American Classics

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... this, however, I did find interesting :

... an introduction to a number of composers who, each in his own way, contributed to the rich musical life that flourished on the east coast of the United States in the latter part of the eighteenth century. They include:

William Selby (England, c 1738 - Boston, 1798)
Mr. Newman (birth and death dates unknown but his Three Sonatas for the piano forte or harpsichord were published in New York in 1807-1810 and reprinted in Boston in 1821-1826)
Alexander Reinagle (Portsmouth, 1756 - Baltimore, 1809)
John Christopher Moller (Germany 1755 - New York, 1803)
Victor Pelissier (Paris, c 1745 - New Jersey, c 1820)
James Hewitt (Dartmoor, 1770 - Boston, 1827)
William Brown (birth and death dates unknown but his Three Rondos for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord, Composed and Humbly Dedicated to the Honourable Francis Hopkinson Esqr. were published in Philadelphia in 1787.)
Benjamin Carr (London, 1768 - Philadelphia, 1831)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0002VYF2Q

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This is taking longer than I anticipated:

Vertical Travel in the 1970s/1980s - Young and Old Approaches to Loving the Alien

In 1979 Ellen Taafe Zwilich, a composer with more of a future than a past, decided to refocus her efforts on "communicating more directly with performers and listeners", softening what had been a harsh jagged style. Subsequently she shifted from a predominantly atonal exploration to post-modernist, neo-romanticism, a term which is easier to say than to define. Her objective remained "to generate an entire work - large scale structure, melodic and harmonic language and developmental processes - from its initial motives" so that her Symphony No 1 was built around a tonal axis. The three movements use continuous development of the material of the opening 15 measures which begin with a motto : three statements of a rising minor third, marked accelerando. This work could be the development of a flower from a seed but in its mysterious ascent what it seems to convey is a sense of outer space. The structure of the first movement is not remote from Brahms but from then onwards, just as with any voyage to the stars, expect the unexpected. The second is in song form and the third is effectively a rondo which combine to underline its exploratory nature. The conclusion isn't quiet but it is an abrupt landing in the ether.

Completed in 1982, it might just have been a marker of how classical music had caught up with the space race. Its moment was noteworthy in more than one way. First, the symphony won the Pullitzer Prize. Secondly, it was the first time that the prize had been won by a woman. Arguably it helped put an end to any ongoing beliefs that a good American symphony required a Coplandesque celebration of pioneers whose manner of expansion was horizontal and a universe of cowboys forever bound to the big country. I think we have to take Zwilich at her word in reference to performers and listeners. Nevertheless, it is hard not to find some parallels with composers like Flynt and the excellent Oliveiros who I highlighted in one of my previous posts. The composers surrounded by electronic equipment in sheds and those who sat with a dog by a mountain or two. They could have easily appeared insular and remote but they had long been reaching out not for the West Coast but upwards beyond the clouds into something or absolutely nothing.

Like Zwilich, Howard Hanson, unquestionably in essence romantic and a Pullitzer Prize winner himself in 1944, had also been on a journey. In 1960 he had published "Harmonic Materials of Modern Music" which contained analytic algorithms that were to be generally applied to tonal music. This document was sufficiently scientific to be incorporated in the early 1970s in the set theory of Allen Forte which ostensibly had reference to the atonal. Just six years later when Zwilich was turning towards emotion in music more, Hanson became embroiled in conflict with the makers of the film "Alien" who had decided to use a part of his 2nd symphony for its emotional impact. Three years further on when Zwilich's 1st had emerged, John Williams was basing the music of the film "ET - The Extra Terrestrial" on Hanson's 2nd with barely any objection. No one called for it to come home.

