Julia Perry's Stabat Mater, Black Cultural History, and the Lynching of Christ

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Authors Biggs, Tad Thomas

Citation Biggs, Tad Thomas. (2021). Julia Perry's Stabat Mater, Black Cultural History, and the Lynching of Christ (Master's thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA).

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Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, Black Cultural History, and the Lynching of Christ

Tad T. Biggs

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

FRED FOX SCHOOL OF MUSIC

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must first extend my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Matthew Mugmon, whose mentorship has meant so much to me and to the success of this project. You have provided me with opportunities that I will remain forever grateful for. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the other members of my committee, Drs. John Brobeck, Sara Gulgas, and Jay Rosenblatt, for their time and many invaluable insights regarding all matters of the project.

I gratefully acknowledge the staffs of both the Talbott Library at Westminster Choir College for making available their Julia A. Perry Collection and of the New York Philharmonic Archives for making available correspondence between Perry and the NYP.

Here I must also express my deep appreciation for my other professors and colleagues at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, especially those dear friends in my cohort. And finally, I am thankful to all my friends and family.

DEDICATION

For Julia Perry.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... 6 List of Musical Examples ...... 6 Abstract...... 7

Introduction ...... 8 Chapter 1: Reflections on the History of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” ...... 13 Introduction ...... 13 The Franciscans and the Virgin Mother ...... 14 Setting the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” ...... 15

Chapter 2: Reflections on the Technical Construction of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater ...... 18 Formal Overview ...... 18 Movement I ...... 19 Movement II ...... 23 Movement III ...... 25 Movement IV ...... 27 Movement V ...... 29 Movement VI ...... 34 Movement VII ...... 37 Movement VIII ...... 38 Movement IX ...... 43 Movement X ...... 46

Chapter 3: Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater and Black Cultural History ...... 48 Introduction ...... 48 In Julia Perry’s Own Words ...... 49 Fisty M-E! ...... 49 Graves of Untold Africans ...... 53 The Lynching of Christ ...... 57 Conclusion ...... 63

Bibliography ...... 65

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 3

3.1 Fisty M-E! (a metabolic, sociological play) by Julia Perry, typescript fragment (1969) ...... 50

3.2 “Graves of Untold Africans” Introductory Notes by Julia Perry (1965) ...... 54

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Chapter 2

2.1 Presentation of Primary Theme; Mvt. I, mm. 1–3 ...... 21

2.2 Whole-Tone Tetrachords in Violin Part; Mvt. II, mm. 44–52 ...... 24

2.3 Transition from Movement III to IV; Mvt. IV, mm. 99–101 ...... 26

2.4 Soloist Call in Call-and-Response; Mvt. V, mm. 1–3 ...... 31

2.5 Harmonized Response in Strings; Mvt. V mm. 1–5 ...... 32

2.6 Opening Contrapuntal Figure; Mvt. VI, mm. 157–159 ...... 35

2.7 Interlocking Low Strings; Mvt. VI, mm.161–163 ...... 36

2.8 Tonic vs. Submediant Emphasis; Mvt. VIII, mm. 211–213 ...... 39

2.9 Clarification of Harmonic Progression; Mvt. VIII, mm. 216–220 ...... 40

2.10 Harmonically Generated Text Painting; Mvt. VIII, mm. 229–234 ...... 43

ABSTRACT

Julia Perry (1924–1979) was an African American, neo-classical composer whose Stabat

Mater (1951) for contralto and string orchestra, a setting of the thirteenth-century medieval poem

“Stabat Mater Dolorosa,” stands out as one of her most musically adventurous and successful works. The poem describes the crucifixion of Christ from the perspective of the mourning Virgin

Mother. The goal of this project is to extend the musical analysis of the work and begin to situate

Julia Perry and her Stabat Mater in a broader cultural and historical context, thus revealing the significance and depth of its musical and poetic construction.

The first part of this project explores the influence of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” poem, rooted in the highly evocative work of the medieval Franciscans, on later settings of the text, including further discussion on the relationship of Perry’s Stabat Mater to its predecessors.

Following this will be a discussion of some of the technical dimensions of the work with regard to how they inform the overall structure and meaning of Stabat Mater. Finally, consideration of two writings by Perry, her unpublished poem “Graves of Untold Africans” and her unfinished play “Fisty M-E!,” provide insight into Perry’s social and political perspective. Further analysis will include an exploration of texts from the twentieth century that demonstrate the connections made between the crucifixion of Christ and lynching in Black Christian thought, as well as additional works of poetry, popular song, and political activism that further demonstrate the ubiquity of lynching in African American political and artistic discourse in the mid-twentieth century.

Introduction

The medieval poem “Stabat Mater Dolorosa,” commonly attributed to Jacopone da

Todi (1230–1306) and sung in the Roman Catholic liturgy both as a hymn and a sequence, expresses the deep sense of suffering of Mary over Christ’s crucifixion; it has been set by many composers, famously including Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Antonín Dvořák. Julia

Perry (1924-1979) was an African American woman and composer whose own setting of the text, titled Stabat Mater (1951), exemplifies her complex, neoclassical harmonic language. In

Stabat Mater, she employs a variety of compositional techniques, including the use of call and response, chorale harmonization, and fugal writing. Given the backdrop of the long Civil

Rights movement, the history of racial violence in the US, and Perry’s social and political perspective, a deeper theoretical and critical analysis of Perry’s Stabat Mater reveals many of the layers of meaning embedded in the work.

Julia Perry was an American concert composer of the mid-twentieth century. She studied at Westminster choir college and later the Juilliard School of Music, studying with

Luigi Dallapiccola, a prominent Italian serialist, and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Her pieces were more often performed in Europe during her life, where she won composition awards like the Boulanger Grand Prix for her Viola Sonata, a now lost piece. She also studied conducting at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and conducted her own works.1

Perry’s compositional output was pluralistic. Many of her works draw heavily on the

1 Helen Walker-Hill, From Spirituals to Symphonies: African-American Women Composers and Their Music (Urbana, Illinois: Greenwood Press, 2002), 111–12.

African American musical tradition she inherited, regularly adapting spirituals to art songs and choral pieces. Perry’s instrumental and operatic works are generally described as neoclassical. Neoclassicism has come to mean a number of things in the scholarly literature and public discourse, but it is useful in thinking about Perry’s musical aesthetic. She often utilized elements of serialism, pantonality, uncommon modes and scales, and unusual rhythms within more traditional forms and processes. This compositional aesthetic and method lent itself well to the subtle incorporation of signifiers of African American music into her concert works.

A representative neoclassical work, Perry’s Stabat Mater is for solo alto and string orchestra. It features the use of fugue, chorale style, and other formal conventions and musical processes while pushing the tonal envelope. Perry’s setting is a rather dissonant work, often evoking great pain and suffering through text painting.

The premiere of Stabat Mater took place the year it was composed. The work was premiered, at least partially, at Tanglewood, where it appears that excerpts of Stabat Mater were performed on two composer forum concerts, August 7 and 8, 1951.2 Notably, Perry sang the work for all of its performances until 1953, despite later claiming that she was not a singer. This includes a benefit performance in her hometown of Akron, Ohio. She gave well- received performances of the work in Milan and Salzburg in 1952. Stabat Mater was then performed by Herta Glaz and the New Music String Quartet at the Aspen Music Festival in

2 Ralph Berkowitz, Thomas Perry and James Brosnahan, Report on the Ninth Session July 2nd to August 12th, 1951 (Lenox, MA: Berkshire Music Center, 1951).

1953 and by soprano Virginia Shuey with conductor Howard Shanet in New York in 1954.3

After publishing the work through Southern Music Company in 1954, Perry appears to have focused more energy on newer compositions. The only available commercial recording of

Stabat Mater was performed by mezzo-soprano Makiko Asakura and the Japan Philharmonic

Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Strickland and released in 1960 by Composer’s

Recordings, Inc. The work has received little attention since its early performances, but some excellent performances of the work have taken place in recent years. New energy around remaking the canon to include more composers who are women and are members of minority groups, fueled by the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, may account for this yet nascent rediscovery of Perry’s music.

One major goal of this project is to offer a starting point for critical analysis of this work. Much like the settings that came before Perry’s, her Stabat Mater reflects the historically situated social reality in which it was produced. By drawing on traditional musicological methods alongside critical modes of analysis, I hope to create a richer interpretation of Perry’s Stabat Mater that demonstrates some of the ways in which the work is an expression not only of universal human suffering, but also holds up a mirror to

American society and exposes the great hypocrisy of a culture that lynches a Black man on

Saturday and worships Christ on Sunday.

Perry grew up in a majority black community and was deeply involved in her church.

As a lifelong devoted Christian, she was sympathetic to a black theological perspective that

3 Walker-Hill, Spirituals to Symphonies, 93-101.

understood the oppression of African Americans through biblical narratives.4 In order to situate Stabat Mater in its historical and cultural context, texts regarding the theological and historical connection of the crucifixion of Christ and lynching in the United States will be presented. Discussion of additional examples drawn from popular music, poetry, and political activism against lynching will help to establish the ubiquity of anti-lynching in Black artistic and political discourse in this time period.

