Dominique-René de Lerma: A response to Bill McLaughlin's 'Portraits in Black, Brown and Beige'

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Dominique-René de Lerma writes:
A response to Bill McLaughlin's Portraits in Black, Brown and Beige, Program #1 (18 February 2013).
·       Amongthe earliest works we have identified by a Black composer is Heu me Domine,written by Vicente Lusitano, a composer and theorist from Portugal who wasactive in Rome of the Counter-Revolution in the 16th century.·       EileenSouthern had established her musicological credentials in Renaissance keyboardmusic before Dr. Barry Brook (Executive Director of the Ph.D. Program inMusicology for the City University of New York) suggested she give attention toBlack music.  When she attended the 1969 conference I held at IndianaUniversity in 1969, she had begun her research.  We met again after the firstedition of The music of Black Americans (New York; W. W. Norton, 1971)had been published.  She had the works of Trotter and Hare as a foundation, butthere were an enormous amount of additional research to do, plus translatinginto the written tradition that which had been preserved orally.  In theprocess, while Eileen fully merits our deep appreciation and respect, therewere errors as she later confessed to me ("All the dates are wrong," shehyperbolized in a conversation we had in Minneapolis while waiting fortransportation.  She caught many of these in time for the second and thirdeditions (1997).  Even so, Arthur  R. LaBrew issued a review of more than 70pages (Perspective in Black music, 1981), specifying errors that had hadappeared.·       DidSaint-Georges know Haydn's string quartets?  Probably not, but he wasinstrumental in the commission of  Haydn's six Paris symphonies and in theirpublication and premières.
------------------------------------Dominique-Renéde Lermahttp://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com