From the 1950s, Innovation Had Become Too Grounded - It Was a Dark Form of Settlement

What about the broader picture? Let's set aside Copland - he who must always be mentioned - for the moment. A lot of ground had been covered between the great outdoors of, say, the symphonies of Harl McDonald in the 1930s and these ventures in the 1980s. Much of it had taken place in the confines of academia, especially but not exclusively in New England. Harl may have studied at Berkeley and in Leipzig but there was always the conservatism of his Colorado background in his music along with melodic invention. In the 1960s and the 1970s, one question was whether conservatism belonged to those who refused to accept a dry, intellectual avant-garde as the new norm or if it applied to that avant-garde for being in some respects inward-looking. The latter group was favoured and as I have described it was not so much young as groundbreaking. Notwithstanding that composers like Riegger had been employing the twelve-tone technique several decades earlier, the achievements of many of the individuals were genuinely profound. While some like Persichetti didn't develop musically, although Persichetti's music was always attractive, others did so with a maturity which guaranteed their long-term reputations.

And it is true that there were some younger people. Had he lived longer, who can say what Fine might have achieved following his use of that technique in his one symphony completed in 1962 with thoughts of Colonel Glenn returning from space? As events transpired, Sessions's 6th in 1966 was memorable and then his 7th, his 8th and his 9th written in rapid succession. Sessions was never a wholehearted serialist but his work over many decades demonstrated significant development often with an abandoning of tonality. It was innovative and it was also sublime craftsmanship. With this in mind, it would be very fair to suggest that America as a country could be defined by its craft as much as by its pioneering spirit. Three of those four symphonies were written in reference to the Vietnam War which does not of itself suggest an ivory tower. But what was also true was that the music became gloomier which reflected in part America's loss of confidence in itself. For example, Mennin became more chromatic and astringent, Schuman 6-9 are largely characterised by their density and darkness and while Carter successfully explored many avenues his music didn't always have the naive joyousness of the symphony of his youth.

As for the 1960s, Flight Often Seemed Trite - But It Had Objectives and They Were Emotional

With hindsight, I think one can see how and why critics in the 1960s and the 1970s largely got short shrift. This was an era in which pop and rock music took off. In parallel teenagers had been born. It made perfect sense to separate the serious from the perceived trite and anyhow why stop musical development in flux for the sake of a flight with no obvious destination. From what I have listened to of the symphony since the 1980s so far, I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that it is a better thing than it was in the late mid 20th Century. One of its main drawbacks has been in its absence of anything especially concrete in terms of an objective. That, however, was not how Rochberg was seeing it as early as 1964. It was he who was to be one of the biggest flies in the ointment. Abandoning serialism on the death of his son because he said the compositional technique was inadequate to express his grief, he set out to annoy avant-gardists by declaring that the difference between atonality and tonality was one of abstract art versus concrete art.

While he was accused by some of neoconservative post-modernism - which is another way of saying his style had become post modernist neo-romanticism - a few young musicians like John Freeman felt able to declare "I can do anything I want. I'm free." Well, possibly. Rochberg's "Transcendental Variations" "arrived" in 1975 to hammer that point home - what one person has described as the "Yankee equivalent of RVW on Tallis". What has actually occurred since is an abandonment of nothing and with the freedom to choose from a pot-pourri. That hasn't necessarily meant clarity in composers except where they are driven by a specific set of emotions. It is no coincidence that Zwilich changed course in the final year of the 1970s for a similar reason to Rochberg making an about turn - that is, the death of her husband which she felt her music until that point was unable to address.

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1962:

Irving Fine - Symphony - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyZKhGoJE9o

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The Mid 20th Century:

Eclectic Individuals v The Age of Eclecticism - When the Rural and the Urban Interacted

I have now met Chadwick. This is to say I am more familiar with his music and his background. What a guy. He composed in almost every genre including opera, chamber music, choral works, songs and orchestral music. He had a Formative Period, an Americanism/Modernism Period, a Dramatic Period and "The Reflective Years". His music was in the style of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms. One of his operas contained a Plantation Ballad, a Spanish Bolero, an Irish 'Ditty' and a French 'Rigaudon'. His own musical voice is especially evident in the 1899 "Adonais: Elegiac Overture" and many consider his music from that point to portray a distinctively American style. I accept it but I cannot see it or hear it. The dominant influence is too European and he as a person is too vast. There is an element of personal prejudice here. I happen to prefer Beach, MacDowell and Foote though not necessarily Parker or Paine. There is, though, another something. Ives aside - and his contribution to music appears to be increasingly impressive the more one learns - where are the American symphonies in the first 20 years of the 20th Century? It is almost as if the towering figure that was Chadwick had the impact of silencing everyone else.

