Freeman Paul: Black Composer Series

In the 1970s, CBS Masterworks made a groundbreaking series of recordings featuring the music of black composers. The nine LPs released all featured the pioneering conductor Paul Freeman. Sony Classical is proud to reissue the complete Black Composer Series in a single original album collection with each CD remastered from the original analogue tapes using 24 bit/192 kHz technology. The composers featured span several centuries and come from many different backgrounds. The earliest is the unique Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), a composer, violinist and swordsman born in Guadeloupe who spent most of his life in France. A whole album of his music includes the Symphony op. 11/1, the String Quartet op. 1/1 and the Symphonie Concertante op. 13. Another complete album is dedicated to the Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) and his extraordinary Requiem Mass for Queen Maria I. José Silvestre White (1835-1918), a Cuban virtuoso violinist-composer in the mould of Wieniawski, taught pupils including George Enescu, and his Violin Concerto is interpreted here by Aaron Rosand. A bonus tenth album features Smith"'s Symphonic Spirituals, arrangements of 12 spirituals for voice and orchestra, first released by Paul Freeman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1979. Besides those already mentioned, the many superb performers in this collection include the London Symphony Orchestra on several albums, the Baltimore and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, and the Juilliard String Quartet. But it is the composers, many still little known today, who are the true stars of this milestone collection.