Cover of Ethiopia saluting the colors, by Harry Thacker Burleigh, c1915. Performing Arts Reading Room, Library of Congress.

by Henry (Harry) T. Burleigh, 1866-1949

Although best remembered for his arrangements of African-American spirituals such as "Deep River" (1917), Harry T. Burleigh also made significant contributions to the American art song. Composed during the height of his success to a text by Walt Whitman, Burleigh's "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" (1915) is a dramatic account of an African-American woman, or Ethiopian (by the mid-nineteenth century, "Ethiopian" had become synonymous with "African" in the Western world), and her chance meeting with a Union Soldier.

In the poem, "Ethiopia" is an old black slave woman who salutes the American flag as she sees General Sherman's troops march by, all the while being watched herself by a soldier. The colors in her turban--yellow, red, and green--represent those found in the Ethiopian flag. Burleigh musically depicts the setting with a precise, militaristic accompaniment, and with the quotation of the Civil War tune "Marching through Georgia." One of Burleigh's most ambitious songs and one he later orchestrated, "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" is worthy of inclusion in today's concert repertoire.