The Symphony No. 3 in C minor is a symphony for orchestra by the American composer Florence Price. The work was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project during the height of the Great Depression. It was first performed at the Detroit Institute of Arts on November 6, 1940, by the Detroit Civic Orchestra under the conductor Valter Poole. The composition is Price's third symphony, following her Symphony in E minor—the first symphony by a black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra—and her lost Symphony No. 2.
Contents
Composition
The symphony has a duration of roughly 30 minutes and is composed in four movements:
- Andante
- Andante ma non troppo
- Juba: Allegro
- Scherzo: Finale
Price started writing the symphony in the summer of 1938, but later revised the work prior to its 1940 premiere.
Instrumentation
The work is scored for an orchestra comprising piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, harp, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Reception
Contemporary reception for the symphony was positive. Reviewing the 1940 world premiere, J. D. Callaghan of the Detroit Free Press wrote:
Mrs. Price, both in the [piano] concerto and in the symphony, spoke in the musical idiom of her own people, and spoke with authority. There was inherent in both works all the emotional warmth of the American Negro, so that the evening became one of profound melody satisfaction.
In the symphony there was a slow movement of majestic beauty, a third in which the rhythmic preference of the Negro found scope in a series of dance forms, and a finale which swept forward with great vigor.