How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.
Interpretation
The evolution of spirituals reflects cultural transformation over time.
This quote emphasizes the impact of time on cultural expressions, particularly the spirituals that originated from enslaved people. Kathleen Battle suggests that while the original forms of these songs may have changed, their essence and message continue to resonate broadly, transcending their historical context to speak to a global audience.
In practice
During a lecture on the evolution of music, this quote can illustrate how cultural expressions adapt over time.
Wherever and whenever I sing, if there is only one spiritual on a program, people will talk about two things afterward, and one of them will be the spiritual. What I bring to this is the best of my classical training - not all of it. I apply what is appropriate.
The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies.
I spent my life folded between the pages of books._x000D_ In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
A poet’s freedom lies precisely in the impossibility of worldly success. It is the freedom of one who knows he will never be anything but a failure in the world’s estimation, and may do as he pleases. The poet is a man on the sidelines of life, sidelined for life. He belongs to the aristocracy of the outcast, the lowest of the low, below the salt of the earth. A member of the most ancient regime in the world. One that cannot, it seems, be overthrown.
Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.
Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.
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