Farewell Symphony
Careful listening to Haydn’s ‘Farewell Symphony’ of 1772, reveals the very unusual feature of a soft and sober Adagio closing to the otherwise rousing Finale. The Adagio begins with the full orchestra, but gradually instrumentalists drop out until the music simply vanishes. Haydn wrote the movement instructing his overworked musicians to leave the stage one by one as the piece progressed, conveying a witty but clear message to his aristocratic patron that the players needed a holiday. It worked!
Old Man River
The story of Old Man River is complicated. In its first incarnation, as one of the major hits from the Broadway musical ‘Showboat’, it contained lyrics that exposed the prejudice and cruel practices endured by black people who worked on the Mississippi river boats. The song was later subjected to changes that defused these messages. When Paul Robeson, an artist blacklisted during the McCarthy era ‘Red Scares’, created his own version, he restored these meanings and added a few more, repudiating his earlier performances. Robeson’s version was taken up later by William Warfield, an African American singer prominent in the American Civil Rights movement.
We Shall Overcome and Mississippi Goddam
One of the best-known protest songs of all time, ‘We Shall Overcome’, can be found in as many versions as there are singers. The one chosen here, by Pete Seeger from the 1960s, features some less commonly heard verses: ‘we’ll walk hand in hand, someday…’, ‘we are not afraid today…’, ‘we shall live in peace…’, ‘the whole wide world around…’. In the introduction, Seeger encourages his audience to join with those fighting for civil rights in Alabama and Mississippi in the United States, where racial prejudice was, and remains, visible and pernicious. Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddam’ is in a similar vein.
The Coal Train
The violent exploitation of people of colour all over the world, including in Africa, is powerfully expressed in Hugh Masekela’s ‘The Coal Train’. In echoes of the era where Africans were transported across the ocean to provide slave labour, this musical epic tells the story of Africans taken from their homes to be worked to death in the coal mines of Johannesburg.
Maggie’s Farm and Joe Hill
In other selections, Bob Dylan tells a story of worker exploitation in ‘Maggie’s Farm’, and Paul Robeson sings the inspirational legend of Joe Hill who was killed by the copper bosses in Utah while striking for workers’ rights.
A Change is Gonna Come and War
The reality of the long and ongoing struggle for civil rights, in today’s incarnation as Black Lives Matter, is told in the opening track by Sam Cooke, ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’. A similar message is conveyed, almost prophetically, in Bob Marley’s deeply affecting rap called ‘War’.
Get Up, Stand Up
In ‘Get Up, Stand Up (for your rights)’ Pete Tosh, another Jamaican and fellow member of the Wailers, encourages listeners not to give up the political fight for equal rights or to succumb to apathy.
These are just a few of the highlights of this month’s playlist. Encompassing a wide diversity of genres, the artists all write or choose music, not only to connect with their communities, but also to speak truth to power.
Listen to the playlist on Spotify, or in the Music Gallery every Tuesday in November at 3.30pm.