PH Class-African Dreamland by Yale Public Humanities

African Dreamland Intermezzo / composed by George Atwater (1903)
Prefaced with a quotation from Tennyson's poem, The Lotus Eaters:
"Music, which gentler on the spirit lines
Than tired eyelids on the tired eyes."

Discussed and analyzed in detail on pages 110-111 of Edwin A. Berlin's "Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History" (2002), who notes the work's "genteel pretensions" and its attempt to "associate with the relatively respectable position of the black African rather than with the lowly status of the black American. (Berlin 2002: 111)
However, the cover graphics of the piece seem to depict an American scenario...note the Western dress, as well as the banjo and conventional wooden house.

A version for mandolin also exists in the New Haven City Museum.
The version we recorded is incomplete, as we were missing a few pages of the score.

Performed by John Muniz, recorded in Stoeckel Hall, Dec. 1, 2012