From a live performance on July 10th 2021
Florence Price’s Andante Moderato is the second movement of her first String Quartet. Completed in 1929, the piece shows Price fusing music of her Black heritage with the formal structures and harmonic techniques of European art music. This movement opens with a warm melody clearly inspired by African American spirituals, richly harmonized. A moody, blues-inflected theme in the minor mode follows. A playful dance appears at the movement’s centre, after which the minor mode tune returns, before closing with the spiritual material.
Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra
Alexander Shelley, Music Director