Perry’s musical output, writings, and life history paint the picture of a devout woman with a keen intellect and strong sense of moral justice. Evidenced in her writing and music is her deep pain over injustice. She clearly studied history and drew on her knowledge to inform her criticism, most often presented through her music. Perry’s Stabat Mater is also informed by the history of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” as a product of a highly expressive, Franciscan devotion.

Harnessing the evocative nature of the poetry, Perry produced a compelling testament to the suffering of Mary that also speaks to the unique suffering faced by African Americans in the

United States. Perry adheres strongly to the narrative and dramatic qualities of the text, marrying the music and text to produce a poignant realization of the original hymn.

Analysis of Perry’s own writing in her unpublished poem “Graves of Untold Africans” and her unfinished play “Fisty M-E!” have much to tell us about Perry’s social and political perspective. Consideration of these written works help to situate Perry’s musical output in a broader history of Black culture and thought. Stabat Mater does not explicitly engage with Black cultural history as “Graves of Untold Africans” or “Fisty M-E!” does; however, it does still have much to say in that regard. Perry’s conception of the work, given aspects of its musical

4 Walker-Hill, Spirituals to Symphonies, 93-100.

construction, the period it was composed, and the perspective of the composer, reveals the intimate connection with which Perry viewed the biblical suffering of Mary and that of African

Americans in the United States.

As I have attempted to reveal in my analysis of the work, Perry’s Stabat Mater offers commentary on, or at least asks of the listener to consider, the suffering of African Americans in the United States, particularly as it relates to lynching. Amidst a cultural and political climate in which white supremacist violence continued to claim the lives of African Americans, not unlike our present moment, a work about the suffering of a mother at the sight of her crucified son demands of the listener additional consideration regarding the unique insight of a Black woman in America.

Chapter 1 Reflections on the History of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa”

Introduction

The appeal of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa,” with its sincere and evocative depiction of suffering and strength, has continued to inspire musical settings for hundreds of years. Below is a cursory look into the history and issue of authorship of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” with particular attention to those qualities of the work and its historical life that bear the most significance on the analysis of Julia Perry’s setting that will follow. In service of producing a richer analysis of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, discussion here will begin by identifying important historical, theological, and cultural dimensions of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa.” Following this is a discussion regarding Perry’s apparent familiarity with two particularly influential settings of the hymn, those of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Gioachino Rossini.

There is a certain amount of flexibility afforded composers when using such old texts that lack definitive editions and whose authorship is uncertain, as can be see not only Perry’s setting, but in those of Rossini and others. There are two sources generally used for the original thirteenth-century Franciscan text. These include the Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, which boasts “the most extensive collection and history of medieval Latin hymns of the Catholic

Church, 500–1400,” as well as a slightly different version of the text adopted by the Catholic

Church in 1908, which can be found in the Liber Usualis. The texts used by composers regularly contain modifications, often inherited from settings by other composers, as well as changes made by the composer to better suit the text to their musical or poetic preferences.

The Franciscans and the Virgin Mother

The influence of the thirteenth and fourteenth-century Franciscan texts, with their dramatic vernacular origins and ascetic devotion to Mary, on settings like that of Perry’s raise interesting interpretive possibilities. The vernacular orientation of the narration, with its passion and sincerity, are facilitated through a radical realization of Franciscan thought. Francis of

Assisi, originator of Franciscan thought, successfully sought Pope Innocent III’s approval in the formation of the Orders of Friars Minor, or Ordo Fratrum Minorum, in 1209. Franciscan thinking was built around Francis’ preaching and demanded of its members a life like that of

Jesus Christ — to be a beggar without property.5 The religious fervor of Franciscans translated into evocative poetry, like that of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa.” In Alone of All Her Sex: The

Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, Marina Warner writes:

Francis’ flair for the simple visual parable or gesture, and his order’s determination to preach the Gospel among the lowest, hitherto cut off by ignorance of Latin and neglected by the clergy, inspired cult practices in a vernacular more universal than speech itself — the language of drama and image. The mystical typology of Christian devotion, so characteristic even of Bernard’s passionate sermons, was abandoned in favor of the most literal, concrete, and emotional interpretation. 6

Warner goes on to say that the “genius of the sequence lies in its use of the first person.

Jacopone saw the saviour’s Passion through the eyes of his afflicted mother; the Franciscan who must have written the ‘Stabat Mater Dolorosa’ contemplates Mary standing by the Cross and shares her grief.”7 She goes on to describe the shifting narration, at times about Mary, to Christ,

5 Lydia Schumacher, Early Franciscan Theology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 1–29.

6 Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex the Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 179-194.

7 Ibid., 217.

and in personal prayer. The poem demands that the listener consider the immense grief of Mary, the pain afflicted on Christ, and the role of prayer in suffering. The role of grief and the deeply sympathetic or empathetic response exemplified in the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” calls upon us, in different contexts, to consider the suffering of those around us.

The split relationship that Franciscan devotion and its practitioners had toward clergy is noteworthy. The radically vernacular expression of Christian faith shares a historical parallel with African American Christian practice. For the early Franciscans, the clergy’s use of Latin served to legitimize the clergy’s domination over religious practice while functionally excluding any substantial participation on the part of the public with regard to the interpretation of the bible. There is a parallel, in some ways, with the development of African American Christian practice in the United States. Often ridiculed by whites, vernacular expressions of the Christian faith by African Americans, manifested through ceremonies like the ring shout, share an intense expression of emotions and a kind of physicality that, especially in light of the very restrictive practices of many white churches, were subversive toward the dominant practices of the time.8

Setting the Stabat Mater Dolorosa

The Stabat Mater Dolorosa has been set by many composers, with a few particularly notable settings. To historically situate Perry’s setting of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa among those most notable settings, Mildred Green offered this useful overview: “Composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced large works for chorus and orchestra, in which the text often consisted of many autonomous and characteristically differentiated movements. The

8 Dena J. Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 217–236.

settings of the nineteenth century composers leaned toward more elaborate works with characteristics of operatic style.”9 Perry’s setting falls decidedly into the more operatic category of the later settings, although she elected for smaller performing forces with a string orchestra and soloist. Her setting of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” is in ten movements, like that of Rossini and Dvořák. With regard to larger form, Perry’s composition is in a three-part form of ABA’ and departs more significantly from that of Renaissance composers Josquin and Palestrina, who organized their settings into two main sections.

Perry sets the text of the Stabat Mater by dividing up the twenty versicles into groups of two, producing two versicle pairs per movement. This is unique to Perry’s setting when considered alongside the settings of Pergolesi, Dvořák, and others. The settings of Pergolesi and

Rossini include groupings of one, two, three, four, and five versicles to a movement. The poem’s use of double versicles has led many composers to use antiphonal voices or double choirs in their settings.

Perry included the Latin text and her own rhymed translation in the score. She chooses to modify the Latin text to better fit her musical and poetic sensibilities, in some cases, as Mildred

Green has discussed, making changes from what is found in Liber Usualis that appear to be her own, and in other cases echoing changes found in settings like those of Pergolesi and Rossini.10

In some places, Perry substituted entire words and in other places a single vowel. An example of this occurs in the seventeenth versicle, where Perry follows Rossini in changing the original,

“Fac me plagis vulnerári, fac me Cruce inebriári, et cruóre Fílii” to “Fac me plagas vulnerari,

9 Mildred Green, Black Women Composers: A Genesis (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), 84–85.

10 Ibid.

Cruce hac inebriári, Ob amorem filii.” This change eliminates inconsistencies in the meter and improves the general euphony of the poetry.

Perry’s working knowledge of earlier settings and her inclination for experimenting with form should inform our understanding of her own setting. In Black Women Composers: A

Genesis, Mildred Green arrives at the conclusion that musical references to earlier settings appear with irregularity and unpredictability in Perry’s Stabat Mater and that the references are manifestations of Perry’s subconscious familiarity with those works.11 This seems a likely enough explanation; however, given Perry’s predilection for traditional forms, it seems equally likely that she had done so intentionally. Whatever the case for any individual change in the text, it seems likely that Perry consciously drew inspiration from these historical models with regard to both the text and musical construction while remaining ultimately committed to her own aesthetic vision.

11 Ibid., 89-98.

Chapter 2 Reflections on the Technical Construction of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater

The text of the Stabat Mater Dolorosa tells the story of the crucifixion of Christ and the great pain of Mary in witnessing this event, depicting deep sadness, anger, anxiety, prayer, and acceptance. The musical language with which Perry sets the text ranges from deeply dissonant to a simple, singular melodic line, and movements ranging from meditative to frenzied. Her selective use of culturally significant musical signifiers embeds layers of meaning that can be interpreted through a critical reading. What follows is a theoretical overview of Perry’s composition.

Formal Overview

As stated above, the work is made up of ten movements that collectively create a large

ABA’ form. The first four movements form the A section. The critically important fifth and sixth movements, more prayerful and placid than the preceding section, forms what I will later discuss as the “Prayers to Mary” section. Movements seven through ten make up the A’ section. Within the different movements there is contained a number of smaller forms, which

Nkeiru Okoye identifies as ABA form, simple binary, through-composed with an ostinato motor figure, and call-and-response form.12 Perry uses through-composed composition most

12 Nkeiruka Ndidikanma Okoye, “Ruth, an Orchestral Choreopoem, and, A Discussion on Stylistic Unity in Julia Perry’s ‘Stabat Mater’” (PhD diss., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2001), 14–15.

often, particularly in the A’ section. As is the thrust of Okoye’s analysis, musical cohesion is achieved through formal and procedural organization, as well as through the development of recurring themes and motives.

