Company. In March 1954, an entry states that he left the three spiritu-als with a representative for perusal. This is where things seem to have stalled, for the pieces are not mentioned again in his journals until 1956.

In March of 1956, Still writes that he is working on the choral/piano arrangements of Three Rhythmic Spirituals. This is the fi rst time he mentions the specifi c version of the pieces he is working on. Clearly Still did not feel that the version he had worked on in 1954 was suffi cient enough,

because he was continuing to refi ne it almost two years later. Creating choral arrangements was in contrast to how Still originally conceived the pieces. His stated intent for Three Rhythmic Spirituals was to have the works refl ect the sounds of folk singers he heard in Negro churches. Perhaps the success of the spiritual arrangements William Dawson created for choirs infl uenced Still’s decision to arrange for choir, but Still’s reasons for creating choral ver-sions are not found in any of his journal entries or other writings. Nonetheless, entries in the spring of 1956 clearly state that he is working feverishly on these arrangements.

In a letter sent to William Grant Still dated June 10, 1957, the Bourne Music Publishing Company agreed to publish the choral versions of Three Rhythmic Spirituals and sent Still a copy of a contract to sign and return to the company.9 However, a letter dated February 13, 1961, written by Still and sent to the widow of company founder, Saul Bourne, asks the Bourne Company to return the cop-ies of Three Rhythmic Spirituals because they had yet to be published by the company. It is unclear why it took nearly four years for the Bourne Company to attempt to publish the pieces, but Still’s letter in 1961 seems to have reminded the Bourne Music Publishing Company that they had these works in their possession; in a letter dated February 24 of that year, the company responds by stating that the compositions have been sent to the engravers for publica-tion, with the proofs being fi nalized in April 1961. While the solo voice/piano and solo voice/orchestra versions are

William Grant Still in the 1950s.



owned and available from William Grant Still Music, the Bourne Company continues to own the copyright to the choral/piano version of Three Rhythmic Spirituals.10

William Grant Still broke many barriers for African Americans in the world of classical music, and yet con-ductors are not as aware of his compositions as those of many of his contemporaries. Three Rhythmic Spirituals seems to be no diff erent in that regard. Perhaps the two most noted performances of Three Rhythmic Spirituals are those by Mattiwilda Dobbs in 1973 at Chautauqua with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, and the recording made of the choral/piano version in 1984 by Jack Groh and the University of Arkansas’ Schola Cantorum.11 The latter is the only known commercial recording of the Three Rhythmic Spirituals.

Performance ConsiderationsWilliam Grant Still’s Three Rhythmic Spirituals are scored

for choral ensembles in two diff erent formats: mixed en-semble with piano and mixed ensemble with orchestra. Though the choral versions of the pieces feature more elaborate vocal writing than that of the solo voice versions, Still attempts to remain true to his original intent. Since the simplicity of the rhythmic content and the folk singer presentation was the main inspiration for Still in arranging these pieces, the overall construction is not complex. The vocal writing for the choir is easily accessible for mixed choirs of all skill levels, including high school choirs. All three pieces use homophonic textures in the choral voices. In both “Lord, I Looked Down the Road,” and “Holy Spirit, Don’t You Leave Me,” Still includes short vocal solos. The piano accompaniment for the three pieces is heavily responsible for providing the rhythmic intensity and liveliness that Still desired. The performance dura-

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tion for the three pieces is approximately eight minutes.Performing the work with choir and orchestra presents

its own unique set of challenges. In 2007, in an attempt to highlight William Grant Still’s music, Crafton Beck and the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra combined with a number of local choirs to perform Three Rhythmic Spirituals with choir and orchestra. Still wrote orchestral parts to accompany the solo voice. When he arranged the pieces for choir and piano, however, he made a few signifi cant changes. “Lord, I Looked Down the Road” is in two dif-ferent keys (E-fl at major for the solo voice versions and D major for the choral version). Still also changed the harmonic progression for a few measures in the choral version.

“Hard Trials,” the second spiritual in the set, provided the biggest challenge in combining Still’s orchestrations with the choral version. The choral version of “Hard Trials” includes two sets of repeat signs that could not be replicated in the orchestral parts. In the choral version, Still was writing accompaniment for a single instrument (piano) and chose not to change the harmonies or voic-ing during the repeat of the refrain. This is contrary to

what he did in the solo voice/orchestral version. In that arrangement, Still changes both the instrumentation and voicing of chords each time the refrain presents itself. As a result, the orchestral parts do not include the two sets of repeats (mm. 11-18 and mm. 29-36) that appear in the choral octavos (Figures 1 and 2).

