Further “Discoveries” of Price Piano Music

This is an article I have been meaning to write for some time. It would be easy to blame my procrastination as a reaction to the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but that would be no more than a lame excuse. More realistically, I often have more irons in the fire than I can manage. Every now and then, one of them slips out and needs to be reheated.

Pianist Lara Downes (courtesy of Shore Fire Media)

Such is the case with an idea to follow up on the piece I wrote this past April about the release of pianist Lara Downes’ Some of These Days album. I introduced this new album as a complement of Downes’ America Again album, which I had discussed when it was released in October of 2016. One of the “coupling factors” involved two compositions that Florence Price had entitled “Fantasie nègre.” The first of these, written in the key of E minor, was included on America Again; and the second, written in the key of G minor, was one of the selections on Some of These Days. I subsequently learned from Downes that she had previously recorded the fourth (and last) of these pieces for a series of four EP releases entitled Florence Price: Piano Discoveries.

The first of these was planned to consist only of that fourth piece, written in the key of B minor. (I had previously cited that Downes had given the premiere performance of this piece in November of 2019.) This was followed by three collections of short pieces entitled Meditations, Excursions, and From the Heart. As the hyperlinks show, these were released as individual MP3 downloads on Amazon.com. However, the fourth “Fantasie nègre” is only available on the MP3 download of the entire collection, which was released this past February 14 and included a “sneak preview” of the second “Fantasie nègre,” which would be released two months later on Some of These Days.

There is enough diversity among this rich collection of short pieces that I strongly recommend readers going with that “full package.” There are any number of opportunities to appreciate the ways in which Price could transform her personal impressions of her own African-American heritage and its musical sources, such as spirituals. At the same time her command of brevity occasionally recalls the many short compositions that Edvard Grieg had collected in his Lyric Pieces publications. As is the case with Grieg, almost all of the titles are evocative; and the attentive listener will have no trouble recognizing Price’s own evocations.

Those taking the trouble to visit Price’s Wikipedia page will quickly discover just how prolific her catalog of compositions was. Indeed, the full content of Piano Discoveries may be a representative sample of her solo piano works, but it is definitely a modest one. The catalog also includes instrumental chamber music, both vocal and choral works, and orchestral compositions that include not only suites and overtures but also four symphonies and four concertante pieces, two each for piano and violin.

Opportunities to listen to her music in performance here in San Francisco barely scratch the surface. As might be expected, Price has been included in Sarah Cahill’s The Future is Female recital project. However, to my knowledge the only other opportunity to listen to Price has come from the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, which performed her third symphony in March of 2019. I feel a bit like Oliver Twist standing there with his empty bowl, but whom can I approach to ask for more?