Black American music history [The Heart of a Woman by Rae Linda Brown]

An in-depth look at the music of the groundbreaking black woman composer

The Heart of a Woman offers the first-ever biography of Florence B. Price, a composer whose career spanned both the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances, and the first African American woman to gain national recognition for her works.

Price's twenty-five years in Chicago formed the core of a working life that saw her create three hundred works in diverse genres, including symphonies and orchestral suites, art songs, vocal and choral music, and arrangements of spirituals. Through interviews and a wealth of material from public and private archives, Rae Linda Brown illuminates Price's major works while exploring the considerable depth of her achievement. Brown also traces the life of the extremely private individual from her childhood in Little Rock through her time at the New England Conservatory, her extensive teaching, and her struggles with racism, poverty, and professional jealousies. In addition, Brown provides musicians and scholars with dozens of musical examples.

Rae Linda Brown was a professor at the University of Michigan and a professor and Robert and Marjorie Rawlins Chair of the Department of Music at the University of California, Irvine. She was the author of Music, Printed and Manuscript, in the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters: An Annotated Catalog. She died in 2017. Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr. is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop and The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop.

Though it sets out to serve as a biography of key African-American composer Florence B. Price
Rae Linda Brown's The Heart of  a Woman is more historical reference on African-American music through the lens of her life. Though a respectively accomplished composer and musician, with ties to other key Black innovators in (African-)American music and literature, the substance of the book focusing on Price directly is proportionally small. Entries elaborating on the lives and accomplishments of her peers add bulk, contextualizing her career and personal life in the American and international music spheres, furthering the impact of racial and gender barriers Price dealt with in her endeavors. So above all, The Heart of a Woman is a great reference for any looking to learn more about Black American music history.

That said, the prime audience for this book would be musicians and music historians. You can't really appreciate Price's works to the fullest without a solid music foundation. The layperson without understanding of music terminology, theory, and notation will have a shallower understanding. I have general knowledge, but not have enough to fully appreciate the import of explorations of Price's music and style. Still, I took away a lot from the social and historical contexts and thoroughly enjoyed my read. 4 stars from me.

The Heart of A Woman was published April 2020.