Marian Anderson at the Met: Early Career: Background

Early Career: Background

Billy King

Billy King, like Marian, was born in Philadelphia in 1897. As Marian’s first accompanist, he helped to launch her early career and earn her success within the African-American community.

Though his parents were not particularly musical, Billy's talents were apparent from an early age. By age 18, he was already established as a pianist and organist; he also taught aspiring pianists and vocalists. Eventually he became the organist and choirmaster at the Church of the Crucifixion. At age 20, he accompanied Roland Hayes on a tour, and he was also the fill-in accompanist of choice for artists touring through Philadelphia.

Billy first met Marian at a small recital she was giving at the local YWCA. In those days, she accompanied herself on the piano while she sang. After her first piece, however, she discovered a young, stoop-shouldered man was standing next to her.

"May I?" he whispered, and took my place on the piano bench. It was Billy King. I don't know how I got through the next number, I was so excited that Billy King had offered to play for me. When I got home that night I was still walking on air. I didn't sleep a wink.²

Billy soon became Marian's regular accompanist. Theirs was an interesting relationship. Marian found Billy easily distracted and unwilling to focus his own career in any one direction; Billy thought she was too self-conscious about her own potential. Yet somehow they worked well together, self-managing many successful tours throughout the Eastern United States and laying the foundation for Marian's career. All told, they worked together for nineteen years, from their first concert together in 1916 until Marian made Kosti Vehanen her primary accompanist in 1935.

Marian and Billy made the most of their tours from 1921 – 1928. They had no outside assistance in planning these tours, and although they were beloved by audiences, they faced discrimination and hardship in their travels. Billy was always very protective of Marian, onstage and off. He always wanted Marian’s voice to shine above even his most florid passages, and took care to use his most delicate and artistic touch on the piano. It was sometimes difficult for Billy and Marian to find lodging together close to their performance venue; she often stayed as a guest in the home of their local contact while he stayed further afield at a YMCA or boarding house. On overnight train trips in the South, they were not given beds in a sleeping car, but instead had to sit up all night with other African-Americans in the Jim Crow car, or “berth 13.” Billy always made sure that Marian was comfortable and resting peacefully, then stayed awake to make sure she was respected by their fellow passengers.

Though he was most often romantically involved with men, Billy often hinted at an interest in Marian, and many of his friends thought he wanted to marry her. Her decision to marry her long-time sweetheart Orpheus “King” Fisher in 1943 felt like more of a betrayal than her 1935 switch to a new accompanist. Marian, for her part, was careful to ensure that her relationship with Billy was professional, nothing more, nothing less.

Jim Crow Laws

Following the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves came a period of American history known as the Reconstruction. During this time, African-Americans enjoyed their citizenship and right to vote as guaranteed by the newly ratified 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Several “firsts” were achieved during this time, including the election of the first African-American governor. This alarmed many Southern whites who wanted to maintain power and privilege over their former slaves. One tool they used toward this end was enforcing separation, or segregation, between the races. This separation was first established through a series of state laws restricting the rights and freedoms of African-Americans. Many states passed miscegenation laws that prohibited interracial marriage. Still others went as far as to set up separate facilities for whites and blacks in movie theatres, railroads, and even restrooms.

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court made its ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, stating that these separate facilities did not violate the Constitution, provided that the different facilities were equal in quality. This ruling effectively legalized segregation throughout the nation. By 1910 all of the states in the old Confederacy had institutionalized segregation by enforcing the post-Reconstruction laws and establishing new, even more restrictive ones. As a whole, these became known as “Jim Crow Laws.” Jim Crow was originally the name of a minstrel show character, and the term came to be a nasty way of saying "black," "colored," or "African-American." Jim Crow Laws prohibited African-Americans from sitting in certain areas of restaurants, sections of a public bus, or cars of a train. African-Americans had to use separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, and building entrances than whites. They could not even attend the same school as whites or stay in the same hotel. Courthouses had separate bibles for the two races, and some areas had separate phone booths. Alabama even made it illegal for blacks and whites to play checkers together.

Jim Crow Laws were struck down in 1954 with the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, but de facto segregation lingered, especially in the South. It took ten years before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, ensuring equal treatment for all citizens.

For more information on this very complex subject, visit www.jimcrowhistory.org. Please see our teacher materials section of this website for a lesson plan to introduce students to Jim Crow Laws.

