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Blind Tom,
The Black Pianist-Composer: Continually Enslaved
Geneva Handy Southall
Scarecrow Press (2002)
FI-YER!, A
Century of African American Song
That Welcome Day
Thomas Greene Bethune, aka
Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins
William Brown, tenor
Ann Sears, piano
Troy 329 (1999)
An Anthropologist On Mars:
Seven Paradoxical Tales
Oliver Sacks
Vintage Books USA (1996) |
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Musicians -> Wiggins, Thomas "Blind
Tom"
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Thomas "Blind Tom"
Wiggins (1849-1908)
African American Pianist and Composer
A Blind And Autistic Slave Was A Musical Genius
Audio Sample:
John Davis Plays Blind Tom;
John Davis, Piano; Newport Classic
85660 (1999) The Rainstorm
1 Birth
Thomas Greene Wiggins was born on the Wiley Edward Jones
plantation in Harris County, Georgia on May 25, 1849. He came into the
world blind and autistic but a musical genius with a phenomenal memory.
Even after Emancipation, his former owners kept him, in the words of the
late author Geneva Handy Southall, "Continually Enslaved". His many
concerts and the sale of his sheet music earned fabulous sums of money. Nearly all of it went to his owners and their heirs. Southall's book is
her third volume on Thomas Wiggins. It is based on a quarter century of
vigorous academic research into all aspects of his life and career, and is
the primary source for this Web page.
2 Slave Auction
Professor Southall recounts that young Tom "was 'thrown in' as a bargain"
when his parents and two brothers were sold at a slave auction in 1850:
Blind from birth, he was "thrown in" as a bargain when
Colonel James Neil Bethune, a highly respected Columbus,
Georgia lawyer, and newspaper editor purchased his
parents, Charity and Mingo Wiggins, and two of his
brothers at a slave auction in fall 1850. From infancy Tom
manifested an extraordinary fondness for the musical
sounds he heard in the Big House and had shown
exceptional retentive skills. According to most accounts,
Tom demonstrated his aptitude for music before his fourth
birthday, having slipped unnoticed to the piano and picked
out several tunes he had heard played by the Bethune
daughters, all of whom were accomplished musicians. |
3 First Compositions
Southall writes that the entire Bethune family treated Tom as a sort of
"household pet", teaching him to match objects to their names, but his
first music teacher was one of the daughters, Mary Bethune:
Mary Bethune became his piano teacher. Because she had
studied with Professor George W. Chase, the highly
respected New York-trained pianist- composer-conductor,
one can assume that Tom received a solid theoretical and
technical musical foundation.
Soon after, his love of music and music-making led him to
write original songs and imitate sounds of nature and other
musical instruments on the piano.
|
Before he was six years old, Tom was being shown off to the Bethune
family's neighbors.
4 Concert at Age 8
Southall describes the response to Tom's first public concert, at age 8,
in Columbus, Georgia:
Following his first public concert at Columbus' Temperance
Hall on October 7, 1857, Tom was taken to Atlanta, Macon,
and Athens, where the editor of Athens Southern Watchman described his performance at the University of
Georgia as the "most remarkable ever witnessed in Athens,
one that would put to blush many a professor of music." |
5 Hired Out
The wife of James Bethune died of "pulmonary disease", according to an
obituary in the Columbus Daily Sun on May 22, 1858. Mary Bethune began
looking after her younger siblings. Southall recounts:
Shortly thereafter, Tom became a hired-out slave musician
to Perry Oliver,
a Savannah tobacco planter,
under a three-year contractual agreement with Colonel
Bethune, who was
paid $15,000 for the right to exhibit Tom
in other parts of the
country. After several concerts in Savannah, Perry
Oliver
began to exhibit Tom in other
Southern and pro-slavery
states as the "Musical Prodigy of
the Age: a Plantation Negro Boy." |
Southall continues that by 1861 Tom was giving prestigious performances
such as one in Washington, D.C. for the first Japanese diplomats to visit
the United States. As another example of his growing fame, she points out:
In addition, his Baltimore concerts of July 1860 had so
impressed the famous piano manufacturer, William Knabe,
that he gave the ten-year-old slave an elaborately carved
rosewood grand piano with a silver plate bearing the
inscription "a tribute to Genius." He was also a published
composer by this time, his Oliver Galop and Virginia Polka
having been published by the prestigious Oliver Ditson
publishing firm in
1860. |
6 Confederate Aid
At the start of the Civil War, Oliver Perry quickly brought Tom back to
Georgia. Ironically, Tom's performances began to benefit the Confederacy.
Southall writes:
By October 1862 Tom was back with the Bethunes who
continued to use his talents for the pro-slavery cause. Since the May 10, 1864, Columbus Daily Sun announced
that Blind Tom had "given $5,000 from his recently
completed three month tour to benevolent causes," it is
evident that Tom's concert schedule was both profitable
and exhaustive. Among the works performed on those
programs was his own programmatic piece, titled Battle of Manassas,
written after he heard one of Colonel Bethune's
sons (then a member of the Second Georgia Regiment)
describe that famous Confederate victory. Inasmuch as a
report in the December 17, 1861, Atlanta Southern
Confederacy noted Tom's playing of Dixie with one hand,
Yankee Doodle with the other while singing The Girl I Left Behind Me at the same time, it is apparent that Tom had
been exposed to music and discussions connected with the
Civil War from its outset. |
7 Indenture Contract
James Bethune protected himself against the possiblity of a Union victory
in the Civil War by convincing Mingo and Charity Wiggins to sign an
indenture agreement for Tom's services, on May 30, 1864, for a period of
five years. Bethune promised to provide Tom's parents with "a good home
and subsistence and $500 a year". The 16-year-old performer himself was
assured "$20 per month and two percent of the net proceeds of his
services". The first legal challenge to the indenture was filed in July,
1865 by a Black business man named Tabbs Gross, during an engagement Tom
had in Indiana, claiming that he had a bill-of-sale for Tom's services. James Bethune and his two sons quickly left the state with Wiggins, but
Gross followed them to Cincinnati and filed a Writ of Habeus Corpus
against them. Professor Southall continues the story:
As was revealed in my first book of the Blind Tom series
(Minneapolis: Challenge Productions, Inc., 1979), this
historic "guardianship trial," which was held before Judge
Woodruff of the Hamilton County Probate Court, had both
political and racial overtones, and ended with the judge's
decision to allow Bethune, an ex-slave owner, to keep Tom
in a "neo-chattel" relationship. Inasmuch as the
guardianship agreement permitted the Bethunes to
receive ninety percent of Tom's earnings with nothing to
guarantee that they would not expropriate the ten percent
promised to Tom and his parents, the trial offered one more
example of how ex-slave owners were able to re-enslave
their slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation notwithstanding.
In the July 25th, 1865, Cincinnati Enquirer, the editor,
speaking to the humane aspects of the decision, asked:
"why is Tom compelled to support Bethune and his two
able-bodied sons who, fresh from the ranks of treason, are
making the tour of the North with abundant leisure and
purses well filled by the talents of what they would have us
believe, an idiot? Why don't they go to work? |
8 Repertory at Age 16
The biographer gives a detailed account of the classical music repertory
Tom had mastered by age 16, and of his many phenomenal skills as a singer,
pianist and orator:
Though Tom was only sixteen at the time of the trial, his
repertory included many of the most technically and
musically demanding works of Bach, Chopin, Liszt,
Beethoven, Thalberg, and other European masters. (See
p. 43). Like other pianists of that time, he demonstrated his
improvisational and theoretical skills by performing
variations and fantasies on operatic airs and popular
ballads of the day. Other astonishing feats included hisalleged ability to perform difficult selections almost
flawlessly after one hearing, sing and recite poetry and
prose in several languages, duplicate phonetically lengthy
orations by noted statesmen, and reproduce sounds of
nature, machines, and musical instruments on the piano.
