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The Film:
Interview Transcripts:
Jean Synder
Jean Snyder,
Ph.D., Burleigh Scholar, Edinboro University, on
the music of Harry T. Burleigh
 Harry
T. Burleigh was a singer of art songs. He was a composer of art songs
– a very accomplished composer by the time he started making the
spiritual arrangements in 1917. I think he understood that he had
something to contribute to music – to American music and the music of
the world – but also felt very deeply that his music needed to be
presented in a dignified way, in a way that would represent the
strength and character of African-American music.
Burleigh was convinced that the way to bring about change, and
particularly understanding between the races, was going to be through
art, even more than through political action. His grandfather and his
father and his step-father had been very active in the abolitionist
movement, and he had that same impulse. But I think he came to the
place where he believed real change would come by changing people’s
hearts, and music could change people’s hearts.
It’s very interesting that when he first started publishing the
spirituals in 1917 – based on the plantation songs he learned from his
grandfather – the United States had just entered the first World War.
This was a time when people needed the message of the spirituals.
There are some reports that the soldiers in Europe were singing the
spirituals, and I think that’s a very telling statement.
Burleigh once said that artists are the true physicians who heal with
melody the ills of mankind. They are the torchbearers, beautifully
illuminating the darkness. |