Orpheus "King" Fisher

Orpheus "King" Fisher was born in southern Pennsylvania in 1900, the youngest son in a family of eight children. His mother died when he was young, and his father moved the family to Wilmington, Delaware. King was of mixed-race ancestry on both sides of his family, and he was very light-skinned. Quite the ladies' man, he dated both black and white women, but none captured his heart like Marian Anderson. He first met her when his family hosted a post-concert reception in her honor. As she later recalled,

When I reached the entrance the fine-looking young man at the door stretched his arm across my path. I tried to move past him at the side, and he barred the way with his body…he kept laughing as though it were a huge joke. At first I was amused and then annoyed, and I was also determined to go inside. "I shall call [the host of the reception]," I said, "and I shall yell, too, if I have to." Still laughing, he stepped aside…³

King's older brothers developed crushes on Marian after this party, but they didn't last. Before long, Marian and King were an item – he even suggested running away and getting married before either of them had graduated from high school! She loved him, but she wasn't ready to think about marriage until she felt established as a singer.

King was three years younger than Marian, and he was intent on pursuing a career in architecture and living his life to the fullest. When Marian’s career started to really take off, King moved to New York to continue his studies. They kept in touch when she traveled to Europe, but King grew tired of waiting for her to return, and frustrated at how seldom she responded to his love letters. He was a handsome man, and received a lot of attention from other women in Marian's absence. He married a young medical student, but separated from her shortly after their only child, James Fisher, was born.

Marian's love for King was very real, even though she found it hard to express in her letters. She still wanted to marry him – eventually – but not until her career had stabilized. (Unfortunately, the life of a professional singer is rarely - if ever - stable). By 1939, with Sol Hurok managing her career, Marian was almost ready. She and King began looking for a place to make their home, finally settling on a farm outside of Danbury, Connecticut. This got the rumor mill started, and it really kicked into gear when King's divorce from his first wife became official at the end of 1940. On July 17, 1943, after over twenty years of waiting, King and Marian were married.

Already successful as an architect in New York City, King decided to work closer to home, so he could spend more time with Marian and the many animals they owned. He often accompanied her on tours, including the 1958 tour of Southeast Asia. Following Marian's retirement in 1963, the two hosted many friends and relatives at Marianna. King enjoyed working with his hands on the farm, making small improvements here and there. He loved to point these changes out to Marian on their long walks around the farm together. When King died in 1986, Marian held a memorial service for him in Danbury’s New Hope Baptist Church, which he designed and of which he was a member.

Town Hall Reviews

Marian’s 1924 Town Hall debut was met with disastrous reviews. She was flattered at first by the review in the Sun, which found her voice to be “pure, of even quality...velvety.” The reviewer’s later comments cut her to the quick:

“...‘til she broadens her imagination and acquires a knowledge of the art of color she will probably not realize all her ambitions.... Miss Anderson betrayed a sad want of understanding of the deeper meanings of her lyrics and of lied interpretation.”

Most other reviewers also commented on her pitiful interpretation of lieder. The review from Musical America was most generous in saying “when she learns to infuse more fire and abandon into her interpretations, her art will gain immensely in human appeal.” The Herald Tribune noted that “...the expressive possibilities of her German lieder, Strauss, Brahms and Schubert, seem far from fully fathomed.” The New York Age review was cruelest, and made Marian seriously reconsider her skills as a singer:

“She seems to lack the power to project her personality into her singing, and the result is that her performance is stilted and constrained.... [She] should devote more time to earnest, consistent study and less to the concert stage.”⁴

Opportunities in Europe

The 1920s saw a period of intense activity in African-American art, literature, music, and dance known as the Harlem Renaissance. But no matter how successful Harlem Renaissance artists became, they still encountered prejudice and limited opportunities outside of the black community. There was a place, however, where African-American performers could pursue advanced artistic training, find wider audiences, and gain respect and acclaim regardless of their skin color: Europe.

Europe was the center of Western intellectual and artistic pursuits, and black and white Americans alike looked to the continent for additional training and performance opportunities. A number of American cultural figures moved to Europe during the 1920s, among them Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, and Marian Anderson. The so-called “Lost Generation” of writers also moved to Paris at this time; this group included Ernest Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Each of these individuals felt a personal and professional benefit from the exposure they received in Europe. European audiences were not threatened by the idea of dignified African-Americans onstage, and gladly filled the house for performers like Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Marian Anderson.

Many of these African-American artists eventually returned to the United States, where the public was impressed by their European success stories. Slowly but surely, American audiences caught “Marian Fever” too!

