Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster, America’s foremost song composer, was born in Lawrenceville, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1826. He received no formal musical training. Tioga Waltz, in 1841, was his first piece of music to get performed. About a year after that, Foster published his first song, “Open Thy Lattice, Love.” His initial success came with “Oh, Susanna!” for which he received only $100. But “Oh, Susanna!” became so popular soon after its publication in 1848 that it became the theme song (with improvised lyrics) of the Forty Niners on their way to California. Beginning with 1848 he wrote songs for Ed Christy’s Minstrels—at first allowing some of them to appear as Christy’s own creations. It was within the context of the minstrel show that such permanent Foster favorites as “Camptown Races” and “Old Folks at Home” were first performed. Both songs were outstandingly successful and, because of a favorable contractual arrangement with a New York publisher, Foster was earning handsome royalties. Now feeling financially secure, Foster married Jane Denny McDowell in 1850, a relationship that was unhappy almost from the beginning. In 1860 Foster came to New York with the hope of furthering his career as a composer. But by now he was virtually forgotten by the public, and publishers paid him only a pittance for his last songs, many of them mostly hack pieces. Always disposed towards alcohol, Foster now became a habitual drunkard, living in the most abject poverty in a miserable room on the Bowery. He died at Bellevue Hospital on January 13, 1864.
Foster was the composer of numerous songs which in various orchestral arrangements are basic to the repertory of every salon or pop orchestra. His greatest songs were inspired by the Negro; they are the eloquent expressions of Northern sentiment about slavery in the South. Foster’s most famous Negro songs are: “Old Folks at Home” (or “Swanee River”), “Massa’s in de Cold, Cold Ground,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Ol’ Black Joe.”
When Foster first wrote “Old Folks at Home” his inspiration was an obscure Florida River by the name of “Pedee.” But while writing his song he thought “Pedee” not sufficiently euphonious for his purpose. He went to a map of Florida to find another river, came upon “Suwanee” which he contracted to “Swanee.”
Foster was also successful in the writing of sentimental ballads. Here his most important songs were “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” (written for and about his wife), and “Beautiful Dreamer.”
Besides orchestral adaptations of individual songs, Foster’s music is represented on orchestral programs by skilful suites, or ingenious symphonic transcriptions of individual songs, by other composers. Arcady Dubensky’s Stephen Foster Suite is discussed in the section on Dubensky, and Lucien Caillet’s Fantasia and Fugue on “Oh, Susanna!” in the Caillet section. Other composers to make symphonic use of Foster’s melodies are: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Humoresques on Foster Themes); Morton Guild (Foster Gallery); and Alan Shulman (Oh, Susanna!).