Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 The Philadelphia Orchestra & Yannick Nézet-Séguin

• Florence Price (1887 - 1953): Symphony No. 1 in E Minor:
• 1 Price: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: I. Allegro ma non troppo 18:11
• 2 Price: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: II. Largo, maestoso 13:22
• 3 Price: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: III. Juba Dance 03:41
• 4 Price: Symphony No. 1 in E Minor: IV. Finale 04:52
• Symphony No. 3 in C Minor:
• 5 Price: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: I. Andante 11:27
• 6 Price: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: II. Andante ma non troppo 09:32
• 7 Price: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: III. Juba. Allegro 05:05
• 8 Price: Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: IV. Scherzo. Finale 05:04
• Total Runtime 01:11:14

Info for Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3

Florence Price came to prominence almost ninety years ago, having surmounted systemic barriers to the progress of African-Americans and women in classical music. Much of her music then fell into neglect, however, and has only recently been rediscovered. Among those championing her work today are The Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Their latest Deutsche Grammophon recording, Florence Price · Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3, will be released as an e-album on 24 September 2021, launching a planned series of recordings celebrating the achievements of the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major American orchestra.

“We’re delighted to record the music of Florence Price for Deutsche Grammophon,” comments Nézet-Séguin. “So much important music around the world has been neglected, not because of the quality of the work, but for superficial reasons. It’s so important to me and to The Philadelphia Orchestra to look at these works, bring back the music of composers we believe in, like Florence Price, and continue broadening the repertoire to give a much more diverse representation of who we are as a society today.”

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1885, Florence Price received instruction in music from her mother and went on to study composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston and privately with its director George Whitefield Chadwick. After her marriage, she and her family moved to Chicago to escape the racial conflicts of the south. She then divorced her abusive husband and focused on bringing up her children, supporting the family by working as a pianist, organist, teacher and composer.

Her Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1931–32), winner of the Rodman Wanamaker Contest in Musical Composition, was first performed in 1933 by Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Stock’s support encouraged Price to create other large-scale works. Her Third Symphony, originally commissioned by the Federal Music Project during the Great Depression, was first performed in 1940.

Notes Nezet-Seguin, “In her First Symphony, we hear folkloric melodies blended with church music chords, and chords that are opening up to jazz, to create something that sounds quintessentially American. She was adapting a European form and putting it into her own language … In the Third Symphony, every melody feels as if it should be sung … The material is so vocal, the writing is almost choral. And I love the fact that the orchestration encourages solos from everywhere in the orchestra … It feels as if she loved all the instruments equally.”

Although Price continued to compose and teach until her death in 1953, her music was routinely dismissed as conservative by ultra-modernists. Meanwhile, doors that might otherwise have opened remained firmly shut thanks to racism and sexism. She continued to be cited as one of the earliest African-American composers to achieve nationwide acclaim in the US, but performances, publications and recordings of her work remained rare.

Happily, a revival is now underway. Price’s First and Third Symphonies were issued in an impressive scholarly edition in 2008. The following year a batch of manuscript scores, long believed to have been lost, were discovered by the new owners of the composer’s former summer home in St Anne, Illinois. In exploring her music, on stage and in the studio, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra aim to help restore Price to her rightful place among other leading twentieth-century American composers.

The conductor sums up this desire with reference to the Third Symphony: “I hope when we play it … and as other orchestras play it, one day – and hopefully sooner rather than later – it will become as familiar and as much part of the canon and part of who we are as an orchestra as any other symphony by Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Yannick Nézet-Séguin ist derzeit in seiner zehnten Saison als Musikdirektor des Philadelphia Orchestra tätig. Außerdem wurde er im August 2018 der erst dritte Musikdirektor in der Geschichte der New Yorker Metropolitan Opera. Weithin anerkannt für seine Musikalität, sein Engagement und sein Charisma, hat er sich als erstklassiger Chefdirigent und als eines der aufregendsten Talente seiner Generation etabliert. Sein auf Kooperation zielender Probenstil, seine musikalische Neugier und sein Enthusiasmus, gepaart mit neuen Wegen der Programmgestaltung, werden von Kritiker*innen und Publikum gleichermaßen gelobt und geschätzt.

Seit 2000 ist er künstlerischer Leiter und Chefdirigent des Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal, von 2008 bis 2018 stand er dem Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest als Musikdirektor vor. Seine von der Kritik gefeierten Auftritte, unter anderem an der New Yorker Metropolitan Opera, der Wiener Staatsoper, der Mailänder Scala, dem Londoner Royal Opera House, der Niederländischen Oper, dem Festspielhaus Baden-Baden und bei den Salzburger Festspielen, demonstrieren sein weites künstlerisches Spektrum.

Eine enge Zusammenarbeit verbindet ihn mit den Berliner Philharmonikern, den Wiener Philharmonikern, dem Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks und dem Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Weiterhin leitet er regelmäßig das Boston Symphony Orchestra, das Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, die Staatskapellen Berlin und Dresden, die Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia und alle großen kanadischen Orchester.

2018 unterzeichnete Nézet-Séguin einen Exklusivvertrag mit dem Label Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG). Zu seinen kommenden Aufnahmen gehören Projekte mit dem Philadelphia Orchestra, der Metropolitan Opera, dem Chamber Orchestra of Europe und dem Orchestre Métropolitain. Seine Einspielungen mit dem Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest und dem London Philharmonic Orchestra sind bei zahlreichen weiteren Labeln erschienen.

Der in Montreal geborene Nézet-Séguin studierte Klavier, Dirigieren, Komposition und Kammermusik am Conservatory of Music in Montreal und setzte seine Studien bei Carlo Maria Giulini fort; außerdem studierte er Chorleitung bei Joseph Flummerfelt am Westminster Choir College. Nézet-Séguin wurde 2012 zum Companion of the Order of Canada ernannt, eine der höchsten zivilen Auszeichnungen des Landes; 2015 wurde er zum Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec ernannt und 2017 zum Officer of the Order of Montreal. Außerdem erhielt er u. a. die Ehrendoktorwürde der Universität von Québec in Montreal, des Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, des Westminster Choir College der Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey und der University of Pennsylvania.

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