Lieder: a definition

Marian Anderson made her career primarily as a recital performer. In her recitals, she performed art songs from different cultures, in different languages. She was best known for her performances of American spirituals and of lieder.

Strictly speaking, lieder are defined as German art songs. They were first popularized by the Romantic composers during the 19th century, namely Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. These composers were obsessed with human passion and fixated on subjects like religion, mysticism, nationalism, nature, love, grief, and dramatic narrative. They found inspiration for their compositions among the great German Romantic poets: Goethe, Heine, Schiller, and Müller. The composers strove to bring the works of these writers to life in all their complexity and genius, seeking a perfect union of music and text.

The quest to reach this goal led to several musical innovations. Schubert, who wrote many of his lieder for small salon performances called Schubertiades, accentuated his texts with innovative piano accompaniments. In his Gretchen am Spinnrade, we hear the spinning wheel go round and round in the accompaniment; in Die Forelle, we hear the sparkling brook in which the trout swims. Other composers modeled their vocal lines after speech, and still others manipulated the text to suit the melody, often repeating certain words or phrases for musical effect.

Lieder composition continued throughout the late 19th century with the works of composers like Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf. Schubert, Brahms, and Wolf were featured most prominently in Marian Anderson's recitals and recordings.

• The Soviet Union in the 1930's

Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski is considered by many to be the most important theatre director of all time. He was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1863, and showed interest in the theatre at an early age. In 1898 he founded Russia's first ensemble company, the Moscow Art Theatre. There he continued to follow his passion, eventually writing three books that would drastically change the way people approached acting: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role. He encouraged actors to be as realistic as possible: to strive for truth, not affect, in their performances; to believe wholeheartedly in the reality they were creating onstage; and to draw on their own life experiences to understand a character’s emotions. He also introduced the world to the plays of fellow Russian and realist Anton Chekhov. Later, in 20th century America, actors and directors devoted to Stanislavski’s work created “the method.” Famous method actors include Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, and Sidney Poitier.

It was a great honor for Stanislavski to offer to coach Marian Anderson in any operatic role, especially one as juicy as Carmen, and it is a shame that she did not accept his offer. The performance that would have resulted surely would have brought the house down.

Arturo Toscanini

“Yours is a voice such as one hears only once in a hundred years” is one of the most flattering compliments a singer like Marian Anderson could ever hope to hear, especially coming from as important a figure as Arturo Toscanini.

Toscanini was one of the most important conductors of the modern age. Born in 1867, he excelled at cello, composition, and conducting while a student at Parma's Royal School of Music. His fellow students were struck by his ambition, near-photographic memory, and passionate ideas about how music should be performed. He made his conducting debut at age 19 while on tour as cellist and assistant chorus master of an Italian opera company. One night the conductor could not go on, and at the last minute Toscanini was asked to fill in – he did, and conducted Aida entirely from memory. His illustrious career went on to span nearly 70 years, and included world premieres of famous operas, including Pagliacci, La Bohème, and Turandot. During this time he also held conducting posts at La Scala, The Met, and the New York Philharmonic. He died in 1957, just weeks before his 90th birthday.

• Eleanor Roosevelt

"Passing"

During much of Marian Anderson's life, whites enjoyed opportunities that were not available to African-Americans. Whites could sit wherever they chose at a theatre, stay in any hotel they liked, eat in any restaurant, and travel freely, but African-Americans could not. Whites also had a better chance of getting a good, steady job and making a lot of money than African-Americans did. In those days, anyone who had “one drop” of black blood was considered black, regardless of the visible color of their skin. Because of this, many fair-skinned African-Americans claimed that their heritage was Italian, Spanish, or Gypsy instead of African. By “passing” as white, they could take advantage of a world of privileges and opportunities reserved for whites only.

Of course, "passing" had its dangers. If you were passing, you had to move far away from home and cut off contact with your family, or else you had to pretend that your relationship with them was one of master and servant. If your white friends were making racist comments, you had to join in too, lest they doubt your white identity. Some African-Americans who were "passing" feared having children with their white spouses. If the new baby was born with dark skin, the spouse would be discovered and likely abandoned.

Marian's husband had “passed” in his youth, and his son from his first marriage was also fair skinned. In 1959, after being estranged from his father for a long time, Jimmy Fisher decided to pay King a visit. Finding King wasn’t difficult; Jimmy had followed Marian's career for some time to keep tabs on his father's whereabouts. Jimmy brought his wife along for the visit, which caused King some discomfort. It was unclear if Jimmy had told his wife, who was white, about his own racial heritage, so King said nothing on the subject.


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