It was, I think, Bernstein who referred to the eclectic age. My impression is that it wasn't meant negatively, it was a comment about music in and around the 1930s and the 1940s, it may have been with reference to the symphony at least in part and it didn't wholly apply to himself. Eclecticism may be found in individuals or across groups of individuals at a specific time. Chadwick, Rosner, even Hovhaness have been as individuals some of America's most eclectic symphonists. Wide-ranging, single-minded, having to varying degrees developmental abilities and all perhaps somewhat limited in what they could say on their own. In contrast, the 1920s and the 1930s look like a period when American music had an eclecticism which itself helped to define the country. Clearly not only Ives but Gershwin and popular jazz had a significant impact on classical composition. A reminder, this, that an alternative and equal version of America in music to the prairie was the city with its vibrancy and angst. It also leads to the thought that it would be wrong to anticipate too many straightforward tunes in this music. More often than not, the American symphony is not unequivocally romantic or lyrical. There is much that is percussive and there are elements of the atonal and counterpoint throughout. Virgil Thomson was not atypical in being described as a neoromantic, a neoclassicist and a modernist whose expressive voice was carefully muted. He was also a clairvoyant for the present day via his observation that a style of a piece could be most effectively understood by considering its income source.

Thomson's first symphony, "Symphony on a Hymn Tune" is surely one of the highlights of the 1920s even though it wasn't premiered until 1945. The protestant hymns "Jesus Loves Me" and "How Firm a Foundation" serve as a thematic basis for it but the work is also influenced by sacred music and it references the popular tune used in the song "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." This is the prairie music but not as it would easily be pigeon-holed. The Chicago Tribune called the work "a kind of homespun-sophisticated musical analogue to a Currier and Ives print" and the Boston Globe opined the work's "peculiar procedures somehow suggest that Thomson has given both a kit for a symphony and the improbable assembled thing itself. There's nothing extraneous, it's strong as hell and the parts fit, but you could swear that some of them have deliberately been put in upside down."

America Did Find a New Definition - It Was Comprehensible But as European as the Old One

The 1920s was the decade of Sessions's "modernist" first but in a land where nothing is ever quite what it seems to be it was neoclassical in style and mainly tonal, albeit harmonically complex. And it was the decade of Hanson's first - the "Nordic" - which while clearly in debt to Sibelius and even Debussy managed in a vibrant, dramatic way to convey Nebraska as a symbol of the entire United States. Some commentators have suggested that the comparatively unfussy, less academic styles of Hanson and later Paul Creston are more in sync with the expansive version of America than almost anyone else's. Additionally they have suggested that this is ironic given their European heritage, Scandinavian and Italian respectively. This may to some degree have truth. There is no doubt that Creston's music is highly accessible but, just as with Copland, Harris and Piston who are often placed in the same box, there is a complexity in Hanson's work which defies overt categorization. Nevertheless, Hanson's second and third, written in 1930 and 1938, are great symphonies and do sound definitively American. The haunting and lyrical Interlochen theme in the second is especially memorable and it predates his very American opera "Merry Mount" while the third has hints of America at war with a good use of brass that is emotionally ambiguous but never despairing, not that it is hugely ground breaking.

In contrast McDonald's symphonies in the 1930s sound a little hokey and while Randall Thompson's two have interesting, unique harmonies, it is his art style song cycle "Americana" which is the stronger statement and it is essentially parody. Ellington, of course, was in essence jazz which he adapted to the classical form. Still in three symphonies very successfully combined blues progressions and rhythms that were characteristic of popular African-American music at the time with a traditional symphonic structure. Porter's first was written in 1934. It is brash and exuberant and it has fine orchestration with an emphasis on muted trumpet, horns and drums concluding in a rousing fashion. Additionally, Copland, Harris and Piston all presented their first symphonies although none were as strong as some of their later work, Gardner Reed was productive and Barber's symphony must have a claim to being one of the best of all although it is short and a little nebulous. Barber is an exception - one of the stronger examples of the individually eclectic.

