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The origins of Afro-American (negro; black) spirituals are probably
rooted in the complex interaction of rural white and black religious
music in early frontier America. Research has indicated that the camp-meeting
experiences in particular presented opportunities for people of all
social and ethnic backgrounds to interact, worship, and sing together.
Consequently, a new type of religious “ballad” evolved where
(often) the words of English hymns were interpreted in slave dialect
and combined with musical elements from black cultural experience (work
songs, laments, etc.) to produce what eventually came to be known as
the “negro spiritual.”
George Pullen Jackson’s research in particular progressed along
these lines (‘White and Negro Spirituals, Their Life Span and Kinship...’,
1943). Other researchers refused to accept this simplistic (and perhaps
racially biased) explanation. Alan Lomax has commented, "no amount
of scholarly analysis and discussion can ever make a Negro spiritual
sound like a white spiritual."
The first negro spiritual to be published (appear in print) was “Go
Down Moses” (1861). In 1871 the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University
in Nashville, TN began to perform concert arrangements of spirituals
to great acclaim throughout America and Europe. The interest in this
music grew during the last quarter of the 19th century and by 1901,
John Work , Jr. (a student and then later a professor at Fisk University)
had published the first anthology of spirituals, ‘New Jubilee Songs
as Sung by the Fast Jubilee Singers.’ These concert arrangements
became the inspiration for other Afro-American composers/arrangers such
as Nathaniel Dett and Harry Burleigh and gradually throughout the fist
quarter of the 20th century concert settings of negro spirituals became
standard repertory for choirs and solo performers. Despite the success
and appeal of spirituals, they generally remained a novelty for the
majority of white congregations. No spirituals appeared in standard
(white) denominational hymnals until 1955 when “Let Us Break Bread
Together on Our Knees” was printed in ‘The Hymnbook’
(The Presbyterian Church in the US).
A pivotal event which introduced spirituals to a wide audience was
Marian Anderson’s concert in 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington, DC. Events of the 1960’s broke long held social
and racial barriers. In addition, the “Hymn Explosion” of
the late 1960’s caused hymnal editors to reevaluate the scope and
content of their hymnals. A plethora of hymnal supplements were published
from 1969 - 1980 and many of these supplements contained a selection
of spirituals which were eventually included in most standard denominational
hymnals. Out of 14 hymnals surveyed here is a list of some spirituals
showing which are included: “Let Us Break Bread Together on Our
Knees (14); “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord” (14);
“Go Tell It on the Mountain” (13); “There Is a Balm in
Gilead” (12); “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian” (9).
The Spirituals Project
Hymns:
Nobody Knows the Trouble I See (University of Va. Library)
Negro Spiritual
Composers (www.negrospirituals.com)
The Marian Anderson Exhibit: Spirituals
in Recital (University of Pennsylvania)
The
Negro Spiritual (Thomas Woodworth Higgins, 1867)
Slave
Songs Transcend Sorrow (gospelcom.net)
Spirituals
(Lectures on American Music at North Texas State University)
Fisk Jubilee
Singers (organized in 1871)
John Wesley
Work, Jr. (1872-1925)
John Wesley
Work, III (1901-1967)
James
Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
William Eleazar
Barton (1861-1930)
Negro
Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, Ballads and Work songs
Reference Materials
on the Negro Spiritual
The
Colored Sacred Harp (1934)
MIDI: Sweet Hour
of Prayer
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