Being possessed of a rich baritone voice, Tom also
included original and sentimental songs by such English
songwriters as Henry Russell and Henry Bishop in his
concerts. |
9 Music Tutor
The biographer reports that as the legal proceedings dragged on, attorneys
for both parties agreed that Tom could continue to travel and make concert
appearances in the interim. The notoriety generated by the trial helped
draw audiences to Tom's concerts in various cities in Ohio. Promotional
material regularly claimed that Tom was untaught; in fact he traveled with
a high-paid tutor who was a Professor of Music:
Despite the fact that Professor W. P. Howard, an Atlanta
music teacher, was accompanying the Bethunes as Tom's
music tutor for what was then an exorbitant salary of $200
a month plus travel expenses, Tom was still being
promoted as a "natural untaught" pianist. Obviously the
Bethunes had decided to retain the characterization of Tom
as an "idiot" whose "incomprehensible creative and
retentive powers" were the result of some "unexplained
satanic gifts" as a promotional gimmick. |
10 Philadelphia
Professor Southall writes that the city of Philadelphia presented special
challenges for Tom's managers. At the end of the Civil War, Philadelphia
had a Musical Fund Society and an Academy of Music. Each had a large
concert hall, regular programs of opera and classical music, and a
sophisticated audience. The author continues:
Added to these aspects, Tom was being presented in a city
that was then regarded as the cultural and intellectual
capital of Black America, the city where several Black
musicians had already achieved international acclaim. It
was, after all, Frank Johnson, a Black Philadelphian, who
had in December 1838, introduced thousands of
Philadelphians to the
Parisian-style Promenade Concerts.
These concerts, which were advertised as "Musical
Soirees," took place after Frank Johnson had returned with
his famous all-Black band and orchestra from a successful
tour in England, followed by an extended concert tour in
several northern and eastern cities in the United States. |
After first failing to attract professional musicians to hear him at the
Concert Hall, the Bethunes scheduled an invitational concert for prominent
Philadelphia musicians and scientists. That event won a signed endorsement
from those in attendance, attracting such large audiences to subsequent
performances in the city that Tom's engagement was increased from one week
to four.
11 European Tour
The Bethunes used a subsequent European tour to obtain testimonials from
prominent classical composers. Southall recounts:
After a second four-week concert engagement at New
York's Irving Hall (April, 1866), Tom was taken to Europe
where he was continuously subjected to rigorous tests by
noted musicians like Ignaz Moscheles and Charles Halle -
whose testimonial letters were published by the Bethunes
in a pamphlet, The Marvelous Musical Prodigy Blind Tom. |
12 $50,000 Per Year
By 1868 the Bethunes were living on a Warrenton, Virginia farm they called
Elway. Wiggins spent his Summers there, between concert tours around the
U.S. and in Canada, with John G. Bethune serving as his manager. Professor Southall continues:
On July 25, 1870, John Bethune had himself appointed Tom's legal guardian in a Virginia Probate Court, thereby negating the 1865 Indentureship Agreement. By now the
Bethunes were realizing $50,000 yearly from Tom's
concerts.
For nine years, Tom lived in New York, since his manager
had married a Mrs. Eliza Stutzback, owner of the
boardinghouse where they stayed. In the summers Tom
studied with Professor Joseph Poznanski, who also wrote
down many of Tom's compositions. When John G.
Bethune was killed (February 16, 1884) trying to board a
train, General Bethune had himself legally appointed
Tom's guardian and continued the concert tours. |
13 Mother
Sues
Southall explains that John G. Bethune's marriage ended before his death,
leading to a legal contest for control of Wiggins and for the money
generated by Tom's performances since 1865:
A three year court battle between him and Eliza Bethune,
(who had divorced John Bethune before the accident) for
Tom ended July 31, 1887, when the court granted custody
to the widow. The custody battle began on July 9, 1885,
when Tom's mother, Charity Wiggins, filed a petition in theUnited States Circuit Court, Alexandria, Virginia, for the
return of her son.
