Florence Price. Photograph by George Nelidoff.
In Saturday’s (3/21) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin writes, “Since his arrival in Philadelphia, Yannick Nézet-Séguin has hitched his wagon no more firmly to any composer than Florence Price. It was a recording of Price’s First and Third symphonies that brought a first Grammy win to the conductor and, astonishingly, gave the Philadelphia Orchestra its first-ever Grammy in 2022 in the best orchestral performance category… Nézet-Séguin has taken his advocacy for Price—the first Black woman to have her work performed by a major U.S. orchestra, in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra—on the road. He recently gave her name prominence at one of classical music’s most visible events, including it on the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2026 New Year’s concert with a piece billed as Price’s ‘Rainbow Waltz.’ Now some are crying foul. Price did write a work called ‘Rainbow Waltz,’ but critics and scholars say the arrangement by Wolfgang Dörner heard on the New Year’s concert, broadcast, and recording bears … little resemblance to its purported original … The piece that was performed contained none of Price’s melodies, harmonies, rhythms or form, wrote Price scholar John Michael Cooper…. Nézet-Séguin was not available for an interview … Vienna Philharmonic chairman Daniel Froschauer [said] that Dörner ‘took somewhat greater liberties’ … but ‘we never intended to mislead anyone. But perhaps we can all learn something from this.’ ”
