The Great American Symphony: Music, the Depression, and War available in Hardcover
The Great American Symphony: Music, the Depression, and War
- ISBN-10:
- 025335305X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780253353054
- Pub. Date:
- 03/26/2009
- Publisher:
- Indiana University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 025335305X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780253353054
- Pub. Date:
- 03/26/2009
- Publisher:
- Indiana University Press
The Great American Symphony: Music, the Depression, and War
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253353054 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2009 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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Read an Excerpt
The Great American Symphony
Music, the Depression, and War
By Nicholas Tawa
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2009 Nicholas TawaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-35305-4
CHAPTER 1
PRELIMINARIES
The decade and a half starting around 1935 holds major significance in America's cultural history. Most composers, artists, and intellectuals would agree with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. when he writes, "The Great Depression and the Second World War showed the desperate necessity of national cohesion within the framework of shared national ideals." Necessity led to realization. A huge number of creative people's artistic works changed to reflect this cohesion. Artists, like others of the work force, found themselves without incomes. The federal government came to their aid monetarily. The government also acted to facilitate not only the production but also the performance of new musical compositions. Moreover, it provided the means for the music public to grow to a number greater than before.
It was not long before there emerged a cultural unanimity of opinion in contemporary American classical music that had not existed before. (Regrettably, this direction toward consensus would quickly disintegrate after 1945.) I do not mean that unanimity was realized, but the closest approach to it took place during this era. These were ten years when dedicated citizens of the United States hoped to achieve a broad and harmonious gathering-together of composers, performers, and audiences. If they could accommodate each other, classical music would be able to flourish more than it had in the past. However, this trend was short-lived. After World War II cultural fragmentation would characterize musical styles, genres, interest groups, and attitudes toward art. Exclusiveness, the clash of incompatible cultural interests, would come to compete with inclusiveness. The notion of drawing all Americans together into one cultural embrace would disappear.
Composers could not help but feel an incentive for writing to express not only themselves but the concerns of the American public during the ten years beginning around 1935. At the beginning of this period, they worried about their relatively unsophisticated country, whose cultural life nonetheless retained the vigor of a society in youthful though shaky evolution. An affinity with the American public and its concerns was growing within them. The Great Depression and World War II encouraged a move toward accessibility in melody and harmony. Contemporary classical music became easier to assimilate. A trend toward more comfortable communication helped audiences remain comparatively receptive to new compositions.
Performing groups, federal government policies, and radio worked together to present contemporary American works to any man or woman who cared to listen. One could detect the emergence of a common musical style with a kinship to American hymns, spirituals, jazz, popular music, and traditional song and dance. A shared approach to the handling of rhythm and a partiality for open sounds also prevailed. The adherence to tonal systems and the careful employment of dissonance aided understanding. In short, all the elements were in place to create works constituting a consonant whole and producing a unifying effect.
Finally and most importantly, among the highest achievements of American composers during this period were several symphonies of which any nation could and should be proud. Accomplished artists who had assimilated the Zeitgeist of the Depression and World War II years composed these symphonies. They expressed the spirit of the times in music suffused with personal and communal meaning. The music public was drawn to the sound and message. Even though these compositions deserve to belong to the standard symphonic repertoire, neglect quickly became their lot after 1950.
ATTITUDES
Historically, the United States has had the reputation of a pragmatic nation. Its citizens believed in hard work, a no-nonsense approach to accumulating wealth, and leisure activities that provided fleeting enjoyment. The "American dream," a commonly held ideal, stressed social equality and material prosperity. The "dream" was less concerned with cultural enrichment. James Truslow Adams was the first to use the term, in his book The Epic of America, published in 1931. He writes that the American dream is
that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Later, a few commentators would claim that the American dream was mostly the quest for financial betterment and the accumulation of bigger and better material goods. Others would adhere to a thirties concept of the American dream, with less stress placed on monetary prosperity and more weight given to leading a spiritually rich and fulfilling life.
Without doubt, most Americans gave an allegiance to athletic events, movies, ballroom dancing, and other popular entertainments that was rarely extended to the arts. Classical music inhabited a less important territory.