Charity Wiggins did not deny that she and Tom's father (the
late Mingo Wiggins) had agreed "with Bethune that he
should have Tom for five years, at the end of which he
would attain his majority." Her concern was that "without
their consent and without giving them notice they had Tom
adjudged to be a lunatic, with the General's son appointed
as the committe of his person, then put him on exhibition
as a pianist." Her suit was therefore against General
Bethune for the "services of her son and an accounting of
the profits of the exhibitions since 1865." |
14 Change of Custody
Professor Southall writes that James N. Bethune finally lost custody of
Thomas Wiggins to Eliza Bethune, as requested by Charity Wiggins:
On July 31, 1887, the New York Times reported that Judge
Bond passed an order the previous day in Baltimore which
"took Blind Tom out of General Bethune's custody." It was
reported that:
"James N. Bethune, who has kept Blind Tom in his
possession since the days
of slavery, should deliver him to the United States marshal on August 16 at Alexandria, Va.,
and that the marshal shall deliver him safely into the
hands of Eliza Bethune, who was appointed Tom's
Committee by the Supreme Court of New York, and also
that General Bethune pay over $7,000 to the order of Court
for the credit of Blind Tom as his earnings. |
The New York Times reported on August 18, 1887 that Tom had arrived in New
York and was again living at 7 St. Mark's Place, where he had lived for
seven years with John G. Bethune. The change in custody appeared to be a
smooth one, because Wiggins opened an engagement at Association Hall in
New York City on September 26, 1887. Southall reports that by the
following year Wiggins was again composing music for publication as well:
Mrs. Bethune was also getting some monetary rewards
from Tom's creative talents given the 1888 copyright dates
on three works published by the Oliver Ditson Music
Company, namely: his Columbus March, Blind Tom's
Mazurka and When This Cruel War is Over. |
15 Frequent Travel
His new manager added Sunday performances to Wiggins' busy concert
schedule, and for the first time allowed him to appear on the same concert
bill as other musicians. For years after obtaining custody, she was the
defendant in lawsuits seeking $3,000 in unpaid fees due to a prior
attorney. One such suit led to the discosure that by 1892 Eliza Bethune
had married Albrecht Lerche, the attorney who had won her custody of
Wiggins. Together they oversaw a life of near-constant travel and
performances for him.
16 $15 for Mother
In October of 1900 a reporter named W. C. Woodall interviewed Charity
Wiggins for a paper in Columbus, Georgia, the Columbus Enquirer, which
published a picture of her in front of the home in which she was living.
Southall writes:
According to Woodall, Tom's mother was living with one of
her daughters and in good health. The writer found it an interesting fact that "of the many thousands of dollars
made through the genius of her blind son, she had
received a comparatively small amount." He reported that
she had recently received "fifteen dollars from the
manager of Blind Tom, which the humble household appreciated."
At the time of the interview several of Tom's siblings were
living in Columbus as cooks, washer women and day
laborers at 50 cents a day; one of them was a church
janitor.
At the time of the interview Tom's mother had not seen her
son for many years and seemed to "deeply resent the separation." She said
"they stole him (Tom) from me.
When I was in New York I signed away my rights."
According to the December 26, 1902, Professional World, Tom's mother died in Alabama and was buried in
Columbus, Georgia; she was 105 years old. |
17 John Davis CD
The pianist John Davis recorded the first commercial CD of music composed
by Thomas Wiggins, John Davis Plays Blind Tom, Newport Classic
85660 (1999).
The CD's titles are:
Cyclone Galop (6:12)
The Rainstorm (4:29)
Sewing Song: Imitation of a Sewing Machine (7:01)
Battle of Manassas (7:50)
Improvisation on "When This Cruel War Is Over" (7:21)
Wellenklänge - Voice of the Waves (6:41)
Oliver Galop (1:12)
Virginia Polka (3:04)
Water in the Moonlight (3:00)
Grand March Resurrection (4:49)
Vivo Galop (2:06)
Daylight (4:06)
March Timpani (5:53)
Reve Charmant - Nocturne (6:47)
Davis writes in the liner notes:
Eventually, Blind Tom's repertoire grew to an astounding
seven thousand established works, including those of Bach,
Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Liszt, not to mention
over a hundred composed by himself. |
Davis stresses that these and other compositions of Wiggins "...employ a
host of uniquely evocative images..." from Nature, musical instruments and
machinery.
