For me, few circumstances are more exciting and intriguing than the discovery of something thought lost, destroyed, or to have never existed at all. I’m reminded of this after reading a story in the New Yorker that told of a couple renovating a derelict house south of Chicago. They found piles of musical manuscripts, books, papers, and more, bearing the name of Florence B. Price. A quick internet search revealed Price was, as many of us know, a relatively well-known composer who died in 1953 after a long career.

This discovery has greater significance when one keeps in mind that Mrs. Price’s works were, like many female composers or composers of color in the white, male-dominated world of classical music of the time, partially or totally disregarded.

In 1943, Mrs. Price wrote to conductor Serge Koussevitsky in an attempt to gain more exposure of her works, part of the letter stating, “To begin with I have two handicaps – those of sex and race.” While Koussevitsky ignored her letter, she was championed by Frederick Stock, music director of the Chicago Symphony. Still, after her death, much of Price’s work was dangerously close to being obliterated, a perfect example being the discovery of her work in that ramshackle house that was formerly her summer residence.

From that discovered material, Price’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 were recorded on the Albany Label featuring violinist Er-Gene Kahng.

For further reading, I recommend “The Rediscovery of Florence Price” by Alex Ross, published in the New Yorker in 2018, available at NewYorker.com. The aforementioned works can be heard on the Albany disc “Florence Price: Violin Concertos,” found at AlbanyRecords.com. You may also hear these works, and others by Mrs. Price on Classical KCME.

What other music remains out there, waiting to be found?