It is difficult not to ask how the symphonies in these decades compare with those in the 1960s and subsequent decades. I think I would have to say that there was less eclecticism in the 1960s and the 1970s. I am now keen on Harris's eighth and eleventh. Schuman's seventh and eighth and Piston's eighth are worthy. Persichetti's 8th and 9th are attractive enough. The Fine symphony has its place in history. But there are few that excite and of those that do two are choral. Rochberg's 3rd symphony in 1969 is predictably extraordinary and so in its way is Bernstein's "Kaddish", albeit that it harks back to events two decades earlier. As for later compositions, Corigliano's symphony is notable for its contemporary dedication to the victims of AIDS, Hailstork veers towards the inclusion of jazz and blues in his symphonies in a post modern sense and both Rouse - who I like - and Daugherty can be sensational in an almost pop-rock way which I suppose reminds us of how everything now is so commercial. But I will consider those areas in a bit more detail in my final post alongside some thoughts about the symphonies of the 1940s and the 1950s. It will be an odd combination but I didn't ever expect it all to be very coherent and it hasn't been.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Just a couple of things to correct with Hanson. Hanson's opera is 'Merry Mount' and it is based on a Nathaniel Hawthorn short story and very good it is too.

Hanson's 2nd Symphony dates from 1930, it one of a number of works composed for the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The 3rd was completed in 1938, the dates on you tube and wikipedia are incorrect, so it predates World War II. Personally I find the 4th & 6th the best of the Hanson symphonies.

Randall Thompson composed 3 symphonies, the 2nd was a favourite of Lenny Bernstein, as Thompson was one of his teachers. Corigliano's 2nd & 3rd symphonies are worth a listen, the 2nd for Strings in particular. There is also the fairly recent symphony of Steve Stucky, who is among the more popular contemporary composers in the US.

With Barber I'm particularly fond of the 2nd Symphony with its hauntingly beautiful central movement.

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Just a couple of things to correct with Hanson. Hanson's opera is 'Merry Mount' and it is based on a Nathaniel Hawthorn short story and very good it is too.

Hanson's 2nd Symphony dates from 1930, it one of a number of works composed for the 50th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The 3rd was completed in 1938, the dates on you tube and wikipedia are incorrect, so it predates World War II. Personally I find the 4th & 6th the best of the Hanson symphonies.

Randall Thompson composed 3 symphonies, the 2nd was a favourite of Lenny Bernstein, as Thompson was one of his teachers. Corigliano's 2nd & 3rd symphonies are worth a listen, the 2nd for Strings in particular. There is also the fairly recent symphony of Steve Stucky, who is among the more popular contemporary composers in the US.

With Barber I'm particularly fond of the 2nd Symphony with its hauntingly beautiful central movement.

Thank you for reading my contributions which are the culmination of a week of listening, reading and learning. I looked at a range of websites including Naxos, Great American Composers, Classical Net and Enjoy the Music as well as Wikipedia and You Tube to help me with dates and musical terminology. A few short phrases have been lifted but via extensive hand written notes and mainly to facilitate speed. My overall understanding has considerably improved. All of the the arguments expressed are entirely my own.

I am grateful to you for clarifying the title of the Hanson opera to which I referred. I haven't heard it although I did listen to work apart from the symphonies including Still's "Africa", parts of Schuman's ballet "Undertow" and Carpenter's "Krazy Kat" and "Skyscrapers". I have now altered the title of the opera - it was actually a misreading of my own written notes - and will follow up on it along with your suggestions re Corigliano and Stucky. I know that Randall Thompson composed three symphonies. My reference to his two was in a paragraph specifically on the 1930s. That is why I have referred to Barber's symphony in the singular. But I could have been clearer on that point. Bernstein's view of Thompson's 2nd is interesting. He said of Diamond's 5th that it was "a work that revives our hope for the symphonic form" but that was probably in the context of the 1960s.

