NEGRO SPIRITUALS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18363, 22 April 1925, Page 2

NEGRO SPIRITUALS.

* I A PEOPLE'S SONGS. "In tbe days of slavery in the Southern States of America," said Miss Edna Thomas, "the lady from Louisiana," to a representative cf "The Press" yesterday, "the negroes, badly treated as they were, used to turn to the Bible lo find an expression of their feelings. Their vocabulary was naturally limited, so far as the English language was concerned, and they loved to picture Biblical characters as having been iu a similar position to themselves." "When they were melancholy, continued Miss Thomas, they would find solace in singing of the tribulations described in the Bible, and when in a happy frame of mind would find an outlet for their feelings in the same source. Hence their songs, abounding as they did in references to the Lord, were sometimes grave and sometimes gay, but always deeply respectful. There was no literature of negro spirituals, and such as were sung today wore learned by heart from one generation to another. The charm of the songs was in their human appeal. They were full of melody, rhythm, and syncopation, and were composed by the negroes themselves, whereas the more recent ragtime and the present jazz were generally written by Europeans, and were deteriorated forms of' the original. Minstrel and rag-time songs were sung by professional performers, but the negro spiritual belonged to the people themselves. Miss Thomas learned to sing negro spirituals when a little girl, a coloured woman giving her her first acquaintance with them. At all her concerts she sings in English, and in a French patois, the latter being spoken by the natives in the one Southern State where such a tongue is used in preference to English, which dominates in the other thirteen States. "I have made the singing of spirituals my life study," said Miss Thomas, "and sing these little songs at ajl my concerts; but I have studied in French, Italian, and German in order to enable mc to do justice to them. My little songs make you laugh or they tear your heart out." The white singer who studied negro spirituals could sing them better than the coloured people, continued Miss Thomas, as the negroes were generally too self-conscious to do themselves justice, and did not display enough abandon. About twenty years ago there was a revulsion of feeling amongst the coloured people against spirituals owing to such songs reminding them of their early history, but they had been kept alive for 100 years, and to-day were sung in all negro colleges in the States. The present is Miss Thomas's second visit to the Antipodes, she having been in Australia a-few months ago, giving fourteen concerts in Sydney alone. She has now returned to sing at another 100 . concerts in, Australia and New Zealand. Miss Thomas is the only person •in the: world giving such recitals.