Concert Overture No. 1

Alternate Title

• Concert Overture on a Negro Spiritual¹
• Concert Overture on “Sinner, Please Don’t Let This Harvest Pass”

Composition Year

• 1937

Instrumentation

• 3.2.2.2 - 4.3.3.1 - timp.4perc - strings

Length

• 15 min.

Manuscripts

• MC988a: Florence Beatrice Smith Price Papers Addendum, Special Collections, Mullins Library, University of Arkansas
  • Piano reduction, incomplete (undated): Box 10, Folder 7
• MC988b: Florence Beatrice Smith Price Papers Second Addendum, Special Collections, Mullins Library, University of Arkansas
  • Scores, complete (November 11–December 5, 1937): 3B, Folder 17; 4B, Folder 14; 5C, Folder 33
• MC2618: Florence Price Collection, Special Collections, Mullins Library, University of Arkansas
  • Score, complete (1937): Box 1, Folder 6

Premiere Performance

• June 16, 1939; Federal Music Project Building (632 N. Dearborn St.), Chicago; American Concert Orchestra; Ralph Cissne, conductor.

Published Editions

• Concert Overture No. 1. New York, NY: G. Schirmer, Inc., 2018.

Recordings

• BBC Music Magazine Collection 29, No. 1. BBC Symphony Orchestra; Michael Seal, conductor. BBCMM454, 2020.
• Price: Songs of the Oak - Concert Overtures Nos. 1–2. Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen; John Jeter, conductor. Naxos 8.559920, 2022.

Thematic Incipits

Bibliography

1. Brown, Rae Linda. The Heart of a Woman: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price. Music in American Life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020.

Entry History

• Submitted February 13, 2023
• Revised June 25, 2024

Notes