Part 2 of 3: Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, Its Date, and Its Context
My previous post described a brilliantly programmed concert to be given in celebration of Juneteenth – its history, its trials and tribulations – on June 24, 2024 by the Houston Ebony Opera Guild. I offered an overview of the program, but said almost nothing about the work that, in some ways, is the heart of the program: Florence B. Price’s cantata on a text that white poet Vachel Lindsay wrote in 1914 and published in 1918: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.
I described Price’s composition as “the seldom-heard and powerful, but extraordinarily enigmatic, magnum opus of Price’s choral oeuvre.” Why did I say this?
Let’s unpack two easy elements of that description first:
Let’s unpack two easy elements of that description first:
“Magnum opus of Price’s choral oeuvre”: most of Price’s choral works last only a few minutes; the second-longest one, Song of Hope, lasts only about eleven minutes. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, by contrast, lasts nearly thirty minutes.
“Seldom-heard” is both easy and messy. First, it’s true that performances of this work are few. The posthumous premiere – quite possibly the first performance ever – was of the version for voices and piano. This was given on 3 May 2019 by the Andover Choral Society under the direction of Michael Driscoll. In 2021, then, G. Schirmer, ever mindful that rental scores have higher profit margins than scores printed for purchase, published the earlier version for voices with orchestra (see below), including a piano reduction made in-house at G. Schirmer for rehearsal purposes. Wise Music Classical’s website lists eight performances of that (orchestral) version given so far, with another three future performances currently planned.
Given this composition’s status in Price’s oeuvre and the timeliness of its textual themes (see below), that’s not much. More important, though, is that G. Schirmer’s score is of the early version of Price’s cantata, not the final one. The Houston Ebony Opera Guild’s upcoming performance will be, as far as I can tell, the first performance since 2019 of Florence Price’s final word on her choral magnum opus.
That’s a big deal in its own right – but its significance is amplified when we get into the weeds of this cantata’s creation and its music – for Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight is riddled with enigmas. We’ll deal with three of these in this part of the post, then turn to the final pair (why and how?) in Part 3:
Enigma No. 1: Are the orchestral and piano/vocal versions the same, basically? No. There are points of commonality – the basic thematic material of each of the six movements is essentially the same – but the version with orchestra evidently preceded the version with piano, and in the interim Price rethought much of how she would use that material, how she would develop it, where she would take it. The upshot is that commonalities notwithstanding, to call the two versions “the same” would be false (a statement that underscores the importance of the upcoming HEOG rendition).
Enigma No. 2: Did Price ever hear it performed? Probably not. As of this writing, I’ve found no documentation of any performance of either version before 2019. (But disclaimer: Samantha Ege and Douglas Shadle are currently working on a new biography of Price for Oxford University Press. If either version was performed in Price’s lifetime, I’m confident they’ll document this.)
·Enigma No. 3: When were the two versions written? The answer to this enigma requires much connecting of dots – an essential part of every historian’s toolbox – and doing so will take some time. But bear with me, because it’s worth it: o None of the autographs is dated. The vocal/orchestral score falsely attributes the text to Lincoln’s biographer Carl Sandburg, but this is crossed out and corrected to Vachel Lindsay in Price’s hand. The piano/vocal score, on the other hand, does not bear the erroneous attribution of the poem to Sandburg. This establishes that the orchestral score, and the music it transmits, came first.
Moreover, the music of the version with orchestra differs significantly that of the version with piano – so much so that the latter could not serve as a choral rehearsal score for performances with orchestra. Nor is there any sign that Price tried to reconcile the differences between the two versions. This means that the orchestral and piano represent discrete stages in the cantata’s genesis – and that concurs with the chronological interrelationship mentioned above to underscore that the piano/vocal version is Price’s definitive interpretation of Lindsay’s poem:
But that’s a relative chronology, and it leaves the question of the versions’ respective dates unanswered. This is complicated and requires considerable connecting of dots (an essential part of every historian’s toolbox). It’s explained in more detail in the foreword to my forthcoming edition, but for now suffice it to say that the orchestral version was probably written between November 1938 and early 1939. The choral version came later, most likely between July 1939 and December 1941. Because the proletarian, pro-labor, and pacifist themes invoked by phrases such as “Too many peasants fight, they know not why” and “the Workers’ Earth,” fairly portraying war as “murder” (a word musically emphasized by Price) commissioned by the rich (“kings” and “war-lords”) whose wages were paid by the working masses, became taboo in America after the U.S. entry into World War II, Price probably had to shelve the cantata due to political circumstance after December 1941.
We’ll see in Part 3 of this post that the dating of Florene Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight and the circumstances attendant to its creation (and eventual suppression) are the key to understanding the brilliance of her musical creation. For now, what’s already said underscores the importance of the Houston Ebony Opera Guild’s upcoming performance in honor of Juneteenth: for in offering what appears to be the first performance since 2019 of the final, definitive version of Price’s choral masterpiece condemning war and celebrating the working masses, the Houston artists are giving renewed voice to the work that (along with the Monologue for the Working Class) is the composer’s most overtly political musical statement – a statement, moreover, that resonates frighteningly with the tumult of our own times.
That last point is an understatement. To learn more about the resonance between Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, its world, and our own, check out the final part of this post.
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