Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 1973
- Duration
- 15'
- Publisher
- Lauren Keiser Music Publishing
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About this piece
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson wrote Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite for unaccompanied cello in 1973. It was for Ronald Lipscomb, a cellist of the Symphony of the New World, the orchestra Perkinson co-founded in 1965, and Lipscomb gave the premiere at New York's Alice Tully Hall (Cedille Records notes). The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra describes the four movements as each referencing 'an aspect of traditional African American music'. Perkinson said that 'the common denominator of these tunes is the reflection and statement of a people's crying out.' Cedille's notes say the 'Fuging Tune' draws on the fugue as developed by Bach and that 'Song Form' is in AABA form. 'Calvary Ostinato' 'features a repeating pizzicato bass line', and in 'the virtuosic final movement' the cello keeps 'a constant pulsing pedal note'. Tahirah Whittington recorded the suite on Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson: A Celebration (Cedille CDR 90000 087, 2005), and Yo-Yo Ma included Calvary Ostinato on Notes for the Future (Sony Classical, 2021). The score is published by Lauren Keiser Music (Hal Leonard 41965), and Calvary Ostinato is set for ABRSM Grade 8.
Technical overview
Four movements, about 15 minutes in all: I. Fuguing Tune; II. Song Form; III. Calvary Ostinato; IV. Perpetual Motion. The suite calls for contrapuntal playing on a single instrument, a melody played against a repeating pizzicato bass line in the third movement, and sustained virtuoso drive over a pulsing pedal note in the finale.