William Grant Still: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra turn to two works from William Grant Still’s “universal” period. In this phase, the self-styled “Dean of Afro-American Composers” looked beyond explicitly racial subject matter toward a broader, pluralist idea of American music. The Symphony No. 2 in G minor, “Song of a New Race” (1937), follows his celebrated “Afro-American” Symphony. It reflects what Still called the “totally new individual” of the modern American, and its title was in fact supplied by Leopold Stokowski, who conducted the premiere. Its ballad-and-foxtrot slow movement, jazz-inflected third movement, and a final F minor chord that unsettles the expected G minor close leave the symphony’s conclusion as a lingering question.

The Symphony No. 4, “Autochthonous” (1947), takes its title from a word meaning native to its place. Still intended it as a portrait of “the spirit of the American people,” built on a classical four-movement plan. Polytonal strings, a lonesome oboe folk song, a big-band-flavored dance movement, and a bell-tolling finale celebrate what he called the “warmth and the spiritual side” of the nation. Recorded live in the Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center, the album sets both works in the context of Still’s own writings and the debates of the Harlem Renaissance, with notes by Sarina Benezra Bell.

National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor