Hymm of the Week: In Christ There is No East or West

Text: John Oxenham, pseudomyn for William Arthur Dunkerley (1852-1941)
Tune: McKee, African American Spiritual, arranged and harmonized by Henry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949)

Versions: Traditional hymn sung by OCP session choir (YouTube)
Mavis Staples singing a contemporary version of the hymn, tune and words altered (YouTube) 

The story of our Hymn of the Week requires a bit more space than I customarily take. This hymn, I believe, offers sustenance in our current time of anguish as we confront racism in our country and try to discern the actions the Holy Spirit is calling forth in us. 

During these past couple of weeks of heartache, anger and outrage in response to the brutal killing of George Floyd, I have sought a hymn to share with you. One came to my heart: “In Christ There is No East or West.” While the text appealed to me, with its message of equality exhorting us to “join hands, disciples in the faith, whate’er your race may be,” and assuring us that we are “one great fam’ly bound by love throughout the whole wide earth,” as I looked further, I discovered that the history of this life-affirming tune speaks profoundly to this moment.

In our 1982 Episcopal hymnal, “In Christ there is No East or West” is listed as an “Afro-American Spiritual.” The specific origin of the tune, like most spirituals, is quite lost to history, but it was found, valued, published and thus bequeathed to posterity by two gifted black musician/composers: one in England, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), and one in America, Henry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949). 

The lives of these two men are, quite simply, remarkable and inspiring. One would need many more pages to begin to describe the complex histories and brilliant achievements of these two musicians. But I would like to sketch a brief biography of each as I feel this will add to our understanding of the hymn and its relevance to us.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of an African doctor, Daniel Taylor, a descendant of African American slaves freed by the British in the Revolutionary War and eventually settled in Sierra Leon. Taylor studied medicine in London. It was there that he met Samuel’s mother, Alice Hare Martin, but he returned to his country not knowing that Alice was carrying his child.

Martin and her family raised Samuel, recognizing early on his musical gifts. At fifteen, Samuel enrolled in the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under his mentor, Charles Villiers Stanford. Samuel was fascinated by his father’s heritage, and drew from African music, integrating it into his classical compositions. In this, he was encouraged by other black musicians and poets both English and American. (He and Henry Thacker Burleigh were well acquainted.) Coleridge-Taylor’s music was widely performed and appreciated, especially among African Americans. In 1904, on his first tour of the United States, he performed at the White House for Theodore Roosevelt (as did Burleigh, but more on that later).

In 1905, Coleridge-Taylor brought out an influential book of songs, “Twenty-Four Negro Melodies” and it is here that the tune to our hymn was first published. Villiers Stanford, in a letter to Coleridge-Taylor, states that the tune was originally Irish, brought to America, where African American slaves made it their own. It was associated with an older spiritual called “I Know the Angels Done Changed My Name.”

Henry Thacker Burleigh, the renowned baritone and composer, set the tune to Oxenham’s text, arranging and harmonizing it for the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal as “In Christ There is No East or West.”

Henry Thacker Burleigh was, like Coleridge-Taylor, a descendant of slaves: his maternal grandfather, Hamilton Waters, was a partially blind ex-slave who paid $55 for his freedom (and that of Henry’s great-grandmother) in Maryland in 1832. Waters worked as a lamplighter in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was known for his exceptionally fine voice. He sang plantation songs to his grandson, thus passing on the music that Henry would later make known around the world.

Henry’s mother, Elizabeth Waters Burleigh, worked as a domestic servant despite her college degree and fluency in French and Greek: she was denied a position in the Erie public schools because of her race. Her husband, Henry’s father, Henry Thacker Burleigh, Sr., was a naval veteran of the Civil War and, in 1871, the first black juror in Erie County.

Despite setbacks, Henry eventually won a scholarship to study at the National Conservatory in New York City. His benefactor in this was Frances MacDowell, mother of the composer Edward MacDowell. To support himself in his studies as a composer and singer, he often worked for Mrs. MacDowell as a handyman and cleaner. When Antonin Dvořák came to America in 1892 to take up the post of director of the conservatory, he and Burleigh became friends. Dvořák reportedly was inspired by Burleigh’s singing of spirituals, writing of their “great and noble” quality, and this influenced his compositions, perhaps especially his New World Symphony, which Burleigh had a hand in copying for his friend.

Burleigh’s own career led him to world-wide fame and satisfaction as a composer, arranger and singer. In 1894, after moving to New York City, Burleigh auditioned to be a baritone soloist at St. George’s Episcopal Church in the city. While some opposed his employment (other white Episcopal churches did not admit blacks to their churches), tradition has it that J. P. Morgan cast the deciding vote to hire Burleigh. Burleigh served as the beloved soloist at St. George’s for 52 years. When he arranged the tune for “In Christ There is No East or West,” Burleigh named it “McKee” after the rector of St. George’s, Elmer M. McKee. Burleigh also instituted a tradition of an annual service of spirituals at St. George’s, which endured from 1924 to 1955. Burleigh was also the first African American soloist for Temple Emanu-El in New York City from 1900-1925.

Burleigh had many singing engagements in America and abroad. He sang for King Edward VII of England and for four presidents in the White House, but it was only on his fourth engagement, when singing for President Theodore Roosevelt, that he was invited to enter by the front door rather than the servant’s entrance.

A successful composer, Burleigh penned between 200-300 songs and arrangements. His popular setting of the spiritual, “Deep River,” published in 1916, is considered one of the earliest examples of concert spirituals. It is no exaggeration to say that it is thanks to Burleigh’s efforts that we sing this wonderful repertoire in concert halls and churches around the world today. What a magnificent gift to all of us.

As Burleigh himself wrote of these spirituals: “In them we show a spiritual security as old as the ages. . . .”

Faithfully yours,
Mary Therese

***

I have relied on this beautifully written biography of Henry Thacker Burleigh (it also includes wonderful photos) Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music. Created by Randye Jones. Created/Last modified: February 19, 2020. Accessed:. http://www.afrovoices.com/wp/harry-thacker-burleigh-biography.

I have gleaned information about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor from this article (and found more striking photos) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor