The Territory of Grief
LISTENED by chance last week to a Negro choir singing spirituals; their ensemble was called The Voices of Walter Schumann, which I had not heard before. They sang wonderfully well, in a tone of ringing fervour, which was an enchanting distraction from: one of the less dignified domestic chores claiming an attention all too willing to be divided. I could’ not help thinking of the reverent Biblical territory which the Negroes have made uniquely cheir own; Jericho, Jordan, Abraham, and the suffering Lord; Israel oppressed, let my people go, and so on; an area jn the strictest sense allegorical because it is their own sufferings and oppressions that they are revealing under this unexceptionable disguise. One must surely feel shame at the unquenchable gaiety and delicate sorrow. which informs the best spirituals. This music has made an emotional conquest of the European as complete as the Negro’s physical exploitation, And when in S@guth. Africa and the Deep South, the liberties of the Negro are being violated again, it is humbling to listen to music such as
this.
B. E.
G. M.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19571018.2.44.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 949, 18 October 1957, Page 25
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185The Territory of Grief New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 949, 18 October 1957, Page 25
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