This is the second of three blog articles discussing American Music. The intent is to give readers some direction to begin exploring our nation's rich musical heritage. For obvious reasons, the 20th Century conversation will not go into exploration of popular music in terms of Big Band and Rock elements as these are a bit beyond the purview of this blog. While some film music is included in the conversation, it is used to provide some popular sidebars of more familiar cultural situations.
The Early 20th Century (1901-1950)
The beginning of the 20th century sees the real flowering of American music with concert music appearing regularly, the appearance/discovery of Ragtime and the work of Scott Joplin, and the explosion of jazz as an unique musical expression. Victor Herbert has a hit with Babes in Toyland in New York; Arthur Foote wrote one of the finest works of the decade with his String Suite in E, Op. 63. The piano music of the American Indianist composers begins to appear in print. Henry Fillmore’s and Arthur Pryor’s delightful band music provides a counterpoint to Sousa. Charles Tomlinson Griffes will compose a number of semi-Impressionistic piano works and later orchestrate them in equally fascinating ways. Meanwhile in Europe things were getting a bit interesting as Bela Bartok’s music begins to appear and Stravinsky arrives in Paris which will stir things up. The first decade is an exploration of miniatures set aside the large scale expansiveness of ever growing sizes of the symphony capped in Mahler’s ninth (1909). In some ways, the art music of the period is a bit of a breather before the 1920s explosion of popular styles enhanced by the appearance of the phonograph.
1. Ives: Songs (though perhaps less well known, the songs provide a varied window into Ives as a composer that can get lost in the large-scale orchestral pieces)
2. Griffes: Piano music
3. Foote: Suite in E
4. Fillmore: Marches
5. Joplin: Rags
Looking at the second decade of the new century, one sees a variety of musical styles on display from traditional Romanticism, folk-influenced (or ethnic) music, Impressionism, and Modernism. Vaughan Williams second symphony comes from this decade, as does Granados’ Goyescas, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe, and even Schoenberg (Pierrot Lunaire), Prokofiev and Berg’s music all are part of the mileu. There are some key American works from this decade worth exploring. Rudolf Friml and Jerome Kern appear in musical theater, Edwin Franko Goldman’s band continues that marching band tradition, and Gerswhin’s music begins to appear. And there are some interesting concert works from the period, one being Ives’s second piano sonata, Concord. Ives’s symphonic music will begin to get “discovered” as this period ends. The Holidays Symphony is one of the easier to acquaint oneself with the composer’s style of multiple quotations and dense orchestration. His third symphony is almost the opposite of that sound and might be something to further explore once you familiarize yourself with this style. Perhaps one of the most delightful American Impressionist works from the decade is Deems Taylor’s Through The Looking Glass based on Alice in Wonderland. Taylor is most known for his radio commentary and appearance in Disney’s Fantasia.
6. Goldman: Marches
7. Ives: Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord; Holidays Symphony
8. Taylor: Through the Looking Glass
The 1920s see more jazz-like music entering into concert music, not just in America (even Paul Hindemith wrote a piece called “Ragtime” in 1921!). This alongside composers continuing the Romantic tradition like Howard Hanson whose first symphony appears in 1921. Aaron Copland’s very modernist style appeared in the grotesque Grohg—a far cry from his more known style. This work is part of that modernist trend that is encapsulated in the work of George Antheil who began exploring other sounds in pieces like the Ballet mecanique (notice too that French title suggesting the beginning of a shift away from Germanic models) and even Henry Cowell whose piano works included exploring inside the case of the instrument itself. Gershwin’s Blue Monday appeared as part of the George White Scandals (1922). 1924 changed the musical world a lot when Paul Whiteman premiered Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in a concert of classical works (including a suite by Herbert), popular songs, and premieres. The piece would encourage the exploration of jazz as an American art form in the coming decade. Among the true treasures that pulls together the musical and cultural life of the period is John Alden Carpenter’s Skyscrapers—fascinating study in musical tone painting using jazzy rhythms and a most contemporary narrative. Immigrant composers would add to the American flavor of their own music as Ernst Bloch did with his rhapsody, America (1926). One finds a number of works throughout the period that are in suite form often exploring regions of the country. Ferde Grofe, one of Whiteman’s orchestrators, would explore this formally in a number of suites of which his most famous is perhaps the Grand Canyon Suite (1931) with its picturesque musical descriptions. Jerome Kern’s Showboat is perhaps the biggest advance of the period in a work that pushed musical theater into more operatic territory more than any other work of the time. Kern’s style would become the template upon which musical theater would build.
