Six greatest American orchestral works

[DavidRoss]

Nah ... there is definitely nothing American about either Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Ditto all composers in residence.

I suspect they and many others would differ on this point, especially since they went to the trouble of becoming Americans.  Whether their music is characteristically "American" is another matter.  I think not, in their cases at least.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I suspect they and many others would differ on this point, especially since they went to the trouble of becoming Americans.  Whether their music is characteristically "American" is another matter.  I think not, in their cases at least.

Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto might count, being inspired by a hearing of Woody Herman's band. I can't think of any "American Schoenberg," though.

[DavidRoss]

Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto might count, being inspired by a hearing of Woody Herman's band. I can't think of any "American Schoenberg," though.

Right you are.  Come to think of it, Dumbarton Oaks qualifies, and the Concerto in D for sure, so I stand happily corrected.   

[some guy]

Now there'd be a good topic for people who like to wrangle: What is characteristically American?

Seems to me that nationalism had a pretty good run in music for a couple of generations, but that two world wars rather put a damper on all that. Certainly music since 1950 or a bit earlier has been a lot more cosmopolitan than national, as it had been before 1850. (And even more than that before 1800.) Composers have been collaborating a lot more since the second World War, from many different countries. And composers have moved around a lot, too, and not just from wherever to the U.S. An American composer moved to Denmark, where he's spent most of his career. Several composers from around the world have settled in Switzerland. John Zorn lives in every way as if he were Japanese. Some Argentines I know have lived in France for many decades. (One of them just moved back to Argentina. I wonder how that's going to work?) A very prominent French composer went back and forth between Paris and Montreal for most of his career until settling down in Avignon. (He's married to a Colombian artist.)

A much better state of affairs, I think.

[greg]

I wouldn't include Schoenberg or Stravinsky for this list, either. Sure, they had the right to be called American during their lifetime, but for purposes like these, it'd be better for them to be left off, since they grew up and learned music in other countries.

[DavidRoss]

Dumbarton and the Concerto in D? Total Bach-european influence filtered thru Stravinsky's own voice (which is Russian thru & thru) ... more so than anything rooted or stemming from American life or culture.

All "Classical" music no matter where composed or by whom is rooted in the European tradition filtered through the voice of the composer, which is shaped by many influences including the cultural ones of his nations of origin, residence, and adoption.  The music Stravinsky's most famous for is arguably as Parisian as Russian.  And if you cannot hear the distinctively American influence in the pieces cited, then that's your choice.

[Scarpia]

All "Classical" music no matter where composed or by whom is rooted in the European tradition filtered through the voice of the composer, which is shaped by many influences including the cultural ones of his nations of origin, residence, and adoption.  The music Stravinsky's most famous for is arguably as Parisian as Russian.  And if you cannot hear the distinctively American influence in the pieces cited, then that's your choice.

Dumbarton Oaks seems like an unlikely example of American influence, since it was written before Stravinsky came to live in the US in 1939. (although it was a US commission).  Now the Ebony concerto, of 1945, has a definite American pedigree.   By that time Stravinsky was a man without a country, writing pieces "a la Russe" in the 1940's when he hadn't lived in Russia since 1909.  That is as good a definition of an American as I can think of.  Anything he wrote from 1945 on seems to me to be as American as it is anything else.

[some guy]

learned music in other countries.

Bennett, Carter, Copland, Diamond, Erb, Glass, Harris, Musgrave, Piston, Thomson (Virgil), Ward-Steinman.

That's just a small fraction of Americans who studied with Nadia Boulanger in France.

(Hmmm. I wonder. Does that make Cage and Mumma and Reynolds and Ashley and Lucier and Wolff and Marclay more genuinely American?)

[DavidRoss]

Dumbarton Oaks seems like an unlikely example of American influence, since it was written before Stravinsky came to live in the US in 1939. (although it was a US commission).  Now the Ebony concerto, of 1945, has a definite American pedigree.   By that time Stravinsky was a man without a country, writing pieces "a la Russe" in the 1940's when he hadn't lived in Russia since 1909.  That is as good a definition of an American as I can think of.  Anything he wrote from 1945 on seems to me to be as American as it is anything else.

If you can listen to Dumbarton Oaks and not hear Stravinsky channeling Copland, then you're a better man than I.

edit: Whoops...add one more.  I just listened to Boulez's dandy recording of Dumbarton Oaks and the Ebony Concerto, and sandwiched between is the lovely little 8 Instrumental Miniatures, another Stravinsky work that seems to have a distinctly American character.