Stabat Mater exemplifies a harmonic approach that can be described as pandiatonic, utilizing many of the relations of tonal music and employing an expansive conception of tonality that incorporates a variety of techniques old and new. An example of this is the use of church modes, including Aeolian, Dorian, Mixolydian, and Locrian, along with non-diatonic scales. Perry makes liberal use of chords that lack chord tones, particularly the third. This ambiguity between major and minor tonalities is an important characteristic of this work, lending to the exploration of shades both subtle and striking. The use of open fifths may also be a musical device that points to the text’s medieval origins.

Movement I

The opening movement sets the scene of Mary, suffering at the sight of her tortured son. This is depicted both musically through text painting and through abstract musical structure. As will be seen, much of the source material on which a majority of the work’s thematic, and to a lesser degree motivic, material is developed from is presented in

Movement I.

The first movement opens with an ominous and brooding atmosphere, presenting the first and most important theme of the work. In addition to setting the tone for the piece by nature of its early presentation, the primary theme foreshadows key structural aspects of the overall work.

The first theme is introduced in what can be considered a fugato.13 As can be seen in example

2.1, the opening theme contains the pitches, in order, C-sharp, D, G, F-sharp, B, A-sharp, E, D- sharp. The figure is one that climbs in pitch overall but contains within it three sighing motives that move downward by a single half-step. The minor second relationship is presented by the first interval of a rising half-step and the three descending half-steps. These relationships are connected through larger intervals, namely two perfect fourths and a tritone — D and G, F-sharp and B, and A-sharp and E.

Perry utilizes traditional procedures like fugue while reimagining the relationships that constitute those procedures. This is similar to the first movement of Bela Bartók’s Music for

Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, composed fifteen years earlier in 1936.14 Examples of this can be found throughout Stabat Mater and are especially important in the first movement. Following the initial statement of the subject uttered by the cellos and basses in the first two bars and beginning on C-sharp, the fugal response is presented by the viola; this answer (beginning on m.

2 of the example) resembles but is not identical in shape to the subject, and rather than appearing at the fourth or fifth, it begins on E-natural, a minor third away from the initial statement of the subject. The statement is repeated in the sixth measure in the second violins, only lowered a half step from the answer in beginning on D-sharp. This alteration of the expected again reinforces the importance of the semitone to the musical structure and organization of the work.

13 Okoye, “Discussion on Stylistic Unity,” 16.

14 Malcolm Gillies, "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta: Bartók's Ultimate Masterwork?" International Journal of Musicology 9 (2000): 289-301.

Musical Example 2.1. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, First Movement; mm. 1–3 (violas, cellos, and basses only).15

Several aspects of the primary theme should be noted, as they will be developed in various ways in later movements. The ascending eighth note pattern with falling semitones is one element. Another is the dotted rhythm that precedes the first dotted half-note. After the reiteration of the motive in the sixth measure moves onward from the ascending theme into the dotted rhythm, a new motivic idea is introduced in the first violin part. In m. 8, the first three notes, B-F-C, form another important motive that is often deployed in the accompaniment parts.

I will refer to this as the B-F-C Motive below.

The opening section of mm.1–14 culminates in a gentle dominant preparation for the following section where the soloist enters. A solo violin plays a brief, one-bar cadenza in m. 10 based on the primary theme subject. This climbs to a held G-flat. Here we see again the use of the B-F-C Motive, this time used to transition out of the A section. The transition is also accomplished through the use of soft sustained unison in the violins with the other parts playing a pizzicato iteration of the B-F-C Motive, as the lower strings arrive at a D-natural. This D-

15 Julia Perry, Stabat Mater, 3.

natural, unbeknownst to the listener, will form a dominant relationship with the following section, where the tonal center is G.

The relatively static accompaniment also aids the text in depicting the solitary mourning of Mary, one of many examples of text painting throughout the work. After two and a half bars of a sustained, gently rearticulated G and D in the cellos, the soloist enters for the first time in the work. The soloist sings the opening couplet of the text on a melody in G Dorian. In these opening lines the strings are scored very thinly, continuing to sustain two note dyads. The scoring is simple and unadorned as a way of focusing the attention suddenly to the soloist.

In her setting of the opening couplet, Perry draws attention to specific words for emotional impact. For example, Perry places the only sixteenth notes in the line on the words

“dolorosa” and “lacrymosa,” translating to “sorrowful” and “weeping” respectively. The modal quality and sixteenth note figures that occur over a single syllable may be interpreted as a nod to melismatic chant performance. Bringing this section to a close, an altered form of the subject and answer pair are presented in cascading parts between mm. 21–26, serving to set up the third and final section of the movement. The final note in the melodic line ends on a gentle D-sharp, exemplifying the semitone as a point of important structural connection and organization.16

In the final section, Perry creates a quality of uneasiness in the accompaniment that serves to heighten the sense of distress in the anguished exclamations of the soloist, while ultimately ending the movement with an E tonal center. Beginning in m. 27, Perry firmly plants the remainder of the movement in E. Remaining in the newly established tonal center, Perry moves between references to major and minor tonality. The instrumental writing from mm. 27–

16 Okoye, “Discussion on Stylistic Unity,” 18–19.

36 also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of the rhythmic makeup of the new thematic material introduced. A concrete rhythmic character for this thematic presentation is never clearly established. The figure begins with a bar in five, containing the signature eight notes followed by a final beat of two sixteenths and an eighth moving upward. This is transformed into a new pattern displaced over bars of three, with longer notes sounding under the thematic material serving to emphasize the tonal center of E. The closing section of the work quietly confirms the centrality of E, which is the tonal center of the work overall.

Movement II

The second movement is built on whole-tone tetrachords. The whole-tone scale often signifies dreaming or dreaminess, the mystical, or the “exotic.” In order to theorize as to why this is important here, it will be useful to first explore some of the musical mechanics of the section.

Okoye described this section as having a dream-like quality; however, there is no reference to dreams in the text. Provided its position subsequent to an emotionally volatile section, I propose a different interpretation. In addition to its dream-like qualities, the whole tone scale has a less directional quality, lacking the kind of harmonic or melodic pull of scales containing semitones.

These two notions in tandem suggest a sense of shocked paralysis and dissociation associated with a response to significant trauma, like that reflected in the poetic and musical content of the first movement.

This sense of dissociation is inscribed in the musical language of the movement as well.

The stark accompaniment is largely drone-like. In the two-bar violin solo which begins this movement, two whole-tone tetrachords are presented, separated by a bar line. In Musical

Example 2.2, the first tetrachord is made up of the four notes in the violin part, m. 44, and the

second tetrachord is made up of the four notes in the following bar. The viola accompaniment is made up of notes from the second tetrachord and the melody is made up of notes from the first tetrachord. The violin alternates between the two evenly.

Musical Example 2.2. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, second movement; mm. 44–52

The use of the whole-tone scale creates a “dream-like” atmosphere that, when coupled with the stark accompaniment, suggests a sense of detachment. The voice and the viola present a kind of split between the subject and reality. It is something of a surprise when, in m. 51, the solo line falters from its pitch collection to a note in the other. As the piece progresses, Perry spends increasingly more time on notes from the second tetrachord. This could be interpreted as the eventual dissipation of musical dissociation, where the collapsing of this duality, no longer separated by their respective tetrachord’s lack of shared tones, gives way to a shared tonal language. This superimposed musical narrative, while always directly linked to the text, does not necessarily have as its goal the depiction of the text directly, perhaps instead depicting the internally felt emotions of the grieving mother and that of the narrator/interlocuter.

In order for this to maintain musical cohesion while exploring alienated and estranged tonalities, a reference point from which to contrast against is useful, if not necessary. To maintain the movement’s overall grounding in the tonal center of E, Perry again relies on a drone in the viola part. The persistence of the pitch E holds the tonal center in a movement where the very pitch structure of the scales and harmonies employed tend to deny a familiar, diatonically produced pitch center.

Movement III

The third movement of the work is quite short and shares much in common with the first movement. The opening contrasts with the previous movements in tempo, ratcheting up the speed to an Allegro. In addition to being derived from the same thematic material as the first movement, the third movement shares with other important structural qualities, including the setting of the vocal line, thematic and motivic recurrence, and the importance of the minor

second. When the vocal line enters in m. 80, the melody is based on the theme presented initially in the vocal line of Movement I.

Another important point of continuity within the third and fourth movements is the minor third. The end of the initial theme is connected to the following through a minor third, E-flat and

G-flat. Minor thirds are also employed in the cadential material at the end of movement three.

This can be seen between the repeated E-flat in the cello and bass parts against the final note in the G-flat of the violin flourish. This relationship is again figured into the accompaniment parts early in the fourth movement. In a pizzicato fashion, the viola repeatedly emphasizes the E-flat and G-flat from mm. 101–104. An important structural aspect that warrants comment is the transition from Movement III to Movement IV. The indicated end of Movement III is at m. 98, but the musical line taking place at m. 98 continues; thus, the phrase really ends at m. 100 (see

Example 2.3).

