Florence Price

[Arbuckle]

Albany has released a CD featuring Price's Piano Concerto (reconstructed), and her Sym no. 1, she was the first black woman in the USA to have her music performed by an orchestra. Some of you have probably heard her Sym no. 3, The River, and The Oak on a Koch CD.

[edurban]

Florence Price is mentioned in several histories of American music, so I remember being very excited over the release of the Koch disc....until I listened to it.  Very disappointing, IMO: undistinguished material, rather amateurishly organized.  I wanted to like it very much.  I'd try it again, but I gave the CD away.

David

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

Florence Price is mentioned in several histories of American music, so I remember being very excited over the release of the Koch disc....until I listened to it.  Very disappointing, IMO: undistinguished material, rather amateurishly organized.  I wanted to like it very much.  I'd try it again, but I gave the CD away.

David

Agreed on both counts.  I should listen to it again - sometimes I'm just out-of-sorts on the first runthrough.  But I didn't feel as if it lived up to the hype.

That said, they may just be uninspired work - I wouldn't mind giving her another try.  Though what I'd really like to see is some Margaret Bonds...

[Jimfin]

Mmm, I didn't feel as negative about the Koch CD: I liked the use of African-American language in a symphony, but it was not as inspired as it might have been. I felt that it sounded like a promising idea which needed to be tried more. If only that had been Symphony no. 1 and now we were awaiting Symphony no. 3, instead of the other way around!

[minacciosa]

The Koch disc was awful, and did not represent the music well at all. The new one is much better (if not nearly perfect) in that respect.