Harry T. Burleigh

Musician

• Born: December 2, 1866
• Birthplace: Erie, Pennsylvania
• Died: September 12, 1949
• Place of death: Stamford, Connecticut

An internationally renowned baritone, composer of popular songs, and music editor, Burleigh is best known for his work with traditional spirituals. His choral and accompanied vocal arrangements introduced spirituals to the formal concert stage and became standard repertory in the concert hall.

Early Life

Harry Thacker Burleigh (BUR-lee) was born December 2, 1866, in Erie, Pennsylvania. In his youth, Burleigh inherited the tradition of plantation songs and spirituals from his maternal grandfather, Hamilton Waters—a partially blind freed slave and abolitionist who worked as town crier and lamplighter. After his father’s death in 1873, Burleigh assisted his grandfather as a lamplighter and worked summers as a deck steward aboard Great Lakes steamers. Burleigh’s mother, a graduate of Avery College who also was literate in French, was denied work as a teacher because of her race and became a domestic servant in the home of Robert W. Russell, a wealthy fire insurance agent. Russell’s wife, Elizabeth, nurtured Burleigh’s musical growth by opening her home to the youth during regular musical soirées. At these events, Burleigh heard classical performances by such prominent figures as Rafael Joseffy and Teresa Carreño.

Burleigh had begun singing in local choirs as a child, and by age sixteen was singing in choirs at the First Presbyterian Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and the Reform Jewish Temple every week. Upon graduation from Erie High School, he worked as a stenographer while continuing his musical activities. When Burleigh set his sights on joining the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the First Presbyterian Church responded by raising his salary and enticed him to remain in Erie. In January, 1892, however, with financial support from Erie music lovers and a reference letter from Elizabeth Russell, Burleigh auditioned at the National Conservatory of Music in were chosen. With virtually no formal training, he was initially rejected; however, Frances “Fanny” Knapp MacDowell—the registrar at the conservatory and the mother of composer Edward MacDowell—knew of Burleigh’s aspirations through the Russell family. Through her efforts Burleigh became one of four students out of two hundred that year to receive a scholarship to attend the conservatory.

While at the National Conservatory, Burleigh studied voice with Christian Fritsch, harmony with Rubin Goldmark, and counterpoint with John White and Max Spicker. He also played double bass and tympani in the Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Frank van der Stucken. Although Burleigh never formally studied with composer Antonín Dvořák, the two formed a mutually beneficial musical friendship that inspired the Czech nationalist to compose his New World Symphony, op. 95, American String Quartet, op. 96, and String Quintet, op. 97.

Life’s Work

Burleigh’s first significant contribution to American musical culture came through his association with National Conservatory director Dvořák. The composer relied on Burleigh as a personal tutor in traditional spirituals and African American culture. Dvořák used stylistic elements of spirituals, as well as Native American themes, to exemplify how uniquely American music could be used as the basis for American nationalistic classical compositions. Burleigh transcribed portions of the large score and completed many of the parts that were used for the celebrated December 16, 1893, premiere by the New York Philharmonic Society at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Anton Seidl. Burleigh graduated from the conservatory in 1896 and taught sight-singing there from 1895 until 1898.

In 1894, Burleigh was the only African American among sixty applicants competing for a singing post at St. George’s Episcopal Church on Stuyvesant Square in New York City. Despite the objection of some parishioners, he was selected as the baritone soloist, with an eminent senior church warden, the elder John Pierpont “J. P.” Morgan, casting the deciding vote. Morgan’s enthusiasm for Burleigh’s singing talents led to private engagements in many prominent New York City homes, and Morgan personally employed Burleigh to perform at annual Christmas Eve celebrations at the Morgan estate. Morgan would arrange for the singer’s appearance in Europe before King Edward VII of Great Britain and Princess Margaret of Connaught. Burleigh performed the spiritual “Calvary” at Morgan’s funeral in 1913 per the legendary financier’s request. Burleigh would spend the next fifty years at St. George’s before retiring in 1946.