Musical Example 2.3. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, Movement IV; mm. 99–101

Movement IV

A point of significant structural importance, Movement IV constitutes the final movement in the A section of the work and prepares the musical and poetic material to come in the B section. There is no evidence that Perry’s English translation was to be sung (except that it appears within the score, directly underneath the Latin, as a singing translation). Movement IV uses the following text, with Perry’s rhymed translation:

Pro peccatis suae gentis For the sinning of His people, Vidit Jesum in tormentis, Saw her Jesus in great torment Et flagellis subditum. Beaten with scourger’s rod;

Vidit Jesum dulcem Natum Saw her Sweet One dying Morientem desolatum, Yes, forsaken, crying Dum emisit spiritum. Yield His spirit up to God 17

Like her Romantic-era predecessors, Perry favors a more dramatic setting of the text that, at times, appears to explore affect in ways beyond what is explicitly dictated by the text. The line,

“Yield His spirit up to God” serves as a dramatic and musical turning point in the work, representing the ascension of Christ as well as the conclusion to the A section of the work. The movement is also marked by a return to the central pitch of the piece, E.

Much of this movement is driven by the ostinato pattern established in the third measure of Movement IV. The ostinato pattern is made up of a descending quartal sonority of G, D, A and an ascending quartal sonority of B-flat, E-flat, A-flat. The musical effect produced by the rapid oscillation of the two quartal sonorities essentially sounds as a pedal with neighboring

17 Perry, Stabat Mater, 11–13.

figures.18 The figure persists in the same pattern across changing time signatures. Two bars of three prepare the soloist’s entry, marked by a return to common time.

In order to situate the musical and poetic activity of this movement within the entirety of the work, I will turn particular attention to the ending of Movement IV. The final section, encompassing both the final lines of the soloist and the coda, begins at m. 111 and ends at m.

130. The musical line of the soloist is at times dissonant and foreign to the tonal fabric created by the strings, as if to musically represent the crying out of the Virgin Mother decrying the treatment of her son.

Because G has been established as the tonal center early in this movement, the move to D in the low strings and the change in pitch level regarding the ostinato motive, now emphasizing

A, establishes a strong sense of root to dominant motion. This facilitates further harmonic movement to what is a strongly anticipated E. In mm. 118–119, the lowest strings play a descending pattern of A-G-F followed by a sudden silence from both the orchestra and the vocalist. This is reinforced through two musical procedures. The first is the marked “molto larga

. . . . . ad libitum,” notably stretched through ellipses over the two full bars. Additionally, the low strings are marked divisi, filling out a quintal sonority. Importantly, the “ad libitum” appears over the soloist’s final words of the movement, which, In Perry’s translation, are: “Yield His spirit up to God.”

Perry’s setting of this line reveals some of the deeply musical and poetic insights of the text. Perry recognized the potential power of a symbiotic setting of the text and music that expand on the dramatic and narrative dynamics of the original text. The soloist, rising from the

18 Okoye, “Discussion on Stylistic Unity,” 30.

silence where the strongly implied E never arrived, breaks the quartal sonorities characterizing the movement. As Okoye notes, the soloist’s voice appropriately “soars” to an F-sharp.19 The break from the harmonic entrenchment set forth by the ostinato pattern is, perhaps, the realization of Mary’s cries against the brutality being witnessed. This is also reinforced by the

“ad libitum” marking. If we accept that the apparent permanency established by the repeating ostinato renders the unending cruelty of Earthly existence, then the break from rigid temporal structure serves to further illustrate the musical and dramatic sea change. In that, the words come to literally and musically represent Christ breaking with the physical world and ascending to

Heaven from a human form riddled with the physical torture placed upon his body.

As the A section of the larger form comes to a close, transition, if not transformation, is signaled musically. The soloist achieves ascent on the F-sharp in m.121, holding out the note alone for three full beats. After which, the strings enter in quartal harmony with the F-sharp doubled by the Violin I part. This marks a decided shift in the sonorities away from those presented earlier in the movement. This, coupled with the forte dynamic and stately rhythms, suggests the completion of a transformation. The closing material ends decidedly back in the tonal center of E, thus also signaling the end of the A section.

Movement V

In the first four movements, Perry utilizes complex compositional techniques that make no recognizable references to vernacular idioms. In the fifth movement of the Stabat Mater,

Perry employs two easily identifiable musical allusions that appear neither before nor after. A

19 Ibid., 35.

call-and-response procedure is immediately established and maintained throughout the movement. Given her background in setting spirituals and sacred music, the use of the call-and- response and chorale-style writing demand further consideration. Perry’s use of Black and

Christian musical signifiers, however variously filtered through her complex musical language, calls on the listener to consider both the perceived universality of Mary’s suffering with the specific, brutal suffering faced by African Americans during Perry’s lifetime and historically within the United States.

The call-and-response procedure includes a single-line call and a responding chorus of harmonized strings, (see Examples 2.4 and 2.5). The responding string chorus is harmonized in a chorale style typical in many US churches. Notably, the lack of human voices, organ, or piano in the choral response is not the only unusual element, as it is harmonized in a Dorian modality consistent with the movement overall. Through the musical allusion to call-and-response, Perry encodes a signifier of Black cultural memory into the Stabat Mater. The encoding of musical signifiers is a long existing phenomenon in music and is true of other settings of the “Stabat

Mater Dolorosa.” For example, we can look to settings like that of Karol Syzmanowski, which also encodes musico-cultural signifiers in the form of Polish folk music, and, as a result, engages with its attendant ideologies.20

20 Richard Zielinski, "Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937): The Father of Contemporary Polish Choral Music," Choral Journal 46, no. 3 (2005): 8–24.

Musical Example 2.4. Excerpt from Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, fifth movement; mm. 1–3

Because the soloist is the only voice scored in Stabat Mater, the harmonized response performed by the strings sounds particularly lonely. Given the textless, unvoiced choral response to the call, a sense of isolation and melodic clarity seems to represent the mother in a prayerful dialogue. This musical event occurs at the Prayers to Mary portion of the text and marks a pivotal point in the work, representing the narrative shift toward reflection, acceptance, and healing — away from the initial pain at the sight of Christ on the Cross.21

21 Walker-Hill, Spirituals to Symphonies, 111–12.

Musical Example 2.5. Excerpt from Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, Movement V; mm. 1–5 (string orchestra response)

African American Christian practice commonly conceptualizes the struggles of Black people through biblical narratives.22 The connection between the suffering of Mary at the sight of

Christ on the cross and that of a Black mother whose male family member, son, husband, or brother has been lynched at the hands of a violent mob is a powerful one. A fuller attempt at an analysis of this connection is expanded upon in Chapter 3 through an examination of contemporaneous literature, poetry, popular music, and the writings of Black religious figures.

Not unlike other composers who explored musical-aesthetic concepts such as primitivism, Perry’s use of call-and response comes to signify a musical practice outside of the

22 James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017) 30–31.

concert music tradition. In reality, musical procedures identical, or nearly so, to call-and- response have occurred throughout the history of European art music; however, here I am referring to the social dimensions that are being signified in this twentieth-century and American context. What Perry does in this movement of the Stabat Mater is distinct from the techniques employed by Stravinsky in service of a primitivist aesthetic, in which an abstracted and essentialized image, or sound, of an imagined human primitive is presented through the summoning of imagery inherited from the colonial imagination.23 Perry makes this musical reference to call-and-response not to present a two-dimensional image of the other, but rather to collapse otherness and force White America to recognize, in the artistic language of its vaulted intellectuals, that Christ was not only for Black people, but was of Black people.

Returning to the musical details of Perry’s work, the solo voice sings the call, unaccompanied, and the string orchestra responds. The response is given in the first violin part and the lower string parts fill out the implied, yet disfigured, harmony. Aside from occurring within an A-Dorian modality, the harmonized responses resemble chorale-style writing with regard to voice leading, harmony, harmonic rhythm, and phrasing. The harmonization that occurs outlines a progression of I-V6-V/V-I-V6-I7-6-V/V, which recalls a Bach chorale.24

The movement, in contrast with the previous musical activity, engenders a sense of peacefulness. This is achieved, again, through the blending of poetry and musical setting. The consistency and inoffensiveness (that is, less traditionally dissonant) use of the Dorian mode

23 Mariana Aguirre, "La Difesa Della Razza (1938-1943): Primitivism and Classicism in Fascist Italy," Politics, Religion & Ideology 16, no. 4 (2015): 370-90.; Carole Sweeney, From Fetish to Subject Race, Modernism, and Primitivism, 1919-1935 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2004), 11–36, 55–70.

24 Okoye, “Discussion on Stylistic Unity,” 36.

contributes to a distinctly calm atmosphere. The text of the section is as follows, with Perry’s rhymed translation:

Eia Mater, fons amoris, Tender Mother, fount of love, me sentire vim doloris Let me feel thy sadness Fac, ut tecum luguem That with thee my tears shall flow

Fac ut ardeat cor meum Make my heart so steadfast for Him, O In amando Christum Deum Mother Ut sibi complaceam. Make it burn with love for thy Son, That I may be pleasing unto Him 25

Movement VI

Movement VI constitutes the second half of the B section, still within the Prayers to Mary portion of the work. As in the previous movement, Movement VI adopts a more contemplative, gentle setting. Building on the poetry of the previous movement, the soloist prays that the suffering of Christ, and the deeply felt meaning of his persecution and the suffering of the innocent Mary, are to be imprinted into their mind and body.

