Home Worship Planning Music Resources Four Great Arrangers of Spirituals

Four Great Arrangers of Spirituals

Spirituals as a musical form came into being in the late eighteenth century, originally written and sung as part of African American worship during slavery. Spirituals were influenced by African cultural and musical practices, the Christian and biblical faith that became such an important part of African American culture, and the terrible influences of slavery. They were usually sung in unison, often in call-and-response pattern, making use of stories from the Bible and the hymns of Isaac Watts. Many contained secret coded language that allowed the slaves to express their longing for freedom and contempt for their masters and the institutions that enslaved them.

Their origins shrouded in anonymity, spirituals have endured long after the end of slavery. The nineteenth century saw spirituals arranged and performed as solo and choral concert repertoire, perhaps most notably by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers.Despite the rise and enduring popularity of gospel music in the twentieth century, the practice of arranging the old spirituals for solo and for choir has survived. Among the many arrangers of spirituals, here are four of the most celebrated. Most church music libraries will contain works by these great African American musicians.

  • Henry (Harry) Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949)
    Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, to freeborn parents. He learned the spirituals and slave songs from his grandfather, a former slave. He was a talented singer and earned money singing for local churches. In 1892 he won a scholarship to New York City's National Conservatory of Music, where he met Victor Herbert and Antonín Dvorák. Dvorák was greatly influenced by the spirituals he heard Burleigh sing and arrange. Burleigh's first publication of spirituals was in 1911, and his 1916 Jubilee Songs of the United States became standard repertoire for the great singers and choirs of his day, including the Fisk Jubilee Singers. For fifty years, Burleigh was baritone soloist at St. George's Episcopal Church in New York. He was an acclaimed recitalist in the USA and Europe. It was Burleigh more than any other who was responsible for taking the spirituals from the plantation and the minstrel shows into the classical concert, academic chorus, and church repertoire of both black and white singers. It is difficult to imagine the successes of Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson without Burleigh pointing the way. Burleigh composed and arranged more than 265 solo and choral works.
  • William Levi Dawson (1899-1990)
    Born in Alabama, Dawson entered Tuskegee Institute at age 13, graduating in 1921. He earned a bachelor of music degree in 1925 and a master of music degree from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago in 1927. He became first trombonist in the Chicago Civic Orchestra in the late 1920s, and he returned to Tuskegee as the music school director in 1931. He conducted the school's large a capella choir in performances at Radio City and Carnegie Hall in New York; and at the White House and Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. Dawson and his Tuskegee choir, sponsored by the President of the U.S.A and the State Department, performed in Europe, the U.S.S.R., and other locations. Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra premiered Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, which borrowed musical materials from the spirituals. In 1952 Dawson traveled to Africa to study indigenous music there, a project that led to his revising the Negro Folk Symphony to include African elements. Dawson guest conducted numerous orchestras and received many awards during his life, including being named to the Alabama Arts Hall of Fame.
  • John Wesley Work, III (1901-1967)
    John Wesley Work, III, was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee, into a musical family. His father taught at Fisk University in Nashville. Work wrote Mandy Lou, his first composition, at age 17. Following an A.B. degree in history, he entered the Julliard School of Music in New York, but returned to Nashville to take over his mother's choral music position at Fisk University upon her death in 1927. He completed music degrees from Columbia and Yale and returned to Fisk to teach music education and theory; and in 1946, he became director of the Jubilee Singers. His published compositions include a cantata, symphony, string suite, and others, as well as the many solo and choral works and arrangements of spirituals. His 1960 book, American Negro Songs and Spirituals, is an important musicological contribution; and it contains 230 religious and secular songs and information on their origin and nature. Work directed the Jubilee Singers until 1956 and served as Fisk's music chair until 1957. In later years and declining health, he devoted himself to composing, speaking, teaching, and writing. Work composed more than 100 compositions, and he was a member of ASCAP and other organizations.
  • Jester Hairston (1902-2000)
    Jester Hairston was born the grandson of slaves in Belew's Creek, North Carolina. He was a music graduate of Tufts University, and he attended Julliard. For thirteen years, he was assistant conductor of the Hall Johnson Negro Choir, also arranging for and conducting Broadway show choirs. He arrived in Hollywood in 1936 and began conducting choirs for films. His credits include fifteen years of radio and television roles, including Amos 'n' Andy, Tarzan, and as Rolly Forbes on the 1986 TV series, Amen. Hairston became one of the most sought after choral directors in Hollywood, and he composed or arranged more than 300 gospel songs and spirituals for films such as Green Pastures. He was one of the first black actors in the Screen Actors Guild, and he composed the song "Amen" for the movie Lilies of the Field, starring Sidney Poitier. Hairston was arranger for all of Dimitri Tiomkin's films, including Lost Horizon, Guns of Navarone, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, eventually being honored with his own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. He died in 2000 at the age of 98, having spent most of his life as a choral director, educator, actor, singer, composer, and arranger. One of Hairston's major contributions is the influencing of African American sacred song and traditional musical forms such as the spiritual with American gospel and popular song styles. He wrote and arranged more than 300 original songs and spirituals.

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