Harry Burleigh
Harry Burleigh was an American classical composer, arranger, and professional singer known for his baritone voice. The first black composer who was instrumental in developing characteristically American music, Burleigh made black music available to classically trained artists both by introducing them to spirituals and by arranging spirituals in a more classical form.
Burleigh also introduced Antonín Dvořák to Black American music, which influenced some of Dvořák's most famous compositions and led him to say that Black music would be the basis of an American classical music.
Early and family life
Henry "Harry" Thacker Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1866 to Elizabeth Burleigh and Henry Thacker. Burleigh's maternal grandfather, Hamilton Waters, was granted manumission from slavery in Somerset County, Maryland, after paying $55 in 1832 and receiving a certificate of freedom in 1835. They traveled to Ithaca, New York, where two of Waters's half-brothers lived. After his mother died, Waters married Lucinda Duncanson. Their first child, Elizabeth Lovey Waters was born in Lansing, New York, in 1838. Later that year the family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, where they lived until the 1920s. Elizabeth, who was graduated from Avery College in Pittsburgh in 1855, was denied a teaching position in the Erie Public Schools, but taught at the Colored School for many years.Burleigh's father, Henry Thacker Burleigh Sr., a naval veteran in the Civil War, was the first black juror in Erie County in 1871. After his death in 1873, Elizabeth remarried in 1875. Her second husband, John Elmendorf, was also a veteran of the Union Navy.
Burleigh's grandfather, who was known for his "exceptionally melodious voice", taught young Burleigh and his brother Reginald traditional spirituals and slave songs.
Burleigh helped support his family by various odd jobs: lighting gas streetlamps, selling newspapers and working as a printer's devil, as a coachman, and as a steward on Lake Erie steamboats. He also studied to be an accountant at the Clark's Business College while he was in high school.
Burleigh's mother worked part-time for Elizabeth Russell, a music lover who hosted musical recitals at her home. Burleigh stood outside of Russell's home in the snow in order to listen to Hungarian pianist Rafael Joseffy's recital, after which Burleigh became ill. Burleigh's mother then asked Russell to hire Burleigh as a doorman. This allowed Burleigh to listen to performances of well-known musicians such as Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreño and Italian tenor Italo Campanini.
Burleigh studied voice with George F. Brierly, an English church musician. During and after his high school years, Burleigh became known as one of Erie's most accomplished classical singers. Several Erie churches and the Jewish synagogue hired him as a soloist, and he also sang as soloist at many community and civic events.
Studies at the National Conservatory
In 1892, Burleigh was accepted, with a scholarship, to the prestigious National Conservatory of Music in New York at the age of 26. He obtained the scholarship with the help of Frances MacDowell, the mother of composer Edward MacDowell, and he would eventually play double bass in the Conservatory's orchestra.At the Conservatory, Burleigh studied composition with Christian Fritsch, Rubin Goldmark, John White, and Max Spicker.
Audition
Burleigh described that among the renowned jurors of his audition for the Conservatory were Rafael Joseffy, Romualso Spaio, and Adele Marguilies. Burleigh, to his recollection, was given an ABA for reading and B for voice, when AA was the required mark. The conservatory's registrar, Frances Macdowll, informed Burleigh of his audition failure.Burleigh had first seen Macdowell at a musicale performed by pianist Teresa Caroño—teacher of Macdowell's son, Edward Macdowell—at the home of Robert W. Russell, where Burleigh's mother was a maid and Burleigh was a doorman.
Burleigh told Macdowell of his "cherished longings" of becoming a professional singer and showed her a letter of recommendation from Elizabeth Russell.Macdowell then intervened on Burleigh's behalf. Though it is unclear whether Burleigh was given a second audition, a few days later, Burleigh became recipient of the tuition scholarship—one of the four recipients among the two hundred applicants in January, 1892.
Relation with Dvořák
To help support himself during his studies, Burleigh worked for Mrs. MacDowell as a handyman, cleaning and working on anything she needed. Reputedly, Burleigh, who later became known worldwide for his excellent baritone voice, sang spirituals while cleaning the Conservatory's halls, which drew the attention of the conservatory's director, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who asked Burleigh to sing for him. Burleigh said: "I sang our Negro songs for him very often, and before he wrote his own themes, he filled himself with the spirit of the old Spirituals." Dvořák said: "In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music."From what he called "Negro melodies" and Native American music, Dvořák took up the Pentatonic scale, which appears in some places in his Symphony "From the New World" and at the beginning of each movement of the "American" String Quartet. In the Symphony, a flute theme resembles the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that may well be among those Burleigh sang to Dvořák.
