Three Fantasies on African American Songs for String Quartet - I Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Recording)

The first movement is based on the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” composed in the 1860s by Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman, and made famous shortly thereafter by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. I alternate between tonal statements of the theme and more abstract restatements. In the middle of the movement, the tempo quickens and a freely brilliant, albeit hushed toccata brings the movement to a close.