As seen in Figure 2, there are major orchestration diff erences between the refrain that starts at measure 36 and the repeat of the refrain at measure 44. In the cho-ral/piano octavo, these measures (measure 29, Figure 1) simply have a repeat sign around them because the piano accompaniment does not change. This situation proved to be diffi cult when rehearsing the piece with both the choir and the orchestra at the same time. Based upon this experience, it became clear that if these pieces were going to be performed in this version again, Still’s original orchestral score would need adjustments.

In 2009, at the request of Judith Anne Still, a full con-ductor’s score and updated orchestral parts were created for Three Rhythmic Spirituals. The updated score matches the keys and harmonic progressions Still wrote for the choral version of the pieces. The editor’s notes that accompany



the orchestral parts for the choral/orchestral version make careful note of the diffi culties mentioned above in “Hard Trials” and list the corresponding measures from the orchestra parts that encompass the two repeated sections in the choral octavos. These updated scores make the practicality of performing Three Rhythmic Spirituals with the choral octavos from Bourne and the orchestral parts from William Grant Still Music much easier for the conductor,

players, and singers alike.The solo versions of Three Rhythmic Spirituals are also

worth a perusal. The pieces serve as excellent ways to introduce spiritual singing and the concept of song cycles to solo vocalists. Though it was Still’s intent to have them performed as a unit of three, each can also be performed separately.

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ConclusionWilliam Grant Still’s Three Rhythmic Spirituals is a won-

derful example of the composer’s love for writing and ar-ranging spirituals. Inspired by the music he continuously sought out in Negro churches, Still provides singers with wonderfully simplistic yet rhythmically intense settings of well-known spirituals. The history of Three Rhythmic Spirituals provides a glimpse of the aff ection Still had for spirituals and the dedication to his craft, as he created several versions and worked on the arrangements of some of the individual pieces for over two decades. Over the last several years, William Grant Still’s orchestral music has been performed and recorded in a more earnest fashion, most notably by Neeme Järvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. However, Still’s choral music still seems to be a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered and explored by a greater number of prominent choral musicians. The reputation of works such as “Lenox Avenue,” “Wailing Woman,” “And They Lynched Him on a Tree,” and “Here’s One” would greatly benefi t from choral conduc-tors programing them more often. The best resource to fi nd the music of William Grant Still is to visit the William Grant Still Music website at www.williamgrantstillmusic.com. William Grant Still Music is under the direction of Still’s daughter, Judith Anne Still.

Photos used by permission of the William Grant Still Estate.

Editor’s Note: For further reading on this topic, see: “The Choral Works of William Grant Still” by David Griggs-Janower in Choral Journal 35, no. 10 (May 1995): 41-44.

NOTES

1 William Grant Still and Judith Anne Still, My Life, My Words: The Autobiography of William Grant Still (Flagstaff , AZ: The Master-Player Library, 2011), 33.

2 Inscription that William Grant Still wrote to accompany the solo voice/piano version of Three Rhythmic Spirituals. Used by permission of William Grant Still Music.

3 William Levi Dawson conducted the Tuskegee Institute Choir from 1931 to 1955.

4 Inscription that William Grant Still wrote to accompany the

solo voice/piano version of Three Rhythmic Spirituals. Used by permission of William Grant Still Music.

5 Journal excerpts used by permission to William Grant Still Music.

6 Verna Arvey, In One Lifetime: Life of William Grant Still (University of Arkansas Press, 1984).

7 William Grant Still and Judith Anne Still, My Life, My Words. 8 The William Grant Still Estate is housed in Flagstaff ,

Arizona, and is under the direction of Judith Anne Still. 9 A copy of this letter can be found in the William Grant Still/

Verna Arvey Papers.10 Each of the pieces that make up the choral/piano version

of Three Rhythmic Spirituals are owned and sold separately by the Bourne Company. Those wishing to perform the choral/orchestral edition of Three Rhythmic Spirituals will need to purchase the choral octavos from Bourne and the orchestral parts (including a full conductor’s score) from William Grant Still Music.

11 Judith Anne Still, Michael J. Dabrishus, and Carolyn L. Quia, William Grant Still: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 193.

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