Philadelphia Orchestra’s revival of Dawson’s ‘Negro Folk Symphony’ is a knockout

If you’re a regular orchestra-goer, and if you’re very lucky, once or twice a year you might experience an emotional journey like the one that is the beating heart of William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony.

The recurring main melody is somber and stays in your ear. Toward the end of the second movement, it returns in a more menacing form and — like a burning ember that sets off a sequence — ignites everything around it. An insistent drumbeat builds and church bells toll. The music swells to an almost suffocating pitch, and the tragedy of slavery becomes visceral.

This movement is nothing less than some of the greatest American music of the 20th century, making the arrival Thursday night of Dawson’s only symphony feel like an event. The piece has been performed and recorded, but recordings don’t do it justice.

There’s another reason to greet the Dawson’s reemergence here as momentous. It was the Philadelphia Orchestra that gave the world premiere of the piece in 1934, first at the Academy of Music and then in Carnegie Hall. It’s been reprised in its entirety only once before by this orchestra, in 1998 at a Martin Luther King Jr. tribute concert led by André Raphel Smith.

Late though they may be, the orchestra is now taking ownership of the piece. The group has prepared a new edition of the score, and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin hopes to record it, he told Thursday’s audience.

In another embrace across the decades, Dawson’s great-niece attended the Philadelphians’ Verizon Hall concert. She brought a lapel pin once owned by the composer, which Nézet-Séguin wore during the performance.

The conductor noted that this was the work’s subscription-concert debut, and in terms of visibility, that distinction still matters. Its program mate on this concert was the beloved Schumann Piano Concerto. Soloist Tony Siqi Yun offered a generous personal stamp, especially in the concerto’s first and second movements, detailing phrasings that were no doubt deeply considered but sometimes struck me as a bit precious. The orchestra and Nézet-Séguin matched him in style and spirit. Happily, there were times when the pianist’s beautiful sound was more than enough to make up for the interpretive fussiness.

The concerto is, of course, lovely. But context is a powerful influencer, and the Dawson emerged as the piece of greater stature — especially in this mighty performance. You can hear little flecks of influence (Brahms and Franck), but Dawson — Alabama-born, Tuskegee Institute- and Chicago-educated, and known for raising the Tuskegee Institute Choir to new heights — is an original. His musical language is strikingly contemporary.

Leopold Stokowski, who led the 1934 Negro Folk Symphony premiere, is quoted in program notes as saying that Dawson in his work “voiced the spirit of his people struggling in a new land; the ancient voice of Africa transferred to America.”

Euphoria and emotional realms beyond struggle are also abundant in the piece, to be sure. The first movement, “The Bond of Africa,” is harrowing. The third movement opens at dawn — subtitled “O, Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!” — and moves quickly from one idea to the next. There’s a cinematic quality to both of these movements, like scenes intercutting between danger and joy.

But it’s that dark, Mahlerian middle movement, “Hope in the Night,” that is the work’s true knockout. Dawson wrote that the music depicts slavery and a people “whose lives were proscribed before they were born.” After the music swells to its full-orchestra climax, the drumbeat continues. The music eventually fades into the distance, less like death than a struggle that seems to never end.

No additional performances.