Perry chooses a key signature of G minor, or two flats; the movement, however, resides solidly within a G Dorian tonality. Therefore, every time an E-flat would be encountered because of the key, Perry must add a natural in order to maintain the intended modality. In my research, I have come to no satisfying answer as to why Perry chose to use a key signature for this movement. It is one of two movements that has a key signature indicated, along with Movement

VII. The key signature introduced in Movement VII does, however, more neatly fit the tonal center of that movement, as it is in D Major.

25 Julia Perry, Stabat Mater (New York: Peer Music, 1951), 14–17.

Musical Example 2.6. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, Movement VI; mm. 157–159

This movement, as Okoye describes it, is “a passacaglia written in two symmetrical halves based on the construction and deconstruction of its basso ostinato.”26 The introduction that takes place from mm. 157–159 introduces each of the contrapuntal lines (see Example 2.6).

To the listener, these lines may not appear as contrapuntal as implied by the analysis, at least until the latter half of the movement. This is because the ostinato function, particularly in regard to the repeated one-bar unit in the bass and cello parts, sounds, at least initially, like staggered entrance ostinato situated to produce oscillating tonalities outlining minor seven chords built on the first and second scale degree in the G Dorian tonality (see Example 2.7).

26 Okoye, “Discussion of Stylistic Unity,” 40.

Musical Example 2.7. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, Movement VI; mm. 161–163

The final note in the solo line ends on the second scale degree, leaving the listener expecting a satisfying resolution to G. The B section ends where the A’ section begins at m. 168.

The transitionary melody in the first violin in mm. 166–167 ends on the fifth scale degree, thus providing a compromised resolution. This is aided by the harmonically stagnant ostinato.

Through this compromised resolution, the transitionary figure helps to relaunch the A’ section.

In order to close the B section of the work, or Prayers to Mary, a more delicate approach is taken in ending Movement VI. The A’ section of the movement sees to it that “through subtle alterations, the ostinato is dismantled.”27 The strategy employed by Perry involves displacing notes and role of the bass voice from the bass and cello parts to the viola, which previously included more tones. Also related to the unraveling or dismantling effect, the melody, while drawn from the earlier presented melody, departs more significantly from it in rhythm and pitch arrangement. The final section of this movement, beginning around m.173, employs a relatively straightforward cycle-of-fifths procedure in order to arrive satisfyingly at G, which is presented

27 Ibid., 42.

in quartal harmony.

Movement VII

Movement VII opens with a vigorous presentation of the initial theme, with a forte dynamic, relatively heavy scoring, and a tempo of 140 beats per minute. This marks the beginning of the third of a tripartite form, the A’ section. This movement shares many similarities with both Movement I and Movement III, particularly the latter because of similarities in tempo and scoring. The key signature for this movement is D major, but as we will see, this marking has little real utility in understanding the movement. Insofar as it is instructive, it is to indicate the centrality of the pitch D, a whole step below the works’ overall tonal center of

E. The movement can be divided into an introduction and two succeeding subsections.

Taking note of the musical transformation reveals important musico-narrative developments. The introductory subsection is where we find the presentation of the first theme, as in Movements I and II. The rhythm has been modified to a dotted eighth to sixteenth note figure, one of the developmental procedures favored by Perry. This also contributes significantly to the overall cohesiveness of the piece. After the first three bars present the primary theme, the soloist, for the first and only time in the work, sings the primary theme. In doing so the soloist sings, “Make me weep with thee in union at the crucifix, there condoling”

If we accept that the primary theme in Movements I and III come to represent an epoch filled with suffering, then perhaps the first utterances of it by the soloist, singing in Forte, may come to represent a transformation in the musical agent toward a deeper level of understanding.

This is, in my view, strengthened by the prayerful section preceding. This represents a classic notion of transformation through prayer being signified musically.

The formal structures of the movement themselves offer a sort of abstract, musical metanarrative on the dramatic action taking place. Movement VII is the first movement in the work that is through-composed, as will be the remainder of the movements in the A’ section — shedding the formal aspects that structure the A and B sections, and more evidence for the interpretation that Perry writes the transformation of prayer into the work’s musical structure

Movement VIII

The music of this movement transforms from a beginning marked by tonal ambiguity to one much clearer and directional. This harmonic/melodic change adds a layer of affect to the text in that it musically represents the soloist’s strengthening of resolve. Perry forgoes a key signature in this movement and returns to the home key of the work overall, E.

The centrality of E is established and maintained through the use of a quartal dyad in the viola parts made up of E and A, but an ambiguity between emphasizing E and A occurs and serves to obscure the tonal center. While avoiding sounding either a major or minor tonality, the

E continues to ground the first section of the work, from mm. 211–221. However, this emphasis is undermined in the first violin part, where the note A is foregrounded. Seen in Example 2.9, the figure gently snaps to the pitch A, moving quickly and quietly through a B-flat and E. While not true to its historic definition, this figure calls to mind a mordent. This generated tension, albeit a rather consonant one, serves to create a tonal landscape where the perceived tonal center is volleyed back and forth between the tonic and subdominant pitch centers.

Musical Example 2.8. Excerpt from Stabat Mater, Movement VIII mm. 211–213 (Violin I, Violin II, and Viola)

In m. 213, the soloist picks up from the first violin part, emphasizing the subdominant A.

In the following measure, the soloist ends on a repeated E, thus emphasizing the tonic tonal area.

The following bar, m. 215, emphasizes A, and the following measure ends strongly with a figure that rises from B to E. Thus, the melody participates wholly in the pull between the tonic and subdominant areas, eventually offering a somewhat uncommitted confirmation of the E tonal center.

This uncertainty is subsequently diminished, as a series of implied chords create a clearer directionality. Keeping with the premise outlined above, we see the musical affect creating a sense of strengthened resolve within the soloist as she sings the determined words of the text.

From mm. 217–222 a simple chord progression is outlined through shifting relations in this thinly scored section. The harmonies shift every bar, with the exception of the first tonic. In m.

217, the bass pitch of E against the A on beat three seems to imply an inverted subdominant harmony. This is followed by a B and F-sharp in the Violin II part and an A in the upper register of the violin in order to form a dominant harmony. The entrance of the cello voice in m. 219 provides a sense of tonic, however the A in the Violin I part continues to obscure the distinction between the I and IV tonality. When the cellos rise to B in m. 221, coupled with the resolution of

the melody line on A, a strong sense of dominant harmony is established that is resolved to tonic in the following bar (see Example 2.9).

Musical Example 2.9. Excerpt from Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, Movement VIII; mm. 216–222

Following a brief transition built around semitones and tritones, a new key of C minor is established in m. 226.28 From m. 226 to the end of the movement in m. 233 a tonic pedal of C is maintained in both the bass and cello parts. Recalling the pedal-oriented ending of the previous movement, we can see a pattern favored by Perry throughout the A’ section. This section in C minor confirms both the transformative nature of the previous section and the arrival at a new understanding. In opposition to the uncommitted modality of the previous section, the minor sounds both heavy and resolute. Okoye states, “Musically, a wider tessitura is more confident as the text expresses the singer’s willingness to suffer with Christ. Its pitches alternately support and challenge the underlying harmony.”29 Going a step further, I suggest that those notes that break from the tonality become imbued with additional meaning. The text for this section, with

Perry’s translation, is as follows:

Fac, ut portem Christe mortem, Grant that I may bear the death of Christ, passionis ejus sortem, The fate of his Passion, et plagas recolere And commemorate His wounds 30

There are three places within this passage where the melody clashes with the C-minor tonality. The first point of dissonance is in m. 227 where an A-flat in the melody clashes with an

A-natural in the Violin I part. This clash occurs on the word “mortem,” meaning death. This is the only example in this passage where the pitches that vary from the established tonality occur in the strings instead of the soloist’s part. In mm. 230–231, the soloist moves a tritone from E-

28 Ibid., 51.

29 Ibid., 52.

30 Hans van der Velden, “Stabat Mater: Hans van der Velden’s literal translation,” in Stabat Mater: The Mystery Hymn by Desmond Fisher (Leominster: Gracewing, 2015), 163–166.

flat to A-natural, followed by a major third to C-sharp. The line in the text refers to Christ’s passion and death. The major third interval emerges from the strings’ C-minor tonality. This is another example of text painting, in which Christ’s passion transcends the given harmonic schema, above or against the worldly strings. In mm. 232–233, we see another example of text painting. As the line refers to the wounds of Christ, the soloist resolves the final melodic line to an A-natural against a C minor tonality that has been to this point grounded by the pedal C for seven bars (see Example 2.10).

