Composer Elaine Fine found a children’s song by composer Florence Price. This is kind of cool because Florence Price has recently been rediscovered by the classical music cognescenti as an exceedingly talented mid-twentieth century American composer who got forgotten because she was both Black and female.
Now I wonder if Price wrote other children’s songs. And this also makes me think of another fabulous mid-twentieth century American woman composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger, who produced some books of children’s songs, containing her transcriptions and harmonizations of American folk tunes. And finally, wouldn’t it be nice if some of today’s “serious” composers turned their talents to children’s music?
Florence Price wrote a lot of music for children to play (she made much of her living as a piano teacher, and also as a violin teacher.
I haven’t seen her beginning piano pieces, but I understand that they are technique-specific (meaning each piece was written to introduce or reinforce a specific skill).
I believe that composers who were (and are) women writing music for children were (and are) less threatening to the men who controlled the mid-twentieth-century musical world.
I own that Ruth Crawford Seeger book. I think I bought it for 25 cents at a library book sale.
Elaine, I didn’t know that. I’m going to look for more of her children’s songs (I sing with kids in one of my volunteer gigs).
Re: Ruth Crawford Seeger: she published 3 books growing out of her work with young children: American Folk Songs for Children (1948), her best known book; Animal Folk Songs for Children (1950); and American Folk Songs for Christmas (1953, the year she died). I have my mother’s copy of the first book, probably purchased in 1949, and I still find it useful. In my opinion, the second book is kind of fun but limited by the animal theme, while the Christmas book doesn’t hold up as well.