Whereas Ullmann’s 7th Piano Sonata well reflects the despair and defiance appropriate to the present time, I take comfort from works like Harry T. Burleigh’s “From the Southland”, based on spirituals.

Looking around for more inspiration of this type, I was very excited to discover that IMSLP has Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Twenty-Four Negro Melodies”, Op. 59, 127 pages of piano music from 1905. They are:

At the Dawn of Day
The Stones are Very Hard
Take Nabandji
They Will Not Lend Me a Child
Song of Conquest
Warrior's Song
Oloba
The Bamboula
The Angels Changed My Name
Deep River
Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?
Don't be Weary, Traveller
Going Up
I'm Troubled in Mind
I was Way Down a-Yonder
Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveller
Many Thousand Gone
My Lord Delivered Daniel
Oh, He Raise a Poor Lazarus
Pilgrim's Song
Run, Mary, Run
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Steal Away
Wade in the Water

I printed out “Many Thousand Gone”, and was thrilled to find that it appears to be the source of “We Shall Overcome”. Coleridge-Taylor has written a very powerful and moving piece on this theme, and I am determined to learn it. (“No more auction block for me. Many thousand gone.”)