Burleigh’s reputation as a singer spread rapidly. In addition to featured performances in oratorios and cantatas throughout the city, early notable performances included appearances with Sissieretta Jones’s Black Patti Troubadours and a concert at the Philadelphia Academy of Music with Florence Batson (nicknamed the “Queen of Song” and the “Colored Jenny Lind”). A conducting stint and impromptu singing substitution with Bert Williams and George Walker’s show Senegambian Carnival prompted the comedy team to offer Burleigh a permanent spot with the cakewalking pioneers. Burleigh turned down the lucrative offer on his mother’s advice and in 1900 became the first black soloist at Temple Emanu-El in New York City’s affluent Upper East Side. Burleigh would serve Temple Emanu-El for twenty-five years—concurrently with his duties at St. George’s—and add mastery of Hebrew to his singing skills in French, German, Italian, and Latin. His reputation was such that in 1900, Governor Theodore Roosevelt invited Burleigh to the gubernatorial mansion as a performer and guest. Further, Burleigh joined Booker T. Washington that year as a featured soloist on the first of many summer fund-raising tours for the Tuskegee Institute.

In 1898, Burleigh embarked on a successful career as a composer of popular song. These works were typically sentimental settings of poems in the European tradition and quickly found favor with black and white stage artists alike. His wife, the poet Louise Alton, supplied texts for several of his songs before the couple separated around 1919. His most popular art song, “Jean”—set to a Frank L. Stanton poem—would appear on a piano roll in 1905 and on no fewer than four recordings between 1906 and 1918. Burleigh’s publisher, G. Ricordi & Company, hired him as an editor in 1911. In 1914, he became one of only two African Americans among 170 charter members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). In 1941, ASCAP appointed him as the first African American on the board of directors.

Burleigh’s first published arrangements of spirituals included Six Plantation Melodies for Violin and Piano(1901), From the Southland for piano(1914), Jubilee Songs of the United States of America (1916), and Southland Sketches for violin and piano (1916). His greatest and most enduring success, however, came when he turned his attention to arrangements of spirituals for accompanied voice in 1916. Once again, his work quickly entered the formal concert repertory and spawned no fewer than twelve recordings within three years. Prominent singers such asOscar Seagle andNellie Melba performed sets comprising works exclusively by Burleigh in the 1910’s, and in 1917, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) awarded him the Spingarn Medal for outstanding achievement by an African American. Howard University awarded him an honorary doctorate of music in 1920. When Burleigh died in 1949, thousands attended his funeral. Pallbearers included Eubie Blake, W. C. Handy, Noble Sissle, andClarence Cameron White.

Significance

Burleigh stands out as the preeminent member of the first school of African American composers alongside such prominent figures as Will Marion Cook. His work with Dvořák helped create a national symphonic identity based on African American themes, and noted American music critic and author Henry E. Krehbiel turned largely to Burleigh’s choral arrangements of spirituals for the pioneering 1914 scholarly tome Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and Nationalistic Music. Burleigh’s arrangements for solo voice with accompaniment revolutionized concert music by making spirituals standard repertory for the serious concert stage. Prominent singers of every race and range, including notable figures such as Paul Althouse, Marian Anderson, Alma Gluck, and Paul Robeson, performed Burleigh’s arrangements throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.

Bibliography

Brooks, Tim. Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890-1919. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. This pioneering examination of African Americans’ contributions to the dawn of the recording age includes a chapter devoted to Burleigh’s early recorded works.

Simpson, Anne Key. Hard Trials: The Life and Music of Harry T. Burleigh. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1991. Simpson’s comprehensive biography includes musical analyses, a catalog of works, discography, extensive bibliography, musical examples, and many rare photographs.

Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. This scholarly tome by the late Harvard University professor emerita of music and African American studies traces black American music from its African roots to its ubiquitous presence in late twentieth century America.

Tick, Judith, ed. Music in the U.S.A.: A Documentary Companion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. A hefty collection of primary source readings, this valuable reference includes Burleigh’s article “The Negro and His Song.”

Walton, Lester A. “Harry T. Burleigh Honored To-Day at St. George’s.” The Black Perspective in Music 2, no. 1 (Spring, 1971): 80-83. This reprint of an article from 1924 contains many quotations from Burleigh that provide a concise biographical perspective on his early life.