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“The World is His Song”: Paul Robeson's 1958 Carnegie Hall Concerts and the Cosmopolitan Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2013

GRANT OLWAGE
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Abstract

Paul Robeson's celebrated comeback recitals at Carnegie Hall in 1958 marked the singer's return to the world's concert stages after his ban for much of the 1950s. The recitals, this article argues, can be understood as a presentation of cosmopolitan thinking and action, of a certain way of being in and interacting with the world, and also a mid-century critique of American nationalist politics. As such, the article is an elaboration of scholarship that has considered aspects of internationalism in Robeson's discourse and (musical) practice. Drawing on the insights of the new or critical cosmopolitanism, a diverse and loose body of theory that has gained currency since the 1990s, the essay thinks through Robeson's Carnegie Hall events in terms of the practices of the concert hall recital, specifically programming, suggesting what it might mean to be a cosmopolitan singer in a specific historical moment.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 165 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2013 

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References

References

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Slate, Nico. Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
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Žižek, Slavoj, Santner, Eric L., and Reinhard, Kenneth. The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson's Transatlantic Concert. Topic Records 10T17, 1957.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall. Vanguard LP VRS-9051, 1958. Reissued as Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall. Vanguard VMD 72020, 2005.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson: The Original Recording of Ballad for Americans and Carnegie Hall Concert, volume 2. Vanguard VSD 79193, 1965. Reissued as Paul Robeson: The Original Recording of Ballad for Americans and Great Songs of Faith, Love and Patriotism. Vanguard VCD 117/18, 1989.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson: The Peace Arch Concerts. Folk Era Records FE1442CD, 1998.Google Scholar
Seeger, Pete. Songs of Struggle and Freedom, 1930–1950. Folkways FH 5233, 1964.Google Scholar
Carnegie Hall Archives. New York.Google Scholar
Lawrence Brown Papers. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. New York.Google Scholar
Paul Robeson Collection. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. New York.Google Scholar
Paul Robeson Papers. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Anderson, Paul. Deep River: Music and Memory in Harlem Renaissance Thought. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. London: Penguin Books, 2006.Google Scholar
Barg, Lisa. “Paul Robeson's Ballad for Americans: Race and the Cultural Politics of ‘People's Music.’” Journal of the Society for American Music 2/1 (2008): 27–70.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Kate A. Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters Between Black and Red, 1922–1963. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. “The Cosmopolitan Perspective: Sociology in the Second Age of Modernity.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 61–85. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Boyle, Sheila Tully, and Bunie, Andrew. Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise and Achievement. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Breckenridge, Carol, Pollock, Sheldon, Bhabha, Homi K., and Chakrabarty, Dipesh, eds. Cosmopolitanism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Browda, Morris. “The World and Music.” California Jewish Voice, 6 June 1952.Google Scholar
Carby, Hazel V. Race Men. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Cataliotti, Robert H. “On My Journey: Paul Robeson's Independent Recordings.” CD notes to On My Journey: Paul Robeson's Independent Recordings. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW CD 40178, 2007.Google Scholar
Cheah, Pheng, and Robbins, Bruce, eds. Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Cruz, Jon. Culture on the Margins: The Black Spiritual and the Rise of American Cultural Interpretation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. London: Verso, 1996.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans. Dooley, Mark and Hughes, Michael. London: Routledge, 2001.Google Scholar
Dibble, Jeremy. C. Hubert H. Parry: His Life and Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Duberman, Martin Bauml. Paul Robeson: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.Google Scholar
Emmons, Shirlee, and Sonntag, Stanley. The Art of the Song Recital. New York: Schirmer, 1979.Google Scholar
Foner, Philip S., ed. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918–1974. London: Quartet, 1978.Google Scholar
Graham, Shirley. Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World. New York: J. Messner, 1946.Google Scholar