18 Death
Prof. Southall reports that Tom's last public appearances appear to have
been those of April 17-22, 1905 in Boston. She adds that the Boston
Evening Transcript left no doubt in its subsequent review that the famed
pianist was "still celebrated" at the conclusion of his long career.
Little was heard of him in the following two years. He died on June 13,
1908. The author gives the cause of death and the funeral arrangements:
Although he died at age 59 of cerebral apoplexy at the
home of Mrs. Eliza Bethune Lerche in Hoboken, New
Jersey, where he lived for several years, his body was
taken to the funeral chapel of Frank E. Campbell Company
in New York. |
Lengthy obituaries appeared in newspapers around the country, but it was
generally left to Black newspapers to point out that Thomas Wiggins, this
marvelously gifted pianist and composer, was exploited all his life. They
lamented that first slave owners and then managers reaped riches from
Tom's talents while Tom lived and died penniless, and while his mother and
siblings lived in poverty.
19 Dr. Oliver Sacks
The liner notes of John Davis Plays Blind Tom include an essay by the
noted neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. It is excerpted from the
doctor's book An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, first
published in 1995 by Alfred A. Knopf and released in paperback the
following year by Vintage Books USA. Dr. Sacks explains autism and his
belief that Wiggins was an autistic savant. He first repeats contemporary
accounts of Tom's playing of the piano, including his unusual movements
and expressions, before observing:
Although Tom was usually called an idiot or imbecile, such
posturing and stereotypies are more characteristic of
autism - but autism was only identified in the 1940s and
was not a term, or even a concept, in the 1860s.
Autism, clearly, is a condition that has always existed,
affecting occasional individuals in every period and
culture.
It was medically described, almost simultaneously, in the
1940s, by both Leo Kanner in Baltimore and Hans Asperger
in Vienna. Both of them, independently, named it
"autism."
Both emphasized "aloneness," mental aloneness, as the
cardinal feature of autism; this, indeed, was why they
called it autism.
Singular talents, usually emerging at a very early age and
developing with startling speed, appear in about 10
percent of the autistic (and in a smaller number of the
retarded - though many savants are both autistic and
retarded). |
20 Hush
In 2002 an Atlanta theater company, 7 Stages, presented
the world premiere of a play entitled Hush: Composing Blind Tom Wiggins.
The author is Robert Earl Price, a member of the theater company. Wendell
Brock reviewed it for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Feb. 6, 2002:
The Verdict: The most important Atlanta stage production
of the new century, it demands that we look at, and listen
to, the legacy of Blind Tom Wiggins.
After being shunted away for nearly a century,
Blind Tom Wiggins - the Georgia-born slave and
19th century piano savant - is back.
Directed by 7 Stages artistic director Del Hamilton,
using
Davis' recorded music and starring the astonishingly gifted Anthony Tatmon as Tom, "Hush" is a celebration of the
fecund imagination of Price and the haunting compositions
of Wiggins.
Tatmon plays up Blind Tom's idiosyncracies, the
fractured
speech, the tricks of mimicry and memory, his character's
grotesqueries. But to his credit, he also makes his
character human - and humorous (Tom hates butter beans,
he says "cabbage stinks," but he loves cake). Tatmon
gives a brilliant, startling and unsettling performance.
It's harrowing to see Tom nearly fed to the hogs as a
baby,
to see his father (Neal Hazard) almost get his foot hacked
off because he has the "running-away sickness" and to
hear his mother (Shontell Thrash) recount the way her boy
spoke her name so tenderly ("Maa-muh"). Her answer was
always: Hush.
|
The intial run of Hush in the home theater
of 7 Stages was just the beginning for the work. An article in TransatlanticJournal.com in 2004 tells of subsequent performances both
on tour and at the Martin Luther King Historical Site:
HUSH: Composing Blind Tom Wiggins remains one of 7
Stages' most recent and beloved highlights, returning to
the 7 Stages mainstage a year after its world premiere by
popular demand and touring throughout the region. It
appeared as part of the Alliance Theatre's City Series as
well as, in abridged form, at the Martin Luther King
Historical Site throughout the summer of 2003. |
21 Works
Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma
Collection:
Plantation melodies as sung by Blind Tom, with his
original accompaniments, for voice & piano. n.p.: T[homas?]
