#blackmusic #africanamerican #violin
Title: Levee Dance Op. 27, No. 4 (1927)
Composer: Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960)
Performed by
Daniel Ziesemer, violin ([email protected])
Jacob Bernhardt, piano
History and Description
The period around the time of this song’s publication (1927) was called by some the “Golden Age of Violin” because the turn of the 20th century was blessed by the emergence of many beloved violinists still famous today, such as Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Nathan Milstein, and Clarence Cameron White. This piece was one of Heifetz’s favorite arrangements to play, and because of that, it was quickly made more popular due to Heifetz’s renown at the time as a virtuoso.
The Levee Dance begins with a rousing piano intro, quickly accompanied by the pizzicato notes of the violin, which in turn, swiftly whirls into the lively theme of the piece as strings and keys play out this delightful composition. It is infused with bouncing, blues-inspired notes, balanced in the middle section by the more solemn sounds of the familiar melody of Go Down Moses, one of the great spirituals birthed out of the era of slavery before the American Civil War.
History of Composer
Clarence Cameron White was born in 1880 in Tennessee, his father a doctor and his mother a professional violinist. His father having died when Clarence was a young child of two, he, his younger brother, and his mother moved to her parents’ home in Oberlin, Ohio. His grandfather had had a career in playing the violin and gave him his old instrument at the request of Clarence’s mother. The first spark of love for the violin was kindled in him when he lived with his grandparents, but it fanned into a great flame when he and his family lived in Washington, D.C. after his mother remarried. At twelve years old, he was brought by his mother to hear the great composer and violinist Will Marion Cook play at a concert but fell asleep during the other performances leading up to it. In his own words, “ When I was told that he had played I burst out crying and made such a fuss that my mother had to hustle me out of the concert and I went home in disgrace.” Clarence was introduced to the violinist later, due to Cook’s inquiries as to why the boy was upset at the recital, and Cook graciously gave him lessons in the summer of 1892. Later, he continued his studies with the grandson of the famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass - Joseph Douglass, who was an accomplished violinist, as well. He went on to study at various institutions and with various tutors, including attending the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where his mother graduated from, and travelling abroad to London and Paris for further education.
The style of his compositions was that of Neo-Romanticism, (the type that emerged when composers who rejected Modernism and Expressionism were inspired by, and returned to, the beautifully emotional tonal qualities of the 19th-century Romantic musical movement, and built their compositions around it) many of his pieces being infused with the bluesy, soul-stirring melodies of black spirituals and folk music, which was very popular in Washington D.C.
Throughout his career, White bore the titles of various roles - violin historian, Washington Conservatory of Music’s string department director, concert violinist, one of the founders (and later president) of the National Association of Negro Musicians, teacher, and Hampton Institute’s musical director. He was married twice, first to the pianist Beatrice Wallace, with whom he fathered two sons, and a year after her death married the African-Puerto Rican puppeteer, writer, and librarian Pura Belpre.
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