Hicks, Elihu S. “Robeson on Records.” Daily People's World, 5 June 1953.Google Scholar
Hiebert, Daniel. “Cosmopolitanism at the Local Level: The Development of Transnational Neighbourhoods.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 209–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Hollinger, David A. “Not Universalists, Not Pluralists: The New Cosmopolitans Find Their Own Way.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 227–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Karp, Jonathan. “Performing Black-Jewish Symbiosis: The ‘Hassidic Chant’ of Paul Robeson.” American Jewish History 91/1 (2003): 53–81.Google Scholar
Kwok-Bun, Chan. “Both Sides, Now: Culture Contact, Hybridization, and Cosmopolitanism.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 191–208. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Lee, Hyun-Jong. “The Evolution of Lyricism in Modest Musorgsky's Compositional Style as Evidenced in Songs and Dances of Death.” D.M.A. diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2011.Google Scholar
Meskimmon, Marsha. Contemporary Arts and the Cosmopolitan Imagination. London: Routledge, 2011.Google Scholar
Miyakawa, Felicia M. “‘A Long Ways from Home?’ Hampton Institute and the Early History of ‘Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child.’” Journal of the Society for American Music 6/1 (2012): 1–49.Google Scholar
Monson, Ingrid. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Moore, Gerald. The Unashamed Accompanist. London: Methuen, 1959.Google Scholar
Musser, Charles. “Utopian Visions in Cold War Documentary: Joris Ivens, Paul Robeson and Song of the Rivers.” Cinémas: Revue d'etudes Cinématographiques 12/3 (2002/2003): 109–53.Google Scholar
Nollen, Scott. Paul Robeson: Film Pioneer. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.Google Scholar
Radano, Ronald. Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Robeson, Eslanda Goode. Paul Robeson: Negro. London: Victor Gollancz, 1930.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. “A Song to Sing.” Masses and Mainstream 8/10 (1954): 12–14.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. London: Cassell, 1988 [1958].Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul Jr.. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: Quest for Freedom, 1939–1976. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.Google Scholar
Sharp, Cecil, ed. One Hundred English Folksongs. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1975 [1916].Google Scholar
Shaw, Ian. “Paul Robeson: The Peace Arch Concerts.” Notes to Paul Robeson The Peace Arch Concerts. Folk Era Records FE1442CD, compact disc, 1998.Google Scholar
Sillen, Samuel. “Our Time.” Masses and Mainstream 7/6 (June 1954): 4–5.Google Scholar
Slate, Nico. Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Swindall, Lindsey R. The Politics of Paul Robeson's Othello. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.Google Scholar
Taruskin, Richard. Defining Russia Musically. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Taruskin, Richard. The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Thurman, Howard. “Love.” In African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed. West, Cornel and Glaude, Eddie S. Jr., 49–61. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Thurman, Howard. “The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death.” In African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed. West, Cornel and Glaude, Eddie S. Jr., 29–49. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, John. “Interests and Identities in Cosmopolitan Politics.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 240–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Vertovec, Steven, and Cohen, Robin. “Introduction: Conceiving Cosmopolitanism.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, ed. Vertovec, Steven and Cohen, Robin, 1–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Woollcott, Alexander. “Ol’ Man River in Person: A Cosmopolitan Portrait.” Hearsts’ International-Cosmopolitan (July 1933): 54–55.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira, Kannabiran, Kalpana, and Vieten, Ulrike, eds. The Situated Politics of Belonging. London: Sage, 2006.Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj, Santner, Eric L., and Reinhard, Kenneth. The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson's Transatlantic Concert. Topic Records 10T17, 1957.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall. Vanguard LP VRS-9051, 1958. Reissued as Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall. Vanguard VMD 72020, 2005.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson: The Original Recording of Ballad for Americans and Carnegie Hall Concert, volume 2. Vanguard VSD 79193, 1965. Reissued as Paul Robeson: The Original Recording of Ballad for Americans and Great Songs of Faith, Love and Patriotism. Vanguard VCD 117/18, 1989.Google Scholar
Robeson, Paul. Paul Robeson: The Peace Arch Concerts. Folk Era Records FE1442CD, 1998.Google Scholar
Seeger, Pete. Songs of Struggle and Freedom, 1930–1950. Folkways FH 5233, 1964.Google Scholar

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