On April 21, 1899, a song based on Paul Laurence Dunbar's dialect poem "The Deserted Plantation" was performed at a New York recital featuring music by Walter Damrosch, a German-born conductor and composer. The concert also included Damrosch's settings of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Walter Damrosch brought forward this morning at the Waldorf-Astoria some of the fruits of his year of practical abstention from active musical work in opera and concert. Mr. Damrosch has passed the winter in comfortable fashion at Hartsdale, near White Plains, where he has escaped entirely the rush and hurry of city life. There most of his composing has been done. The songs for soprano, "My Wife," "The Sick Child" and "The Deserted Plantation," all possess interest, especially the latter, with its curious syncopated rhythms.
"Music." New York Mail and Express (New York, New York). April 21, 1899.
Mr. Walter Damrosch gave a concert of his own compositions in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria yesterday morning. The program which Mr. Damrosch offered comprised some familiar works with some not heard here before: "The Sick Child," "The Deserted Plantation," and "My Wife." Mr. Damrosch composes songs with strict regard for every detail of the text, and thus his work comes to have an intellectual seriousness which is not found in much of the music of our native composers.
"Music Heard Yesterday." The New York Times (New York, New York). April 22, 1899. Page 8.
Damrosch's setting of "The Deserted Plantation" was performed again at another New York vocal recital later in the year.
Mr. David Bispham, the popular baritone, gave a song recital yesterday afternoon at Mendelssohn Hall, with the assistance of Mr. Walter Damrosch, who presided at the piano. It is hardly necessary to say that the audience was one of large size. The program consisted of Schumann's lovely cycle of songs "Dichterliebe," Mr. Damrosch's "The World Well Lost," "First Love Remembered," "The Deserted Plantation" and "Danny Deever," and Liza Lehmann's cycle from Tennyson's "In Memoriam."
"Music Heard Yesterday." The New York Times (New York, New York). December 8, 1899. Page 6.
Mr. David Bispham, at his song recital in Mendelssohn Hall yesterday afternoon, was at his best in the songs by Mr. Damrosch. In "The Deserted Plantation," Mr. Damrosch seems to have caught singularly well the spirit of Paul Laurence Dunbar's picture of the old Southern ruin, and it grows on the hearer with every repetition.
"Music." Unidentified newspaper clipping [New York, New York]. December 8, 1899. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Paul mentioned the Damrosch setting in a pair of letters to his wife Alice. He seemed uncertain about the idea at first, but became enthusiastic after he heard the song.
Walter Damrosch has set my "Deserted Plantation" to music. I don't see why he ever did it. It takes seven pages and is substantial.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, September 10, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
The song by Walter Damrosch is a perfect gem, classic, but with a beautiful melody.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, September 13, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Paul tried to purchase a copy of the sheet music while in Albany, New York, but had difficulty finding it in a store.
The Distinguished Poet and Author, in Company with the Famous "Bruce Grit," Do Albany, New York. Mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar, the poet, author, and gentleman had a rather novel experience in a bookstore on North Pearl Street in this city one day last week which is worth telling. I had shown him the sights in the state capital and the principal points of interest about the city and when through with this very agreeable task he intimated that he would like to be piloted to a music store where he wished to purchase a song of his which had been set to music by Walter Damrosch. Not finding it in this particular [store] we tried another where we were equally unsuccessful.
"The Poet Dunbar," by Bruce Grit [John Edward Bruce]. The Florida Sentinel (Gainesville, Florida). December 25, 1898.
Years later, Paul participated in a recital in Washington, D. C., where the song was performed.
Mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar, assisted by Mr. Joseph Douglass, Violinist; by Miss Lola Johnson, who will sing Mr. Dunbar's songs, set by Walter Damrosch and S. Coleridge-Taylor; and Miss Beatrice Warwick, Pianist, will give a recital of his newest work at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, on Monday evening, December 16th, 1901.
"Late Locals." The Colored American (Washington, D. C.). December 14, 1901. Page 7.