Musical Example 2.10. Excerpt from Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater, Movement VIII; mm. 229–234

Movement IX

The tempo of Movement IX is predictably faster, as it is closely related to its counterpart in the A section, Movement III. This penultimate movement involves a number of musical procedures employed in earlier movements. Regarding this, Okoye states, “The movement reflects previously encountered techniques, including the call and response of the fifth

movement, the harmonic parallelism of Movement IV, modal contrast of Movement II, and the extended postlude of Movement I.”31 It is noteworthy that this is the longest movement of the work. The vocal sections of this movement are separated by demanding instrumental passages.

The instrumental introduction runs from mm. 234–250.

After a brief pause at the end of Movement VIII, Movement IX launches into hushed and hurried musical material. In m. 235 the Violin II part enters against the oscillating pattern in the

Violin I part. Those parts that play the oscillating pattern, Violin I and then Viola beginning in m.237, are marked “sul ponticello,” calling on those performers to play the part, already marked pianissimo, at the bridge to create a characteristic, screechy timbre. At half note equals seventy- two beats per minute, the sextuplets sound like squeaky, dissonant oscillations without much in the way of an identifiable tonal or harmonic character. Against this, a pizzicato line in the second violin parts presents a variation on thematic material presented in Movement VI, which is fundamentally a juxtaposition of G minor against D minor.

Perry establishes a repeated seven-beat figure set over a bar of five followed by a bar of two, creating an off-kilter effect. This is aided by the syncopation in the thematic presentation.

Throughout mm. 234–246, several developmental strategies are deployed by Perry. These include previous variations, the use of tritone and semitone, as well as rhythmic diminution and augmentation.32 Worth noting are two relatively covert musical procedures in the opening instrumental passage that foreshadow the later sections of the movement. The oscillating violin and viola parts emphasize the pitch D, which forms the tonal center of the subsequent section.

31 Ibid., 53–54.

32 Ibid.

Additionally, the quartal harmony in the final variation of the section, m. 247, is expanded through the use of open fifths.33

The following subsection includes the first iteration of the vocal part in this movement.

The soloist intones the pitch D repeatedly in the first two bars of the soloist’s line, mm. 252–253.

The accompaniment figures for this section continue to utilize harmonic presentations of the previous theme, but this devolves into more contrapuntal writing by the end of the subsection. As

Okoye notes, the reintroduction of whole-tone figures starting in m. 253 prepares the modulation in m. 257 by logically reintroducing the pitch B-flat.34 What follows is the final return of the primary theme, characterized by its pitch content, contour, and dotted rhythms. Here Perry employs a cumulative approach in which layers are variously added to the overall texture. This subsection is structured around the cycle of fifths. However, the presentation of the fifths is rather covert due to the voicings selected.

Following is the reentrance of the soloist, the final section of this movement begins at m.

271, where the cycling fifths ultimately landing on the B-flat introduced in the transition, enharmonically respelled as A-sharp within an F-sharp tonality. Text painting in the strings prepares the text and melodic line of the soloist. In mm. 271–272, the strings are instructed to play a fortepiano tremolo on an F-sharp major chord and crescendo over a full bar. In the following bar, the soloist enters on the text (again, with Perry’s translation):

Inflammatus et accensus, Here inflam’d I stand in the fire of love. Per te Virgo, sim defensus, Through thee, virgin protect me in die judicii. On the judgement day

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 55.

Entering on the word “inflammatus” retroactively renders the tremolo strings as text painting, depicting a burning flame rising up around the soloist. Measures 279–281 also exemplify Perry’s use of text painting. As the sustained F-sharp tonality continues to sound, the solo line is marked “ad libitum . . .” over mm. 279–280, as the soloist calls on the virgin mother to protect her on judgement day. Over these bars the strings are cut down in dynamic and then altogether by m. 281. In m. 281, the soloist sings out the phrase “Judgement Day.” Here Perry offers a musical depiction of the solitude of the day of judgement. The movement ends without fanfare, as a final iteration of the primary theme in variation takes place in m. 285.35 The following movement’s “Calmo” atmosphere is set up through the reduction of tempo and dynamic. The movement concludes with a tone cluster over a G-sharp pedal.

Movement X

The final movement returns to a slow-moving and peaceful atmosphere. Movement X does not have a distinct beginning; rather, the transitionary material that forms the attacca becomes the accompaniment of the new movement’s introductory section. The C-sharp on the downbeat of the first measure of the movement helps to anchor the tone cluster above to a tonal center of C-sharp. This is maintained through the use of a descending C-sharp Locrian scale in mm. 292–295 in the viola.36 Meanwhile, the melodic line of the soloist moves in and out of agreement with the tonal center. By the end of the first line in m. 294, the chromaticism of the melody gives in to the consonance of a C-sharp major triad.

35 Ibid., 57–58.

36 Ibid.

The introduction of Movement X ends with the vocal line in m. 294. In the following measure, a pianississimo marking holds the strings at a very soft dynamic, which will be reduced even more with the addition of another “p” to the dynamic marking in m. 297. The Cello part sounds on the downbeat with a C-sharp followed by the violins and strings playing an E-major chord on beat three and then on beat two. The soloist’s C-minor inflected melody in m. 297–299 clashes against the C-sharp tonality underneath; this is abandoned, however, by the soloist’s ascending whole-tone scale in mm. 300–303. The soloist’s dissonant and descending line occurs on the text, “quando corpus morietur,” appropriately providing text painting to a line about death. The following line is “Fac ut animae donetur,” which Perry translates as “Grant that to the soul be given.” The ethereal, ascending line here is another example of text painting. The musical line represents the profoundly sacred soul of Christ, riven from his body in the previous line, ascending to heaven. This appropriately marks the musical and dramatic climax of the movement.

Following this climax, the soloist sings out, “paradisi gloria” three times, referencing the holy trinity. In mm. 307–308 the string section plays an F-sharp quartal sonority, followed by quartal harmony over an E pedal while the soloist sings out the second “paradisi gloria.” This quartal harmony, consisting of A, G, and D, over the pedal E undergirds the remainder of the movement. In an “ad libitum” fashion, the soloist, returning to the melismatic melodic contour of the opening movement, intones a final “paradisi gloria” on a sustained D.

Chapter 3 Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater and Black Cultural History

The conspicuous absence of the lynching tree in American theological discourse and preaching is profoundly revealing, especially since the crucifixion was clearly a first-century lynching.

James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Introduction

The previous exploration of the history of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” and subsequent examination of the technical construction of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater have revealed some of the layers of meaning imbued within Perry’s work. What follows is an attempt to begin situating

Stabat Mater historically, and more specifically within the context of Black cultural history.

Perry was well educated and fiercely intellectual, carving out spaces within a society saturated in white and male supremacy. Her musical talents could not be denied, and her hard work afforded her entry into the tutelage of highly regarded European teachers like Luigi Dallapiccola and

Nadia Boulanger. Through writings in her later years and the stories she elevated throughout her lifetime of composing, a powerful moral, intellectual, and musical voice emerges from the historically neglected Julia Perry. In what follows, I attempt to situate Perry and her Stabat

Mater within a broader historical and cultural context. This will include discussion of Perry’s unfinished play Fisty M-E!, her poem entitled “Graves of Untold Africans,” correspondence between Perry and the New York Philharmonic’s management, and a broader sampling of the artistic and intellectual climate in which Perry was active as a composer, particularly around the period in which Perry composed her Stabat Mater.

In Julia Perry’s Own Words

Fisty M-E! (1969) There are virtually no extant writings by Perry on her Stabat Mater; she did, however, write in a variety of mediums and on different topics. This includes her musical works alongside unpublished literary works. In order to better understand Perry’s worldview, I will first turn to a fragment of a dramatic work held in the Julia Perry Collection at the Talbot Library of

Westminster Choir College. The fragments, including partial pages alongside stretches of full, consecutive pages, are dated 1969. Perry wrote the play a decade before her death in 1979, four years after the assassination of Malcolm X and one year after that of Martin Luther King Jr. The play appears to be closely modeled after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust Part II. Perry does this through rhymed verse, through the use of abstract ideas and institutions personified as characters, and through the play’s formal structure as a collection of scenes in which they are variously connected. Through an examination of some of the elements of the play, I hope to reveal some of the ways in which Perry conceptualized the role of her craft and her conviction that art connects past to present, reflecting and contesting society.

The play was given the very unusual title of “Fisty, M-E!” with the subheading “A

U.S.A. Metabolic, Sociological Play” handwritten at the top. The initial printed title has many cross-outs and rewritings, indicating some struggles with working out a title (see Figure 3.1).

The title refers to a nickname of the titular character, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles was a staple in German folktales and was introduced to literature by Goethe in Faust Part I. Much

like Faust Part II, the fragments of the play read like a series of highly referential and representational dialogues that variously engage with different aspects of American society.37

Figure 3.1. “Fisty M-E! (a metabolic, sociological play),” fragments of typescript with handwritten notes, 1969, Box 1, Folder 4, Julia Perry Collection, Special Collections at the Talbott Library, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.

The use of the terms sociological and metabolic are significant here. “Metabolic,” in the sociological sense, refers to social processes that produce, or rather reproduce, existing social arrangements. Therefore, the subject of the play appears to be an exploration of those social forces that Perry has identified as responsible for reproducing society’s ills. She does so in the play with a keen awareness of race, age, and class — dictating the faith, age, race, clothing, and

37 Julia Perry, “Fisty M-E! (a metabolic, sociological play),” fragments of typescript with handwritten notes, 1969, Box 1, Folder 4, Julia Perry Collection, Special Collections at the Talbott Library, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.

linguistic style (formal, vernacular, regional) of each character. She also includes characters that are personifications of social institutions, with more abstract ones like “Church” and “State,” as well as more figurative ones, like “watchman” or “the negro professor.”

