Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet, score and parts by Florence Price
Published by Schirmer
This is a print-on-demand edition and will have the date of printing on the cover.
Florence Price (1887-1953) was an American composer and an influential figure in Chicago's Black Renaissance. Born and raised in Arkansas, she enrolled at Boston's New England Conservatory at age 15 and showed incredible promise. She eventually moved to Chicago, where she wrote most of her works and became the first African-American woman to be programmed by a major orchestra.
In 2009, a substantial catalogue of her compositions was rescued from an abandoned Illinois house slated for demolition. Since then, her music has rapidly re-entered the wider classical canon. Beautifully romantic and infused with the rich cultural heritage of African-American idioms, her music represents an integral part of America's musical history and, as Alex Ross of the New Yorker asserts, ''deserves to be widely heard.''
Price's Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet may have been written as early as 1927 and as late as 1951. They aren't simple settings of folk music--she puts the songs thru a contrapuntal tour-de-force of compositional craft. It has quickly become one of her most popular chamber works. Includes score and parts. Advanced level, Grade 5.
I. Calvary
- II. Clementine
- III. Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes
- IV. Various Folk Songs
- V. Swing Low Sweet Chariot
