‘Women didn’t compose back then’ – or did they?

This article originally appeared in International Piano magazine.

I had always assumed that ‘women didn’t compose back then’. I can’t tell you when or how this phrase was passed on to me, but there was certainly very little in my music education to suggest otherwise. All of this changed during my undergraduate exchange year at McGill University in Canada. I was introduced to Florence Price and Margaret Bonds in a course on early 20th-century music. Their names and works followed the previous week’s focus on Lili and Nadia Boulanger. The Boulanger sisters opened my eyes to a longer history of women in music. Price and Bonds, however, were a revelation: this was the first time I ever encountered women composers of African descent.

Florence Price: ‘I have two handicaps – those of sex and race.’ Photo: University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville

Price (1887-1953) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. She pursued her passion for classical music at the New England Conservatory in 1903 and graduated three years later with two degrees: one in piano teaching and one in organ performance. She migrated to Chicago in 1927 and made history in 1933 as the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major national orchestra when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony No 1 in E minor.

Bonds (1913-1972) was born and raised in Chicago. Her mother, Estella, was deeply involved in musical life in the city and welcomed Price into Chicago’s Black classical scene. The young Margaret made history alongside Price in 1933 as she became the first Black female soloist to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Like Price, Bonds was a masterful pianist and prolific composer, and Bonds became one of the chief interpreters of Price’s piano works.

Fantasie Nègre No 1 in E minor was the first piece I ever heard by Price. She wrote it in 1929 and added the inscription, ‘To my talented little friend, Margaret A. Bonds.’ My album, Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price, is named after Price’s fantasie genre. Fantasie Nègre translates as ‘Negro Fantasy’. ‘Negro’ pertains to the African heritage of Florence Price’s mixed cultural background, while ‘Fantasy’, as both a general and musical term, conveys the effusive outpouring of Price’s imagination onto the page. But its shades of meaning do not end there. Fantasie is German. Nègre is French. Price’s national voice is American and, at its heart, are the stories of the enslaved. For example, Fantasie Nègre No 1 is based on the spiritual, ‘Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass’, and the other fantasies (No 2 in G minor, No 3 in F minor and No 4 in B minor) strongly evoke Black American folk songs.

Price’s music is embedded in a wider network of Black women composers in early 20th-century Chicago and the era of the Black Chicago Renaissance. As a musicologist, I examine this network and era to better understand the conditions that allowed Price to thrive amid the racist and sexist dictates of her society. Price, herself, wrote, ‘To begin with I have two handicaps – those of sex and race. I am a woman; and I have some Negro blood in my veins.’ She knew that her identity as a Black woman in Jim Crow America could present significant barriers to her career as a composer. And this is what makes Price’s Chicago community and the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance so vital. During this dynamic cultural movement, Black practitioners formed strong networks of support with women’s leadership at the centre.

During my 2017 visit to Chicago for archival research, I learned that an African American woman called Maude Roberts George, who was a soprano and respected civic leader in Chicago, underwrote Price’s and Bonds’ 1933 premieres with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. So while Price’s entry into the classical mainstream is an important part of her story, the community behind her success is one of the most fascinating details for me.

Florence Price (front row, 4th from left) with Maude Roberts George (3rd from right) in 1934. Photo: University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville

When I play Price’s music I am evoking the relationships around her pieces and inviting listeners to imagine this past with me. And when I play her works alongside those by her contemporaries, the musical narrative becomes even richer. For example, when I perform Margaret Bonds’ Troubled Water for solo piano, which is based on the spiritual ‘Wade in the Water’, I am able to demonstrate the influence of Price, who taught Bonds composition, and the larger community of Black classical musicians in Chicago, who further nurtured Bonds’ talents. A whole history comes to life in performance and my audience, through their engagement and enjoyment, plays a key role in bringing this history into a new chapter.

So as this new chapter unfolds, with Price receiving the acclaim and accolades that eluded her in her lifetime, I hope many more pianists will perform her music. As my album shows, her writing is both virtuosic and kaleidoscopic. The late 19th-century German tradition underpins her musical training, which makes the music feel familiar. Yet her voice is very distinct, which gives pianists much to explore and discover. Additionally, Price’s music will no doubt lead pianists to the wealth of repertoire by other Black women composers, past and present.

I am pleased to say that since my time at McGill, I have fully unlearned the phrase ‘women didn’t compose back then’. In fact, it is because of women ‘back then’ that classical music continues to resonate with the diverse interests and concerns of our modern day. My album Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price honours Price’s story and brings her pianistic voice into conversation with a new era.

Samantha Ege’s Fantasie Nègre: The Piano Music of Florence Price is now available from Lontano Records (LNT 144). lorelt.co.uk

Find out more about Florence Price and music by Black women composers:

Books
Rae Linda Brown, The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price
Eileen M. Hayes and Linda F. Williams, Black Women and Music: More Than the Blues

Recordings
Maria Corley, Soulscapes: Piano Music by African American Women
Artina McCain, Heritage: An American Musical Journey
Althea Waites, Black Diamonds: Piano Music by African-American Composers
Helen Walker-Hill, Kaleidoscope: Music by African American Women
Karen Walwyn, Florence B. Price: Concerto in One Movement/Symphony in E Minor