I accept that Hanson's 2nd was completed in 1930 and not 1932 although the study score does appear to have been published in New York in 1932 by Carl Fischer. The Wikipedia entry on Howard Hanson says "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Hanson's Symphony No. 2, the "Romantic", and premiered it on November 28, 1930". And you are right. Hanson's 3rd wasn't completed in 1941. I have altered that date to 1938 - although it is also given the date 1936-1938 and even 1936 in some places. I do believe that it is in part a war symphony. It sounds like a war symphony in part. While it has significant elements of optimism it is also a sign of its times, reflecting the years after WW1 and the Great Depression in the wake of what was to come in the late 1930s. And it was given its first performance in November 1939.

Actually it is a thing of very mixed messages in that it has hints of racial purity as a statement alongside that of Still, not that Hanson sought to oppose Still in what he was doing, and it is also something of a comment against the emerging trends in music while not entirely bypassing them. On the 4th and the 6th, I have listened to both -and the 5th - and I am aware of the critical acclaim given to the 4th. However, it did emerge from a personal event in Hanson's life rather than anything broader and I do prefer the 2nd and the 3rd.

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... this, however, I did find interesting :

... an introduction to a number of composers who, each in his own way, contributed to the rich musical life that flourished on the east coast of the United States in the latter part of the eighteenth century. They include:

William Selby (England, c 1738 - Boston, 1798)
Mr. Newman (birth and death dates unknown but his Three Sonatas for the piano forte or harpsichord were published in New York in 1807-1810 and reprinted in Boston in 1821-1826)
Alexander Reinagle (Portsmouth, 1756 - Baltimore, 1809)
John Christopher Moller (Germany 1755 - New York, 1803)
Victor Pelissier (Paris, c 1745 - New Jersey, c 1820)
James Hewitt (Dartmoor, 1770 - Boston, 1827)
William Brown (birth and death dates unknown but his Three Rondos for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord, Composed and Humbly Dedicated to the Honourable Francis Hopkinson Esqr. were published in Philadelphia in 1787.)
Benjamin Carr (London, 1768 - Philadelphia, 1831)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0002VYF2Q

Noted with interest.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Interesting that you like Schuman's Undertow, which I do too. Have you listened to Schuman's other two choreographic works Judith & Night Journey? The latter is among his most interesting works with chamber orchestra instrumentation, the former written for Martha Graham and the Louisville Orchestra, a work that virtually saved that orchestra from being disbanded. If you like 'over the top' Schuman then there is also Credendum really a symphony in all but name.

Another composer for you is Robert E Ward (1917-2013). Quite prolific composer with 6 Symphonies and works in virtually all mediums. His music is attractive & generally straightforward, somewhere between Hanson & Creston in manner. His best works are for me his Pulitzer Prize winning Opera 'The Crucible' and his Ballet The Scarlet Letter. Quite a number of his works have been recorded commercially.

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Interesting that you like Schuman's Undertow, which I do too. Have you listened to Schuman's other two choreographic works Judith & Night Journey? The latter is among his most interesting works with chamber orchestra instrumentation, the former written for Martha Graham and the Louisville Orchestra, a work that virtually saved that orchestra from being disbanded. If you like 'over the top' Schuman then there is also Credendum really a symphony in all but name.

Another composer for you is Robert E Ward (1917-2013). Quite prolific composer with 6 Symphonies and works in virtually all mediums. His music is attractive & generally straightforward, somewhere between Hanson & Creston in manner. His best works are for me his Pulitzer Prize winning Opera 'The Crucible' and his Ballet The Scarlet Letter. Quite a number of his works have been recorded commercially.

Thank you.

That is very helpful.