Fisty, though connected through allusion to Goethe’s Mephistopheles, is also imbued with typical American signifiers. In the list of characters preceding the first act, Perry lists the description of Fisty as, “1. – Fisty wears ordinary clothing – an American Negro, 13 or 14 years old.” She further indicates on a subsequent page that Fisty demonstrates that he is “eager for attention and knowledge; energetic (constantly demonstrating his pugilistic ability)” in reference to his boxing prowess. Unfortunately, because of the limited remaining fragments, we do not know what happens to Fisty. With the many shortcomings of a fragmentary work in mind, there remains a number of interesting passages that reveal Perry’s thinking on a variety of issues.

The monologue on page 14 is performed by the role of “blackboard” in a school. The blackboard exemplifies the “metabolic” conception of the play. The blackboard, in a slow, gravelly, and measured voice speaks in rhyming prose, with word emphasis provided by Perry to highlight the rhyme scheme. The Blackboard labels children as dunces and fools, abusing them and instilling in them negative ideas about their self-worth. The young black children playing the roles of boys and girls 1–3 chime in individually saying that the blackboard is “destroying my individuality,” “Hurting my personality,” “hampering my conviviality,” etc. The use of

“blackboard” as the symbolic stand in also warrants additional analysis.

Rather than choosing an individual, such as a teacher, to stand in for the educational system, Perry chooses the “blackboard.” Blackboards, albeit impermanently, record written words. The blackboard then comes to symbolize beautifully the “metabolic” conception that is central to the work. It is both institutional and a physical record, but in practice relies on the

people who press the chalk to the board for it to be a meaningful part of human life. It is a part of the institution in the most literal, physical sense in that that they are often built into the walls of the schoolhouse. More abstractly, it is a tool for the circulation of ideology. Perhaps most importantly, it relies on educators to ideologically inculcate children and a model of education that rewards passive learning on the part of students. This reveals that Perry understood the anti-

Blackness that African American children faced in American public schools as systemic in the educational system of the United States.

Later, there is an extensive monologue by the role of “Negro Faculty Member.” The monologue is wide ranging and comments on a variety of historical events, most of which are related to slavery in the United States. The Negro Faculty Member’s analysis includes dimensions of both race and gender and can be seen in the following excerpt:

In the domain of political science today one sees nothing but sullen defiance or events of incendiary import. The word “ethnic” is hurled in the Negro child’s face; yes ‘ethnic’ to that black race which arrived in the states in the year 1619, one year before the pilgrims flocked to Plymouth rock, We did. Our black forefathers and maternal ancestors arrived in anticipation one year before the historical landing of these puritanical heretics booted and clouted off England’s shores.

Those among us who were the first to arrive on the western continent were sick and lean from tricks played on us by crafty and smutty men who usurped their energies, the energies of a bowed and subjugated people. These same men had some of their own illegitimate children known as “black-white” or “colored” to be nursed and suck on the mammary glands of black women and girls whom they had trapped or seduced (after those same men had killed or threatened the black females’ husbands or elders with heinous abuse). The same mammary glands from the black female slaves were used to nurse the white man’s legitimate offspring when his wife no longer could bear up under her husband’s two-timing, and, especially since the knave was leading a double-life with a black female slave.38

38 Perry, “Fisty M-E!,” 1969.

In this excerpt, one of the few monologues of which a substantial portion survives, Perry singles out with incisiveness specific examples of the ways in which the conditions of slavery, and the depravity of its purveyors, had specifically gendered dynamics tied to labor exploitation.

She locates the condition of “ethnic” as external and oppressive, reproduced through legal structures, culture, and education that is then internalized by black children and adults. She also connects the unique conditions of forced labor and subjugation of black women under slavery with the moral failings of both white men and women. This reveals to us that Perry understood that racism and male supremacy were intimately connected to labor exploitation under slavery and that, given the metabolic function of society, those oppressive structures continued to be articulated through a variety of social mechanisms, both formal and informal.

Perry’s understanding of society and its ills, and the way injustice and inequality are articulated in different historical contexts, informed her musical works. This can be seen in the subjects of the stories she tells – opting to write substantial works about the biblical Ruth, the

Salem witch trials, and the acute suffering of the Virgin Mary at her son’s crucifixion. When examined in this context, one begins to see the way her worldview shaped her artistic output and how her art reflected the world in which she lived.

“Graves of Untold Africans” (1965) An unpublished poem with brief introductory notes addressing the connection between

African Americans and African history and culture can also be found in the Julia A. Perry

Collection. The poem is titled Graves of Untold Africans. In the bottom right corner of the torn and tattered document are the printed words “copyright, 1965” along with Perry’s name and a

boxy initial. A photo of the document can be found in Figure 3. 2. The introductory notes help to explain to any unfamiliar readers important information about the historical figures referenced.

These figures include Osai Tutu (Osei Kofi Tutu I), Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, Tororut (a supreme god of the Chok in Kenya), and Aesop (an ancient Greek slave who was set dramatically as a Black man several times throughout the twentieth century).

Figure 3.2. Introductory notes to “Graves of Untold Africans” by Julia Perry. Box 1, Folder 4, Julia Perry Collection, Special Collections at the Talbott Library, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.

The poem laments the loss of a rich and varied African culture. This touches on an important phenomenon in African American culture and political thought in the twentieth century — cultural in that there was a focus on learning and replicating elements of African culture, and political in that it shaped much African American political thought through ideals of diasporic solidarity. Perry’s use of the word “untold,” with its multiple meanings and common usages, helps to reveal the unique sense of loss experienced by Black Americans with regard to

African history and culture. Definitions include, “not counted or reckoned; not counted out or paid,” “uncounted, unreckoned, because of amount or numbers; immense, vast,” “not related or

recounted,” and “not informed (of a fact).”39 “Untold” expresses the vast numbers of Africans and African diasporic peoples who have been murdered by the formal system of slavery and its subsequent iterations of white supremacist oppression, such as American apartheid in the form of

Jim Crow laws, or informally through the persistence of extrajudicial violence in the form of lynching and modern systems of over-policing and incarceration. However, it also reveals multiple layers of loss experienced, which are captured throughout the poem.

In addition to the numbers, “untold” also refers to that which is not told. It refers to those who have been denied their story, their culture, faith, dignity, and more. Perry offers a corrective to the characterization of Africa as a continent without great societies or history. The use of

African history, culture, and symbology as means of Black empowerment can be traced to

Marcus Garvey in the early twentieth century. Perhaps most recognized for his belief that

African people across the diaspora should return to Africa and for his creation and leadership over the Universal Negro Improvement League, Garvey had a major ideological impact on the

Black Power Movement in the US, the Rastafarian religion, Black intellectuals and artists in different diasporic contexts, and on African political leaders during the period of twentieth- century decolonization taking place in the 1940 to the 1960s.

The reclamation of African history and symbols characterizes the image of the Black

Power movement. By the final decade of Perry’s life, the adoption of African imagery could be found in contexts ranging from the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan to the funky

Afrofuturism of Sun Ra. Influential twentieth-century scholar of African history and colonialism

Walter Rodney wrote in 1969:

39 Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “untold,” accessed May 2, 2021,

One of the major dilemmas inherent in the attempt by Black people to break through the cultural aspects of white imperialism is that posed by the use of historical knowledge as a weapon in our struggle. We are virtually forced into the invidious position of proving our humanity by citing historical antecedents; and yet the evidence is too often submitted to the white racists for sanction. The white man has already implanted numerous historical myths in the minds of black peoples; and those have to be uprooted, since they can act as a drag on revolutionary action in the present epoch.40

Perry laments the loss of Black Americans’ history and culture prior to the enslavement of their ancestors. The poem refers to African dances, sub-Saharan sculptures, and kinship and romantic relations. Contesting the superiority of contemporary Western society, the poem says:

Machine Age’s eagle stance signified revelations of fearful apprehension toward Ogowe contribution in sculpture exhibitions. What a furor at the scene during the Dahomey dance, critics public summation– dancers technique: perfection. 41

Perry here contests the superiority of the Machine Age, and by extension contemporary

American culture. The final stanza of the poem captures the deafening silence of those forgotten lives and the difficulty, or impossibility, of providing those voices a proper listening:

40 Walter Rodney, The Groundings with my Brothers (1969; repr., New York: Verso Books, 2019), 53.

41 Julia Perry, “Graves of Untold Africans,” 1965, Box 1, Folder 7, Julia A. Perry Collection, ca. 1925-1929, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.

