Rubin Goldmark, nephew of Karl, was born in New York City on August 15,
1872. After studying music with private teachers in New York, he
attended first the Vienna Conservatory in Austria, and after that the
National Conservatory in New York where one of his teachers was Antonin
Dvořák. His primary energy was directed to teaching. For six years he
was the director of the Colorado College Conservatory, and from 1924
until his death head of the composition department at the Juilliard
School of Music in New York. As a composer, Goldmark is most often
remembered for the _Negro Rhapsody_ and the _Requiem_ for orchestra, the
latter inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Goldmark died in New
York City on March 6, 1936.
It is with the _Negro Rhapsody_ (1923) that Goldmark is most often
represented on concert and semi-classical concerts. As its title
suggests the work is made up of Negro melodies. After a slow
introduction, the cellos and violas in unison offer the strains of
“Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen.” Before long, the basses are heard in
“O Peter, Go Ring Dem Bells.” The main section of the rhapsody begins
with a variation of “Nobody Knows De Trouble I’d Seen” and a repeat of
“O Peter.” The violins then engage “Oh Religion, I See Fortune,” and the
English horn is heard in “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
After the solo cello quotes two measures of “Oh, When I Come to Die,”
the last Negro melody of the rhapsody appears. This melody comes from an
untitled song found by Goldmark in a magazine, a tune sung by Tennessee
Negroes while working on the river.