In 1922, another student of Dvořák, William Arms Fisher, wrote the spiritual-like song "Goin' Home" based on an English horn melody from the second movement of the Symphony. No evidence seems to exist that the song existed before 1922, or the melody before the Symphony, although both are disputed. In 1893 Burleigh assisted Dvořák in copying out instrumental parts for the symphony.
The following year, Burleigh sang in Dvořák's arrangement of Pennsylvania native Stephen C. Foster's classic "Old Folks at Home". He graduated in 1896, and later served on the conservatory's faculty.
Singing career
Burleigh began his singing career as the baritone in his family's quartet. By the time Burleigh left Erie in January 1892, he was singing with the city's best vocalists at civic events and church gatherings. At the end of the summer of 1892, Burleigh gave a performance in the Adirondacks, at North Hudson, New York, as the featured soloist in "the summer school for Christian workers". Nine months after arriving in New York City, Burleigh appeared in two Grand Encampment Concerts at the Metropolitan Church in Washington, D.C., as "the celebrated Western baritone." Burleigh’s 1894 appearance at the Tarrytown Music Hall was one of his first public performances in the New York metropolitan area.In 1894, he became a soloist for St. George's Episcopal Church in New York City. Some parishioners opposed hiring Burleigh at the all-white church, because of his race, at a time when other white New York Episcopal churches were forbidding black people to worship. J. P. Morgan, a member of St. George's at that time, cast the deciding vote to hire Burleigh. In spite of the initial problems obtaining the appointment, Burleigh became close to many members during his long tenure as a soloist at the church. In 1946, he retired from this position after 52 years. He was instrumental in starting its tradition of an annual Spirituals service every May. His singing "The Palms" by Jean-Baptiste Faure was a Palm Sunday tradition for 50 years, and New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia arranged a radio broadcast from his office in 1944. In the late 1890s, Burleigh gained a reputation as a concert soloist, singing art songs and opera selections, as well as African-American folk songs. He sang before King Edward VII in London in 1908, among other prestigious European concerts. From 1900 to 1925, Burleigh was also a member of the synagogue choir at the Temple Emanu-El in New York, the only African-American to sing there. He also frequently worked with Walter F. Craig and his orchestra.
Burleigh disdained recording and it was long believed that no recording existed of his voice. He recorded once in 1919, for a small label run by his friend George Broome, and again in 1944 for St. George's Church. The 1919 recording exists, but the latter recordings have never been found.
Arrangements and compositions
In the late 1890s, Burleigh also began to publish his own arrangements of art songs. About 1898, he began to compose his own songs, and by the late 1910s, Burleigh was one of America's best-known composers of art songs. Beginning around 1910, Burleigh also worked editing music for G. Ricordi, an Italian music publisher with offices in New York.Burleigh published several versions of the Negro spiritual "Deep River" in 1916 and 1917, and quickly became known for his arrangements of spirituals for voice and piano. One of his arrangements in Common Metre is the hymn tune "McKee", used with John Oxenham's hymn "In Christ There Is No East or West". His arrangements helped to make spirituals a popular genre for concert singers, and within a few years, many notable singers performed Burleigh's arrangements.
File:Performers Hayes Brown Tapley Burleigh01.png|thumb|300px|left|Photographs of performers Hayes, Brown, Tapley, and Burleigh from a 1915 Boston performance
Burleigh's art song arrangements of spirituals and sentimental songs were so popular during the late 1910s and 1920s, that almost no vocal recitalist gave a concert in a major city without occasionally singing them. John McCormack sang several of Burleigh's songs in concert, including "Little Mother of Mine", "Dear Old Pal of Mine", "Under a Blazing Star", and "In the Great Somewhere". The popularity of Burleigh's settings contributed to an explosion of popularity for the genre during the 1920s. He set some poems by Walt Whitman to music and also published music for piano and violin.
Estimates of Burleigh's original musical output range from 200 to 300 songs. In 1914, he was a founding member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and received a seat on its board of directors in 1941.