Florence Beatrice Price: Choral Works
Naxos

Florence Beatrice Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Naxos

There's perhaps no greater advocate for the music of Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953) than John Jeter, as of this writing the only conductor to have recorded every known work by the African-American composer. While his 2019 recording of her first and fourth symphonies features performances by the Arkansas-based Fort Smith Symphony (of which he's been Music Director and conductor since 1997), he recorded Songs of the Oak (2023) and Symphony No. 3 (2021) with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen (WPR) and ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, respectively. Adding to their value and importance, many of Jeter's Price recordings include world premiere performances.

Two summer 2025 Naxos releases make for fine additions to his Price discography, the first a set of instrumental pieces, the second a splendid collection of choral works. During the 1930s, she wrote the Piano Concerto in One Movement and her first violin concerto, the latter of which apparently wasn't performed during her lifetime. Price's second violin concerto was completed mere months before her death and unfolds as a single-movement odyssey. The three works constitute her entire concerto output and join Dances in the Canebrakes, originally created for solo piano but presented here in the version orchestrated by William Grant Still, on the release, which sees Jeter helming the 1991-founded Malmö Opera Orchestra.

Helping to distinguish the release are stellar concerto soloists, pianist Han Chen and violinist Fanny Clamagirand. Both have received multiple awards, performed widely with distinction, and command broad repertoires: while Clamagirand's issued recordings featuring material by Ysaÿe, Saint-Saëns, Beethoven, and Vasks, Chen's releases include works by Liszt, Rubinstein, Adès, and Ligeti. Needless to say, both soloists comport themselves superbly in their Price renditions.

Recorded in March 2024 at Sweden's Malmö Opera House, the release begins with Price's three-part Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major. Interestingly, the duration of its first movement exceeds that of the entire second violin concerto and, not surprisingly, is as expansive. Marked “Tempo moderato,” the movement beguiles from its first moment, with Price's warm melodic intro setting a lovely stage for Clamagirand's entrance. The violinist takes to the material with seeming delight as she helps paint the picturesque scene, her playing expressive and lyrical as it progresses through a series of different contexts and riveting cadenza-like passages. Clamagirand's tone is refined but not stiff and thus well-complements the unpretentious folk-tinged quality of the writing. Delivered at a slower pace, the “Andante" adds a bluesy, rather Gerswhwin-esque character to Price's lush orchestration and singing folk melodies. The closing “Allegro” is, naturally, spirited and demands from the soloist nimble-fingered execution, and the dynamic Clamagirand shows herself well up to the challenge.

Violinist Minnie Cedargreen Jernberg premiered the Violin Concerto No. 2 in D major a few months after Price's death at a concert given in the composer's honour and would perform it twice more, in 1955 and 1964, before the score was abandoned to a house that had once been Price's summer home. It wasn't until 2009 that the score was rediscovered, along with others that have likewise been publicly shared. As it advances through a plethora of parts, the adventurous work's held together by two primary themes, one a sprightly tune, the other a sombre extended melody, plus the soloist's ongoing presence. Clamagirand scintillates as she navigates a path through the work's abundant twists and turns and adapts to its many stylistic shifts.

Its title notwithstanding, the Piano Concerto in One Movement in D minor progresses through three sections that adhere to the traditional fast-slow-fast format. The virtuosic Chen acquits himself splendidly as the work segues from a regal opening to a lyrical central section and robust finale. Price's trademark folk-classical sensibility couples with Romantic gestures in the “Andantino,” which otherwise showcases an intense tête-à-tête between piano and orchestra. Marked “Adagio cantabile,” the lovely second part finds Chen interacting tenderly with a solo oboist, after which the joyous closing episode leaps to its feet with a snappy juba dance theme. Packaged with the three concerti, the nine-minute Dances in the Canebrakes registers as a bonus of sorts (especially when in its absence the release would still total sixty-five minutes) though in no way objectionably. Whereas the framing parts, “Nimble feet” and “Silk Hat and Walking Cane,” are endearingly folksy and light-hearted, the “Tropical Noon” gently seduces with a swaying habanera rhythm that lends the music an exotic Afro-Caribbean feel.

Also recorded in March 2024 at the Malmö Opera House, Jeter's recording of Price's choral works might be even more rewarding than the concertos set, simply because recordings of her vocal pieces are smaller in number than those featuring instrumental works. Adding to its appeal, the release, which augments the Malmö Opera Orchestra with the Elena Mitrevska-led Malmö Opera Chorus, includes world premiere recordings of the seven-part cantata Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight and the spiritual-inspired Song of Hope. Whereas they pair vocal soloists and the MOC's thirty-six singers with the orchestra, the ten short songs that follow are more intimate for coupling the chorus with piano. The contributions of soprano Sara Swietlicki, mezzo-soprano Lindsay Grace Johnson, baritone Jonas Samuelsson, organist Robert Bennesh, and pianist Jan Karlsson Korp also do much to elevate the recording. Sources for the vocal works' texts range from Illinois poet Vachel Lindsay for the Lincoln cantata to Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Gerald Gould, Mary Rolofson Gamble, Bessie Mayle, and The Bible for the songs; it's worth noting that Price also supplied texts for Song of Hope and the song “Resignation.” At fifty-five minutes, the vocal release is almost twenty minutes shorter than the other but in no way suffers from that smaller total.

First published in September 1914, the twenty-two-minute Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight imagines Lincoln rising from the dead in the modern world only to find that his efforts to foster peace have come to nothing. With respect to tone, however, the work exudes optimism whilst also accounting for the solemnity experienced by the American president upon awakening. Swietlicki's dulcet soprano immediately enriches “Introduction – Overture,” with the music's enrapturing folk-classical character as marked by Price's compositional identity. The chorus makes its dramatic entrance in the work's first formal part, “It is Portentous,” the orchestra often stepping aside to let the singers establish their arresting presence. The luminous tone of the opening part reinstates itself when Swietlicki returns for the subsequent “Until the Dawn-Stars Burn Away,” while the plaintive “He Cannot Sleep” is similarly sweetened by the soprano's riveting voice. The chorus takes the reins in the work's concluding three parts, which move from despair (“His Head is Bowed”) to resilience, determination, and hope for a future still to come (“He Cannot Rest Until a Spirit-Dawn Shall Come”).

July 2025