Those untold graves forgotten, beauty a lost remembrance nothing attuned * * * * suffocating monotone * * * *

The final line appears to capture several elements of the poem and tie them all together through the use of reference to sound. The poem is evocative of dance and music making, bringing to life history that is, according to Perry, untold. For Perry’s lively writing to fall into a suffocating monotone is to illustrate through sonic metaphor the sense of dullness and hopelessness that is the result of such a loss. The suffocating monotone, visually represented in the poem’s typography, also makes reference to the hollowness of industrial society. The previous reference to the “Machine Age’s eagle stance” can be understood as two-fold. The use of both “Machine Age” and “eagle stance” serves to tie together both capitalist society on the one hand, and U.S. imperialism as embodied by the “eagle stance” on the other. The use of the eagle iconography in the United States has long been associated with military branches and police forces, and has been deployed by political cartoonists, especially of the anti-imperialist variety. Given this backdrop, perhaps the suffocating monotone that Perry speaks of not only to the tragedy of untold African life, but also intimately connects that violence to the racist imperialism of a capitalist United States.

The Lynching of Christ

Given the discussion of Perry’s more explicitly political writings, the following discussion will attempt to situate her musical works in the broader context of African American cultural and intellectual history. The result of this analysis poses that the informed listener might

connect the crucifixion story presented in the Stabat Mater with existing associations of the crucifixion and lynching. In order to illustrate this point, what follows is a sampling of African

American literature, music, and political writings that provide a base for the argument that

Perry’s Stabat Mater should be understood as part of this fabric.

Historically, a key component of black theology is the conceptualization of lived reality within the framework of biblical narratives. The connection between lynching in the United

States and the crucifixion of Christ has existed since before the twentieth century and has been addressed by a variety of poets, scholars, writers, and theologians. In 1903, John E. White, a

Black minister of the Second Baptist Church of Atlanta, preached: “Lynch law is usually credited as an American product. The most awful application of it, however, belongs to the first century.” In an article published in a 1913 issue of The Crisis, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote:

Yet Jesus Christ was a laborer and black men are laborers; He was poor and we are poor; He was despised of his fellow men and we are despised; He was persecuted and crucified, and we are mobbed and lynched. If Jesus Christ came to America He would associate with Negroes and Italians and working people; He would eat and pray with them, and He would seldom see the interior of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.42

Many other examples exist which support the connection between lynching and the crucifixion of Christ. The poem “Christ in Alabama” (1931) by Langston Hughes is a direct attack on

Christian white supremacy, portraying a vivid account of Christ as a Black man in the Southern

United States. Lines from the poem include:

42 W. E. B. DuBois, “The Church and the Negro,” in Du Bois on Religion, ed. Phil Zuckerman (New York: AltaMira Press, 2000), 99-100.

Mary is His mother: Mammy of the South, Silence your mouth. … Most holy bastard Of the bleeding mouth, Nigger Christ On the cross Of the South43

In order to establish the ubiquity of lynching in African American social and political discourse, I will now turn to select examples that demonstrate both artistic and activist expressions of anti-lynching. The same year that Perry composed Stabat Mater, Black activist and author Lorraine Hansberry wrote the poem “Lynchsong” for Rosa Lee Ingram, invoking the legal lynching of William McGee.

I can hear Rosalee See the eyes of Willie McGee My mother told me about Lynchings My mother told me about The dark nights And dirt roads And torch lights And lynch robes44

“Strange Fruit” was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939 and is often considered to be the first song of the civil rights movement. The poem “Strange Fruit” was written in 1937 by Abel

43 Langston Hughes, “Christ in Alabama,” Contempo, poem, December 1, 1931.

44 Lorraine Hansberry, “Lynchsong,” Masses and Mainstream 4, no. 7 (July 1951).

Meeropol and inspired by the gruesome photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram

Smith. Columbia refused to record it due to the anticipated backlash it would receive from

Southern distributors but was able to get a single-day release to record it on the independent

Commodore Label. The recording was a social flashpoint and a commercial success, inspiring a great deal of adoration and condemnation.45

In December of the year that Perry composed Stabat Mater, 1951, Paul Robeson presented a petition on behalf of the Civil Rights Congress to the United Nations Genocide

Convention titled, “We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People.”46 This is illustrative of the degree to which lynching, outlined in the petition as violence perpetrated by mobs and by police, was at the forefront of African American social and political thought. It is also noteworthy because of Robeson’s prominent reputation as an artist of film, theater, and music.

This is despite his reputation having been tarnished to some because of politically motivated blacklisting for his unrelenting criticism of American racism and his affinity for communist politics. In February of 1952, Robeson penned an article titled, “Genocide Stalks the U.S.A.,” published in New World Review. An excerpt from this blistering article reads,

We, the people, charge genocide. We, Negro and white petitioners, declare that jimcrow and segregation are a genocidal policy of government against the Negro people. The proof is all in this monumental book — the lynchings condoned and encouraged by

45 John M. Carvalho, "’Strange Fruit’: Music between Violence and Death," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71, no. 1 (2013): 111–118.

46 Civil Rights Congress, petition presented to the United Nations, We Charge Genocide; the Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government against the Negro People, 3rd ed. (York: International Publishers, 1952).

government officials, the killings by the police authorities of state, the legal lynchings by the courts of our land, the racist laws. The violence and murder are all stamped with the government seal.47

The inclusion of these excerpts, by no means an exhaustive list, is to demonstrate the widely held association of the crucifixion of Christ with lynching and the ubiquity of lynching in

African American political and artistic discourse. Black men and boys made up the majority of those lynched. As a result, a great deal of black mothers in the United States had directly experienced the kind of violence and suffering described in the Stabat Mater, making only more poignant the connection between Perry’s Stabat Mater and the racialized violence of the world in which it was conceived.

Considerations of the cultural and historical context in which the work was produced are bolstered by Perry’s own commitment to Black empowerment through education and the celebration of strong women. Perry participated in the National

Association of Negro Musicians, taught at historically Black colleges, including the

Hampton Institute, and briefly served as music director of a Black church in Birmingham,

Alabama, where she volunteered teaching music and children’s chorus.48

Provided what we know of Perry and her work, I suggest a similar kind of reading for her other works. Her compositions tend to center powerful women as well as Black experience and history, and they explicitly or implicitly critique racist and patriarchal systems and attitudes. Her composition Ruth is a sacred cantata that was premiered at the famous

47 Paul Robeson, “Genocide Stalks the U.S.A.,” New World Review, February 1952, 24–29.

48 Walker-Hill, Spirituals to Symphonies, 93–140.

Riverside Church in New York City. She wrote a large-scale work titled Liberation for

Orchestra, which she attempted to pitch to the New York Philharmonic Orchestra upon disagreements with Southern Publishing Company, who controlled the rights for her Short

Piece for Orchestra.49 Further, her opera entitled Symplegades is based on the Salem Witch

Panic of the late 17th century and critiques the wrongful persecution of women.50 Given the analysis above, Perry’s Stabat Mater should be read as an artistic text that engages with the cultural and political world in which it was created.

49 Julia Perry to Carlos Moseley and Joan Glotzer, August 6, 1964.

50 Walker-Hill, Spirituals to Symphonies, 93–100.

Conclusion

Perry’s Stabat Mater is an emotionally charged, dramatically oriented setting of the

“Stabat Mater Dolorosa.” Stabat Mater is strongly influenced by the highly evocative language of medieval Franciscan devotion. As seen in the first chapter, important aspects of Franciscan belief and dramatic poetry of the period, with its radical and expressive conception of devotion, have continued to shape settings of the “Stabat Mater Dolorosa.” The narrative structure of the poem also informs the musical structure of Stabat Mater, as it allows for flexibility in setting the text to music.

As seen in Chapter 2, a theoretical analysis of the work reveals deeper layers of musically encoded meaning that reinforce and extend the text of the poem. The highly dramatic language of the work also lends itself well to text painting, which Perry makes significant use of. Perry expanded the emotional breadth of the text through the musical setting, extending the emotions of the literal text through creative musical processes that reflect complex emotional expression.

She valued experimenting with older forms and procedures, blending them with more contemporary approaches. This can be seen in Stabat Mater in the use of fugal techniques transformed through the altering of normative pitch relationships, as well as in the prominent inclusion of call and response at what is, in my analysis, a key structural point of the work — reflected both in the musical construction and the narrative journey of the musical agent.

Developing a deeper analysis of Perry’s Stabat Mater requires a broader contextualization of the cultural and historical milieu into which it was born. In the third chapter, analysis of some of Perry’s own unpublished writings are considered alongside poetry, songs, and political activism regarding the lynching of African Americans from the early-twentieth

century through the end of Perry’s life. While Stabat Mater does not explicitly reference the injustices that Perry dealt with more directly in writings like her poem Graves of

Untold Africans or Fisty M-E!, Perry’s deep appreciation for history and her belief that society reproduces itself in such a way as to preserve structures of power invites the informed listener to consider the contemporary implications of a work like Stabat Mater. One may also consider that

Perry dedicated Stabat Mater to her mother and is said to have imagined Marian Anderson as the performer.1 All of this is to say, what does the story of Mary, suffering at the sight of her crucified son, mean when sung by a Black woman in the America?

With regard to future scholarship, I hope that similar approaches to the one I have undertaken in this thesis will be employed in exploring Perry’s other works. This could include her operatic works like The Symplegades, but also her instrumental, choral, and solo works.

Further study of the music of Julia Perry through a cultural-historical lens may further reveal the depth of Perry’s artistic creations and, in turn, inspire performances through which we may hear her as she had intended.

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