Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American” Movement II - Sorrow

"Symphony No. 1, Afro-American, dates from 1930. The first performance was given by the Rochester Philharmonic, Howard Hanson conducting, on October 29, 1931—making it the first symphony by an African American composer to be performed by a significant American orchestra.

Still [prefaces] each movement with an epigraph by the African American poet-novelist-playwright Paul Laurence Dunbar:

II. Sorrow: "It’s moughty tiahsome layin’ ’roun’ / Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun’, / An’ oftentimes I thinks, thinks I / ’Twould be a sweet t’ing des to die / An’ go ’long home."

[This movement's] sadness—that desire to “go ’long home”—is expressed with a degree of emotional reserve in keeping with the blues as a “coping mechanism” or “system of explanation” for social injustice." - Matthew Mendez