[some guy]

OK, I give up.

Somebody define "distinctly American character."

(Either that or go with James' "born & raised there" and give over the chimera entirely.)

((As you've probably already sussed, if you do define it, I and perhaps several others will come up with oh say a thousand or so things written by people born and raised here that don't sound anything like what you've come up with!!))

[Dax]

I'm surprised that there are those who would regard the later work of composers such as Schoenberg and Stravinsky as "American". Even Weill, who cleared his work of "poisonous old Berlin" doesn't seem to qualify. (And don't let's dwell on where composers were born: otherwise we have to admit that Boris Blacher was Chinese and Henk Badings was Indonesian). On the other hand there are a very small number of composers who emigrated to America early in their careers and whose work is arguably "anti-European" - the obvious examples being Dane Rudhyar and Edgard Varèse. The latter's credentials may raise more eyebrows since he arrived in America in his early 30s, but 1) only a brief song survives from before that time and 2) his first work in America, Amériques would appear to demonstrate intent (despite the retention of an acute accent). The issue is far from clear-cut , of course: I imagine there is no one who would deny that Leo Ornstein is an "American" composer - he came over in 1906 when he was about 13 - nevertheless the roots of his work, pioneering though it was, lie firmly in the country of his birth and is in no sense "anti-European".

A pity that so many composers felt the need to study in Europe, especially with Nadia Boulanger, remarkable woman though she was. Those composers who may be said to  be representative of the "experimental American tradition" tended not to: it would be controvertial and no doubt incorrect to suggest that the work of those who happened to study in Europe is any less "American" for that, even though some will harbour a sneaking suspicion that that is indeed the case: certainly that was the feeling in the Cowell circle before WW2.

Incidentally, why am I the only person to have mentioned Cowell? Don't others rate his symphonies?

[Franco]

OK, I give up.

Somebody define "distinctly American character."

(Either that or go with James' "born & raised there" and give over the chimera entirely.)

((As you've probably already sussed, if you do define it, I and perhaps several others will come up with oh say a thousand or so things written by people born and raised here that don't sound anything like what you've come up with!!))

I don't think there is an American character.  That is the point - American composers are free from a national style and can do what they want to with their stylistic approach - which seems to be a quintessentially American attitude.

Copland, Barber, Carter, and the other major American composers all have a different style, although arguably Copland and Barber are closer in tone than others - but I sense nothing that strikingly different from Menotti, or Stravinsky, or even someone like Ravel (all who wrote what they thought of as music influenced by American music) - more to the point, I think period of maturity is more important.

Americans fall into two large camps, IMO - the Copland/Barber school of pleasant tonal work that can be a bit mushy for my tastes (although Copland has written some works that don't fit this model) and the Carter/Sessions dissonant  but intellectually more exciting work.  Ives is interesting in that he wrote both, although probably falling more in the Carter school - which really may be the Ives school that Carter and Sessions are members of. 

But there are other streams: an American Avant Garde, and an American Academic style.

Copland school
Fuchs
Diamond
Corigliano
Rochberg (later period)

Ives school
Wuorinen
Babbit
Shapey
Rochberg (early period)

Academic
Hanson
Piston
Schuman

Avant Garde
John Cage
Harry Partch
Morton Feldman

Do any of these composers write "American" music - yes, they are all Americans and by definition write American music.  But what do they share stylistically beyond nationality?  Not much, if you ask me.

[You may wonder why I did not mention Glass or Reich.  I don't consider their music (or the entire Minimilism group) important enough, or Classical music (it is more like ambitious Pop, IMO) to be included in a discussion of American Classical composers.]

[DavidRoss]

You may wonder why I did not mention Glass or Reich.  I don't consider their music (or the entire Minimilism group) important enough, or Classical music (it is more like ambitious Pop, IMO) to be included in a discussion of American Classical composers.

Ack!    Major and frequently performed contemporary composers like Reich, Glass, Adams, and Riley are dismissed as trivial, while a number of dry academics who are rarely performed and who are vanishing into the dustbins of history faster than Johann Eberlin are lauded as significant and worthy?  My, my....