G[reene?] Bethune, 1881. 1. Waggin’ up Zion's hill; 2.
That welcome day; 3. Come along, Moses; 4. Them golden slippers.
Specimens of Blind Tom's vocal compositions. n.p.:
c1867. 4 p. I wish dear Jodie would come home; The man who
mashed his hand; The man who snatched the cornet out of his
hand; ; The man who sprained his knee; Mother, wilt thou come
and cure me?. Text: Blind Tom. Library: Library
of Congress.
Individual titles:
CD: William Brown, tenor; Ann Sears, piano. Albany TROY
(1999; Fi-yer!; A century of African-American song).
Academy schottische, for piano. n.p.: W. P.
Howard, 1864.
Amazon march, for piano.
Blind Tom's march, for piano. Boston: Oliver
Ditson, 1851.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1860. Dedication: Mary Bethune.
Also published in 1883?
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1888. 5p. Library: Library of
Congress.
----- Chicago: S. Brainard's Sons, 1894. 12p. Library: Library
of Congress.
----- New York: S. Brainard's Sons, 1913. 11p. Library: Library
of Congress.
Blind Tom's mazurka, for piano, by J. C. Beckel
[pseud.], rev. by L.K. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1888. 5p. Library:
Library of Congress.
Blind Tom's waltz, op. 2, for piano. Philadelphia:
J. Marsh, 1865. 5p. Library: Library of Congress.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1888, rev. by L. K. 5p.
Library: Library of Congress.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1892. 5p. Library: Library of
Congress.
Cascades, for piano.
Columbus march, for piano, rev. by L. K. Boston:
Oliver Ditson, 1888. 5p. Library: Library of Congress.
Concert hall polka, for piano. Boston: Oliver
Ditson, 1888.
Concert Waltzer, for piano (1882).
AC: Geneva H. Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206
(1982).
Cyclone galop, for piano (ca. 1887). New York:
William E. Ashmall, 1887. 7p. Duration: 6:12. Library: Library
of Congress.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Daylight; a musical expression, for piano (1866).
Chicago: Root & Cady, 1866. 5p. Dedication: H. L. Benham.
Library: Library of Congress.
----- Chicago: S. Brainard's Sons, 1866.
AC: Geneva H. Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206
(1982).
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Delta Kappa march, for piano (by 1880).
General Howard’s march, for piano. Philadelphia:
J. M. March, 1865.
General Ripley's march, for piano.
Grand march de concert, for piano.
Grand march resurrection, for piano (by 1901).
Highlands NJ: I. Bethune; Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1901. 5p.
Duration: 4:49. Library: Library of Congress.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
----- New York: F. Blume, 1887. 11p. Library: Library of
Congress.
March timpani, for piano (1880), by Prof. W. F.
Raymond [pseud.]. New York: F. Blume, 1880. 11p. Dedication:
Joseph Poznanski. Duration: 5:53.
----- New York: F. Blume, 1887. 11p. Library: Library of
Congress.
AC: Geneva H. Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206
(1982).
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
March lanpier polka, for piano. New York: F.
Bllume, 1887.
Masonic grand march, for piano.
Military march, for piano or organ, by C. T.
Messengale [pseud.]. Bucyrus OH: Guckert Music, 1889. 9p.
Library: Library of Congress.
Oliver galop, for piano (1859). Boston: Oliver
Ditson, 1860. Duration: 1:12. Library: Library of Congress.
----- New York: H. Waters, 1860. 4p. Library: Library of
Congress.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
LP: Alan Mandel, piano. Desto 6445/7 (1975).
LP: Ruth Norman, piano. Opus One 39 (ca. 1978).
Rêve charmant; nocturne, for piano (1881). New
York: J. G. Bethune, 1881. Library: Library of Congress.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1888. 10p. Dedication: William
Steinway. Duration: 6:47.
AC: Geneva H. Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206
(1982).
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Sewing song; imitation of the sewing machine, for
piano (1888). New York: William A. Pond, 1888. 11p. Duration:
7:01. Library: Library of Congress.
