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XXV NEGRO SPIRITUALS
"I want to cross over in a ca'm time."
"I'm so glad God fixed it so Dat de rich mus' die as well as de po\" |
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"What melody would stop him [an American] on the street if he were in a strange land, and make the home feeling well up within him, no matter how hardened he might be, or how wretchedly the tune were played? . . . The most potent, as well as the most beautiful among them [the melodies], according to my estimation, are certain of the so-called plantation melodies and slave songs, all^ of which are distinguished by unusual and subtle harmonies, the thing which I have found in no other songs but those of Scotland and Ireland."—Anton Dvorak, in Century Magazine, February, 1895.
"The songs [of the Southern Negro] are folksongs in the truest sense j that is, they are songs of the folk, created by a folk, giving voice to the emotional life of a folk} for which life America is responsible. They are beautiful songs. . . . Musicians have never been so conscious as now of the value of folksong elements. Music is seeking new vehicles of expression, and is seeking them where they are most sure to be found—in the field of the folksong. We have such a field 5 it is rich and should be cultivated."—H. E. Krehbiel, in Afro-American Folksongs, 1914. |
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