In Celebration of the Human Voice - The Essential Musical Instrument

African American Spirituals CDs

Spirituals are the Southern sacred "folk" songs created and first sung by African Americans during slavery. Their original composers are unknown, and they have assumed a position of collective ownership by the whole community. They lend themselves easily to communal singing. Many are in a call-and-response structure, with back-and-forth exchanges between the leader and the group. A formal concert tradition has evolved from the original spirituals, with solo and choral arrangements based on original slave melodies, employed for performance by amateur and professional artists.

Although it is impossible to determine with certainty when the first spirituals were created, most scholars speculate that these songs proliferated near the end of the eighteenth century and during the last few decades leading up to the end of legalized slavery in the 1860Õs. Spirituals functioned on many levels for enslaved Africans. While the songs primarily expressed deeply held religious convictions, especially for newly converted Christians, they also reflected deep longings for freedom, often masked in the form of secret codes or messages imbedded in the lyrics of the songs.

The immersion of early twentieth century African American composers like Harry Burleigh into the world of European classical music composition not only inspired their own new arrangements of spirituals, but also exerted an influence on the work of the European and American mentors with whom they studied. New jazz interpretations of the spirituals have surfaced; opera divas like Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman have performed acclaimed concerts of spirituals; a small but significant cadre of church musicians are pushing for the re-integration of spirituals into church worship; there are a variety of national educational initiatives aimed at educating children and families about the cultural significance and relevance of the spirituals tradition; there are uses of the spirituals in secular-based ministries.

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