Page 28 - CJSept24

William Dawson: A Personal Reflection

with consummate dignity! ban, not very diverse high school and work with his very
He wrote a symphony when it was conventional fine choir. I found them in the auditorium, with several
wisdom that such creativity was beyond the compos- empty seats between each singer, very appreciative for
er of color and heard that work premiered by one of the opportunity to still sing.
America’s great orchestras under the baton of one of Together we worked the “Introit and Kyrie” from
the premier maestros of the age. His fabled Tuskegee Mozart’s Requiem and Dawson’s Ezekiel Saw De Wheel.
Choir performed for two U. S. presidents and, in that The kids loved the Dawson! His folk settings have real
pre-television era, sang for national radio broadcasts. appeal. And it is lasting appeal. Even the “simpler” piec-
What lessons this giant can offer about martialing the es are no guzzle of empty calories! Dawson’s works have
resources of personhood and achievement and deter- an enduring place in the choral canon. He respected this
mination to refuse to accept a place in the margins to music in the deepest way and respected the “Black and
which others want to relegate you. Unknown Bards” who first made it. As a boy his heart
Dawson matters because he at once honored and was touched, spirit moved when he heard these songs.
elevated the song of the captive laborer. Literary leg- He knew their story, a story that many elders in his com-
end James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) lionized these munity could recount firsthand. He knew the deep place
swarthy musicians and their songs: from which they came—and which they were capable of
reaching. Perhaps he wondered with Johnson:
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? What merely living clod, what captive thing,
How, in your darkness, did you come to know Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,
The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre?... And find within its deadened heart to sing
Heart of what slave poured out such melody These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?
As “Steal away to Jesus”? On its strains
His spirit must have nightly floated free, How did it catch that subtle undertone,
Though still about his hands he felt his chains. 1 That note in music heard not with the ears?
How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,
Look closely at Dawson’s work. The slave trans- Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.
2
formed bitter bondage into song. Dawson transformed
that coarse but earnest musical cloth into the finest It was a mystery that William Dawson honored with all
works of art, often bringing to the service of his work his heart and soul!
his “orchestral” sensibilities. What audacious imagina-
tion and uncommon creativity to transform a repeti-
tive pentatonic melody of limited compass into that NOTES
celebrated pièce de resistance, Ezekiel Saw De Wheel!
And certainly, composers and arrangers of this genre 1 James Weldon Johnson, ed., The Book of American Negro Poetry,
in the years since Dawson have been, as they should, 1922.
influenced by more contemporary and current stylis- 2 Ibid.
tic elements and cultural values. But Dawson’s music,
steeped in Romantic values of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, still speaks legitimately and
with profound authenticity to singers and listeners alike.
Choirs still want to sing, and audiences still want to
hear Dawson’s music. His music attracts choral musi-
cians of all ages and stages. One fond memory of mine
is of being asked during the height of the pandemic by
a dear and esteemed colleague to come to his subur-

26 CHORAL JOURNAL September 2024 Volume 65 Number 2