On February the 4th 2022, the Grammy Award Winning Catalyst String Quartet released the second volume of their “Uncovered” series of recordings.
The “Uncovered” series as recorded by the Catalyst Quartet aims to showcase chamber music of Black composers, who sadly have not had the exposure and recognition that they so rightly deserve. Largely because of the color of their skin, and the biases taught at many Music schools even to this day.
This second volume that the Catalysts have released features the wonderful chamber music of the African American composer Florence Price. This recording features four truly ground breaking world premiere performances of Price’s Music. “Uncovered volume two” comes off the Catalysts very successful issue of volume one of the series that features the music of Samuel Coleridge Taylor, which was released in 2021.
Born in Little Rock Arkansas, Price was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, before returning to Arkansas to teach and compose. She overcame the hurdles the attitudes of race, and gender that were so prevalent in her day. She also fled the oppressive and racist Jim Crow laws of the American South, and an excessively abusive husband, eventually ending up in Chicago where she established herself as a major compositional force on the cultural scene in and around Chicago.
In 2009 a major discovery of Price’s music was discovered in a run-down house on the outskirts of St. Anne, Illinois. This discovery has proved instrumental in helping to revive her legacy in American music.
The music recorded on this second volume of the “Uncovered”: series consists of music from that particular discovery. As Paul Laraia, violist of the Catalyst Quartet states, “every single manuscript was actually in that box. Everything was hand written because it was extremely expensive to have stuff printed.”
There are four world premiere recordings of Florence Price’s music as recorded by the Catalysts on this second volume, which is truly something special. According to Laraia, “It’s especially cool to listen to these ones, I think as a Florence Price enthusiast, because it’s like musical archeology or something.”
The quartet is joined by pianist Michelle Cann, who is the recipient of the 2021 Florence Price Award. The Catalysts have a very clear musical relationship with Cann. She studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music; while she was there one of her classmates was Karla Donehew Perez who is one of the violinists for the Catalyst Quartet. In addition, the cellist for the quartet Karlos Rodriguez is also a graduate of the Cleveland Institute.
All five musicians on this CD are involved in the Sphinx Organization, whose mandate is to transform lives through the power of diversity on the arts.
The music of Florence Price is a brilliant mixture of lush expressive romanticism, ragtime, African-American spirituals, and jazz. As Laraia states, “All of these musical forms were actually forming…their genesis happened right in the 1930s and 40s.” Laraia points out that Florence Price was not consciously writing in these forms. It was more a case of here being very much a product of her environment and what she was hearing at that time.
“Uncovered volume two” is an invaluable addition to any lover of classical music library of recordings. Not only is the music very accessible, and full of amazing counterpoint and formal structures; this is music that for far too long has been overlooked and for all of the wrong reasons.
The Catalyst Quartet along with pianist Michelle Cann has given us top quality performances and interpretations of this truly amazing music. The Catalyst Quartet has opened a door to the superb musical world of Florence Price, and I would not be at all surprised to see her chamber music scheduled more frequently, because of this phenomenal recording.