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William Grant Still - Tamborito
William Grant Still - Tamborito
William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama date from 1948 and are based on a collection of Panamanian folk tunes that were collected by Elisabeth Waldo in the 1940s. Although there are putatively only four dances presented, each movement has at least two and sometimes three separate dances within it. The opening movement, Tamborito, immediately captures the listener’s attention with the players percussively striking the sides of their instruments, creating the rhythm for this highly chromatic introduction which immediately leads to a sadder and slower dance that is also quite chromatic. For the rest of the movement, Still ingeniously juxtaposes these two dances, one after the other seamlessly. When the faster dance returns, it is in two sections, the first fast and upbeat, the second more melancholy and sounding like a close relative of the tango. The movement ends surprisingly on a soft glissando. Next comes Mejorana, which sounds like a carefree Panamanian waltz. The forceful middle section is a somewhat ominous dance in two. The slowish third movement, Punto, has a gentle and very familiar Mexican sound to it. It is the kind of thing one hears in the movies when Mexican cowboys return to their hacienda at the end of a day’s work. The middle section in 6/8 is in the minor and more robust. The last movement, Cumbia y Congo,begins again with a percussive hand-pounding to a high-spirited and fast dance. At first, it sounds purely African but very quickly a heavy dose of Latin melody is added to the mix. The coda is brilliant and exciting. Any one of these movements could serve as a very effective encore. Together, they form an impressive tour de force.
— Program note courtesy of Edition Silvertrust, editionsilvertrust.com
William Grant Still (born May 11, 1895, Woodville, Mississippi, U.S.—died December 3, 1978, Los Angeles, California) American composer and conductor and the first African American to conduct a professional symphonyorchestra in the United States. Though a prolificcomposer of operas, ballets, symphonies, and other works, he was best known for his Afro-American Symphony (1931).
Still was brought up by his mother and grandmother in Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied medicine at Wilberforce University, Ohio, before turning to music. He first studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, then under the conservativeGeorge Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and later under Edgard Varèse during the latter’s most radical avant-garde period. The diversity of Still’s musical education was extended when, in the 1920s, he worked as an arranger for the bandleader Paul Whiteman and for the blues composer W.C. Handy. Early orchestral works included Darker America (1924) and From the Black Belt (1926) for chamber orchestra.
Still’s concern with the position of African Americans in U.S. society is reflected in many of his works, notably the Afro-American Symphony; the ballets Sahdji (1930), set in Africa and composed after extensive study of African music, and Lenox Avenue(1937); and the operas The Troubled Island (1938; produced 1949), with a libretto by Langston Hughes, and Highway No. 1, U.S.A. (produced 1963 and 1977). During this time, Still also made history when he conducted (1936) the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 1939 he married, settling in Los Angeles.
Still’s compositions from the mid-1930s show the jazz band as a major influence on his eclectic musical style. He made considerable use of material in the African American style—though rarely borrowing actual melodies—and preferred simple, commercial harmonies and orchestration, the use of which, however, was characterized by the highest professionalism and seriousness of purpose.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Grant-Still
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