African-American spirituals comprise one of the world's greatest and best-loved bodies of music, appealing to both performers and audiences across all boundries. This book is the first anthology to present a comprehensive survey of the genre's reperoire - its principal composers, themes and forums - in a way this is at once stylistally authentic, historically meaningful and intended for practical use both in worship and in concert. Included is a rich array of songs, both familiar and less familiar, arranged by twenty eight of the most significant composers and presented in chronological order from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. The selections illustrate the history of the spiritual as an art form - from the first serious attempts at notation in ways that approximated actual performance styles, through an arrangement by one of today's most exciting composer-arrangers Moses Hogan. |