9. Antheil: Ballet Mecanique
10. Cowell: Piano music (especially The Banshee)
11. Gerswhin: Rhapsody in Blue; An American in Paris
12. Carpenter: Skyscrapers
13. Kern: Showboat
14. Grofe: Mississippi Suite; Grand Canyon Suite
We begin to see these various musical styles come together as composers from the theater shift to accompany films. Alfred Newman’s score for Street Scene (1931) is a perfect parallel to Gershwin and Carpenter. And the 1930s enter a period of exploring what American music should sound like. Modernism seemed like a dead end. Romanticism seemed to Germanic. Borrowing jazz and folk rhythms appeared to be one answer. And yet, there are still all those threads in music, especially that continue the thread of Romanticism which is heard in Samuel Barber’s student work (!) the Overture to “The School for Scandal.” Copland too was exploring the post-modernist trend in his second symphony, a far cry from his first symphony which shocked American audiences. We do begin seeing though the rise of more composers exploring the symphony form. Roy Harris, one of our best symphonists, finished his first symphony in 1933 (the year the recent immigrant Max Steiner’s King Kong is heard!). Quincy Porter, Barber, Meredith Willson (composer of The Music Man) and Hanson would all continue exploring the form throughout the decade and beyond. Gershwin’s groundbreaking Porgy and Bess appeared in 1935, though it struggled to find the sort of acceptance the composer had perhaps wished for which may have had more to do with its all African American cast than with the jazz opera he tried to create. Copland headed South where he latched onto the varied rhythms of Latin and South American music and came back with one of his quintessential concert pieces, El Salon Mexico. Virgil Thomson, whose earlier 1920s symphony already had that open interval feel we identify with Copland, wrote scores for a documentary films, The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), that are one of the first examples of what would become an American music that encapsulated the openness of our landscapes. Copland’s ballets for Martha Graham, beginning with Billy the Kid (1938) would help cement this Americana Western sound more firmly. As the decade comes to a close, we begin to see the appearance of some of our best orchestrators and symphonists: Piston, Diamond, and Creston whose works might be considered as a type of American symphonic modernism in parallel to the more romantic sounds of Barber and Hanson.
15. Barber: School for Scandal Overture; Adagio For Strings; Violin Concerto
16. Harris: Symphony No. 3
17. Gerswhin: Porgy and Bess
18. Thomson: The Plow that Broke the Plains
19. Copland: El Salon Mexico; Billy the Kid
20. Steiner: King Kong
Patriotism would become important as WWII cast its shadow across the decade of the 1940s. Stravinsky arrived in Hollywood and in 1941 would provide his own harmonization and orchestration of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” one of the more unusual examples of emigrants embracing their new country. Morton Gould bridges the popular symphonic style with the concert style in his many works using American folk and popular song in suite forms in a hybrid of Romanticism and Copland/Thomson’s Americana sound. Copland’s Appalachian Spring struck an important chord in 1944 with its remembrance of a simpler time. William Schuman looks to more angular writing in his large scale symphonic pieces. A young Leonard Bernstein premieres his first symphony inspired by the Biblical book, Jeremiah and would expand the jazz musical palettes in his ballet Fancy Free and musical On The Town. Copland continues to explore his American style in a few film scores, and Rodeo. Works like Hanson’s fourth symphony (subtitled Requiem) and Harris’s sixth symphony (Gettysburg) explored in absolute music the tragedy of war. We also begin to see some early exploration of 12-tone technique in the music of Roger Sessions all while composers like David Diamond and Peter Mennin continue to explore post-Romantic styles combined with the open intervals of Copland/Harris. Meanwhile, in Boston, a young Leroy Anderson is hitting it off with tone of popular little orchestral miniatures including his perhaps best known work, Sleigh Ride. Hollywood would be the home of Late Romanticism with scores by Korngold (mostly in the 1930s), Waxman, and Steiner influencing the sound of film.
21. Gould: American Salute;
22. Copland: Rodeo; Appalachian Spring, Symphony No. 3
23. Schuman: Symphony No. 3
24. Leonard Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah); On the Town;
25. Leroy Anderson: Sleigh Ride; The Typewriter (and other orchestral miniatures)
26. Mennin: Symphony No. 4
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