There is a distinction overlooked by some between music by Americans and music with a distinctively American character.  There is such as thing, just as there is in literature and painting and so on.  Like damned near everything else in aesthetics, it's impossible to define, but that does not mean it doesn't exist nor that it's not recognizable.  Copland's popular Americana are brimming with that character, as is much of the music of Ives and others.  It does partake somewhat of American popular and folk music and song, just as Bartok and Dvorak and Mahler and Janacek and many others have infused their classical structures and training with a shot of their particular ethnic tones and harmonies and rhythms.  But it's not entirely a consequence of the composer's national origins--for instance, do Barber's violin concerto or Cave of the Heart ballet exhibit that distinctive national character?  I don't hear it. [insert shoulder-shrugging emoticon]

[Franco]

Ack!    Major and frequently performed contemporary composers like Reich, Glass, Adams, and Riley are dismissed as trivial, while a number of dry academics who are rarely performed and who are vanishing into the dustbins of history faster than Johann Eberlin are lauded as significant and worthy?  My, my....

I don't lump John Adams in with Glass and Reich, he would be in the Copland school, IMO - but I admit that I lean towards the more rigorous writing of Sessions, Martino, Perle and others who I think write music of more interest to me than Adams, or Danielpour, or Higdon, absolutely more than Glass and Reich.  Their music hardly interests me at all; I'd much rather (and often do) listen to Peter Gabriel than either of them.

Mere popularity is a non-issue in my consideration of this idea.

[DavidRoss]

Mere popularity is a non-issue in my consideration of this idea.

"Mere popularity" is one thing; popularity as a potential indicator of qualities that may merit further consideration is something altogether different.  Some even dismiss Mozart and Beethoven because they are popular.  Just as "mere popularity" is not by itself sufficient to indicate quality, disinterest is not sufficient to indicate its lack. 

[Franco]

"Mere popularity" is one thing; popularity as a potential indicator of qualities that may merit further consideration is something altogether different.  Some even dismiss Mozart and Beethoven because they are popular.  Just as "mere popularity" is not by itself sufficient to indicate quality, disinterest is not sufficient to indicate its lack. 

I did not make any judgment of quality (other than by omission), but stated those composers were not among my own preferences or interests.  Philip Glass and Steve Reich may be considered by future critics as the greatest composers of this era - that still would not cause me be interested in their music more than Elliott Carter's or George Perle's.

The issue was what if anything constituted an American character in classical music.  I did not feel it necessary to discuss every composer to make the point I wanted to make.

[DavidRoss]

I did not make any judgment of quality (other than by omission), but stated those composers were not among my own preferences or interests.  Philip Glass and Steve Reich may be considered by future critics as the greatest composers of this era - that still would not cause me be interested in their music more than Elliott Carter's or George Perle's.

The issue was what if anything constituted an American character in classical music.  I did not feel it necessary to discuss every composer to make the point I wanted to make.

Yep.  And that was clear in your posts.  Sorry if it seemed that I was attacking you rather than riffing on the ideas expressed in them.

[DavidRoss]

Me too at first, then you read the comments posted here and start laughing at the logic.  i.e. Dumbarton Oaks ... Stravinsky channeling Copland LOL

Thanks, James!  Your dismissal of my perceptions only validates them, were any validation required!   


Psst!  By the way, you might want to look up the meaning of the word "logic" before embarrassing yourself further...though, come to think of it, you've never shown any interest in not embarrassing yourself up to now.  Carry on! 

[Dax]

In the meantime, in Amériques, his first major work since leaving Europe behind, Varèse worked with the existing symphonic medium to body forth his visions. The title, with its plural celebration of his new home, suggests the composer's unbounded aspirations. He later recalled how the word "America" connoted "all discoveries, all adventures" – to the point of "the unknown, new worlds on this planet, in outer space, and in human minds." More concretely, Varèse was inspired by his first impressions of the noises of the city from his new perch on the West Side of Manhattan. Where other newcomers might have focused on the visual stimulation, for Varèse the city offered an exhilarating aural cacophony of street noises, police cars, firetrucks, river sounds, foghorns, and skyscraper construction

I don't know anything much about Thomas May but he seems to me to have this about right.

Varèse said Ameriques wasn't about America tho .. and musically there isn't much of a deep connection.

But obviously you don't agree despite what Varèse himself says.

I'd want to study composition with the best teacher too

With respect, it's not very clever to describe somebody as the "best" teacher - or come to that, the "best" composer or the "best" violinist. It's not necessary to explain why.

[Franco]

Adams, Glass & Reich are much heavier than either [Cage or Feldman], believe it ...

If you think so, I won't try to convince you otherwise, but I won't "believe it" because you tell me to.