AC: Geneva H. Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206
(1982).
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Symphony based on Blind Tom's theme, for piano.
New York: Cosmopolitan Music, 1973.
That welcome day, for voice & piano. [n.p.?] 1881.
AC: Oral Moses, bass; Ann Sears, piano. (Art songs and
spirituals by Black Americans).
The battle of Manassas, for piano (1866). Chicago:
Root & Cady, 1866. 11p. Duration: 7:50. Library: Library of
Congress.
----- Chapel Hill: Hinshaw Music (Piano music in 19th century
America, ed. by Maurice Hinson).
----- Cleveland: S. Brainard's Sons, 1884. 11p. Library: Library
of Congress.
----- New York: Brainard & Son, 1913, ed. by de Roode.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
LP: E. Power Biggs, organ (Fisk Organ, Old West Church,
Boston).Columbia M-34129 (Two centuries of heroic music in
America, 1976) [abbreviated].
The man who got the cinder in his eye, for medium
voice & piano. Cleveland: Root and Cady, 1866.
The music box, for piano.
The music boy Bounjo, for piano.
AC: Geneva Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206 (1982)
The rainstorm, op. 6, for piano (1854). New York:
J. L. Peters, 1865.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1892, 1888. Rev. by L. K. Duration:
4:29. Library: Library of Congress.
AC: Geneva Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206 (1982)
\.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
The reaper, for piano (after 1865). Dedicated to
one of Gen. Bethune’s daughters.
Virginia polka, by Tom, the blind Negro boy pianist, only
10 years old, for piano. (1860). New York: Horace
Waters, 1860. 4p. Dedicated: Miss Martha McCon Reese, of Georgia
[a daughter of Gen. Bethune?]. Library: Duke, Library of
Congress, Spingarn.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1860. Library: Library of Congress.
AC: Geneva Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206 (1982)
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Vivo galop, for piano (1865). Duration: 2:06.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Water in the moonlight, for piano (1854). Chicago:
S. Brainard’s Sons, 1866. 5p. Duration: 3:00. Library: Library
of Congress.
----- n.p.?: Oliver Ditson, 1866.
AC: Geneva Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206 (1982)
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Wellenklänge; Concert Waltzer; voices of the waves,
for piano (1882), by François Sexalise [pseud.]. New York: J. G.
Bethune, 1882. Duration: 6:44. Library: Library of Congress.
----- New York: Spear and Dehnkott, 1887. 16p. Library: Library
of Congress.
AC: Geneva Southall, piano. Challenge Productions CP-8206 (1982)
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
When this cruel war is over; variations, for
piano, rev. by L. K.(1865). Philadelphia: J. Marsh, 1865.
Duration: 7:21.
----- Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1888. 11p. Library: Library of
Congress.
CD: John Davis, piano. Newport Classics LC 8554 (1999, John
Davis plays Blind Tom).
Wilt thou bring my baby home, for medium voice &
piano (1881). n.p.: J. G. Bethune, 1881. 5p. Text: Blind Tom.
Library: Library of Congress.
AC: Oral Moses, bass; Ann Sears, piano. (Art songs and
spirituals by Black Americans).
VHS: Blind Tom. Chicago: Clearvue (M4BVH V221). Duration:
30:00.
22 Bibliography
Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma
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savants, opinions de la presse anglaise & américiane, tradut de
l’anglais par Edward Stebbing. Paris: Imprimerie Vollée,
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Young, George. The marvelous musical prodigy, Blind Tom, the
Negro boy pianist whose performances at the great St. James and
Egyptian halls, London, and Salle Herz, Paris, have created such
a profound sensation; Anecdotes, songs, sketches of the life,
testimonials of musicians and savans, and opinions of the
American and English press of Blind Tom. New York: French &
Wheat, 1868. 30p. LC 43-20016.
---- Baltimore: The Sun Book and Job Printing Establishment,
1878. 30p.
---- Liverpool: Benson & Holme, 1867. 54p.
----- New York: French & Wheat, 1867. 30p.
----- New York: French & Wheat, 1868. 30p. LC 43-20016.
---- New York: French & Wheat, 1870. 30p.
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