I am aware of "Night Journey" as that is mentioned a lot but not the others. I'm not too sure whether I like "over-the-top" Schuman so "Credendum" sounds intriguing. Ward is a name that I discovered yesterday. Someone was suggesting that one of his symphonies, Harris 3 and something else - probably Copland 3 - were favoured by orchestras because they found them to be approachable. If the third was Copland 3 that might slightly underplay what is involved. I thought you might pick up on my apparent dismissal of Harris 3, ie I said Harris's best symphonic work was after the 1930s. I haven't quite made up my mind on that point and have decided to apply a bit of poetic licence for now. That is to say Harris 3 was completed in 1939 and will to all intents and purposes represent my starting point for the 1940s in my final full post. To support this, I suggest it is fairly natural to consider Schuman 3 in the light of Harris's third. However, I am in absolutely no doubt that Piston's best work came after his one symphony in the 1930s as previously indicated.

It may be a few days before I write that post. I want to listen to more including Ward - or to listen again to parts of what I have heard. At present, Cowell eludes me although I do know he was responsible for a fascinating book in which he got composers to write about other composers to break down barriers. I am still not sure if I could pinpoint the "tonal axis" date wise of the symphonic avant-garde and would be interested to have your comments on that point. I also feel that there are often some rather artificial distinctions made between the influence of, say, Stravinsky and Hindemith. I would also welcome your Top 5 or whatever of American symphonies from the 1960s and the 1970s to see whether I am right in viewing it as a tough call. Additionally, Ives aside, do you have any thoughts about American symphonies between 1900 and 1920 because I don't think there are many?

[Suffolkcoastal]

I have recordings of all the Harris Symphonies except the early unpublished Symphony-American Portrait, and about 2/3rds of his total output and have written about him. I think his finest Symphony is the 7th though the 3rd is still an exceptionally fine work, and I also highly regard nos 1, 6 & 11. The 2nd, 5th, 8th & 9th have some movements/sections that are very impressive and even No 12 has some interesting parts, though it doesn't quite come off as a whole. The 10th & 13th are rather less impressive.

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I have recordings of all the Harris Symphonies except the early unpublished Symphony-American Portrait, and about 2/3rds of his total output and have written about him. I think his finest Symphony is the 7th though the 3rd is still an exceptionally fine work, and I also highly regard nos 1, 6 & 11. The 2nd, 5th, 8th & 9th have some movements/sections that are very impressive and even No 12 has some interesting parts, though it doesn't quite come off as a whole. The 10th & 13th are rather less impressive.

I am guessing that this is your recording of the 11th which is definitely one of the best of the 1960s unless there is anything less expensive?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roy-Harris-Symphony-Hybrid-SACD/dp/B001DCZVHQ

[Suffolkcoastal]

Yes, it is currently the only commercial recording ever made. I do also have an off-air tape of the premiere conducted by Harris. It is a pity that one of the finest of Harris interpreters never commercially recorded any of his works, probably due to the labels he recorded for. Any guesses?

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Yes, it is currently the only commercial recording ever made. I do also have an off-air tape of the premiere conducted by Harris. It is a pity that one of the finest of Harris interpreters never commercially recorded any of his works, probably due to the labels he recorded for. Any guesses?

I don't know......it isn't Bernstein or Mata.

What is the (stereo) position re Ormandy?

Oh, hold on.....I think you are referring to K for Koussevitzky.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Nope, its rather surprising it's Rafael Kubelik. I have off-air recordings of him conducting symphonies 5 & 9 and he spot on, the 9th is the European Premiere with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and as an interpretation its well above both commercial recordings and the off-air premiere I have which Ormandy is conducting. Kubelik was a great admirer of the Harris symphonies.

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Nope, its rather surprising it's Rafael Kubelik. I have off-air recordings of him conducting symphonies 5 & 9 and he spot on, the 9th is the European Premiere with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and as an interpretation its well above both commercial recordings and the off-air premiere I have which Ormandy is conducting. Kubelik was a great admirer of the Harris symphonies.

OK - interesting. There were "issues" with the recordings of Koussevitzky generally, I think. At least I got the letter right.