As early as 1831, when on a visit to America, Alexis de Tocqueville was commenting that "in America everyone finds facilities ... for making or increasing his fortune. The spirit of gain is always eager, and the human mind, constantly diverted from the pleasures of the imagination and the labors of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulses but the pursuit of wealth." Affected by this condition, Americans, he concluded, "cultivate the arts that serve to render life easy," not those that require thought and effort. The nurturing of classical music was a hit-or-miss affair, he thought. Little of what was created was of the highest quality.
For the most part, his observation seems true, although applicable to other nations as well as the United States. The more Americans led a hardscrabble existence, the less time they gave to education, and the more highly they valued the useful, the more they turned mostly to trifling amusements. Cultural historians have consistently noted a correlation between the cultivation of the arts and an older, more educated, and more affluent American populace. Yet exceptions have existed, particularly during the Roosevelt administration. During these years men and women from the lower to the higher walks of life turned to classical music, more often than before, in order to experience what was to them a rewarding enrichment of their everyday lives. To be sure, many people went to concerts for nothing but entertainment. Some may have gone to demonstrate their modishness or exercise their intellect. Yet a number of men and women attended because they genuinely loved music and its emotional expressiveness, not because they wanted to attain social superiority or quicken their minds. Listening to classical music, they said, carried them swiftly to a different world and deepened their lives. They were able to join others in the audience in common appreciation of art at the finest expressive level. In a world as drab and incoherent as theirs had become, this sort of experience was prized.
A large minority of the populace during the Roosevelt presidency did subscribe to "uplift" and hoped to expand their cultural horizons. Elitism was not yet a bad word for them. They accepted the idea that leadership in the arts was worthwhile. The general public did not believe that the more cultivated higher-ups plotted against the ordinary citizenry. At the same time, the public did not hesitate to lampoon the pretensions of cultural snobs in movies, radio comedies, cartoons, and popular literature. I should add that the distinction between so-called refined patrician and vulgar plebeian taste — a distinction that extended back to Greek and Roman times — was not insisted upon as much here as in Europe.
Normally, men and women enjoyed the excellent dance music of swing bands and the moving and catchy melodies of songs by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and others. People also found diversion in Shirley Temple singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop," Gene Autry singing "Back in the Saddle Again," and the Andrews Sisters singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Such communication was direct, uncomplicated, and understood without a second thought. It provided a cheery antidote to the bleakness of the times. Music like this was plentiful and readily available, and it occupied a valued place in American culture.
It represented, however, a different kind of expressiveness than did art works such as Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Verdi's Otello. American symphonies of the Roosevelt years shared a tradition with these works, however much some of them alluded to popular and folk milieus. Classical compositions such as these symphonies were subtle, fairly complex, and profoundly probing. One could not listen idly to them and hope to absorb their meaning immediately. The music normally steered clear of references to detailed programs, written material, and visuals. Composers aimed at evoking a host of feelings that required some discernment and mental acuteness.
Out-and-out hostility to most new classical music from a majority of the music public was still in the future. The announcement of the premiere of a major American symphony, though it might fail to elicit an earth-shaking response, did excite curiosity in a number of listeners, anticipation in others, and real enthusiasm in a few. Most audiences tolerated even some extreme modern works. Furthermore, as Jacques Barzun explains, audiences like these were essential for new music. "Art does not disseminate itself unaided," he writes. "Artists need heralds, go-betweens, not to say procurers. The worst environment for an artist in a high civilization is dead silence."
Fortunately, several prominent conductors came on the American scene in the thirties and forties to promote American composers and their music to audiences. The interest in and appreciation of the new American music flowed from baton to players to listeners. For example, Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra presented an annual Festival of American Music that featured compositions by living composers including John Alden Carpenter, Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, Douglas Moore, William Schuman, Peter Mennin, and Hanson himself. Because he was born and grew up in America, Hanson identified with native idioms, and his interpretations were one with the intentions of the composers. This went a long way, says Virgil Thomson, toward promoting listeners' sympathetic understanding.
In 1943, Lawrence Morton was hailing the American-born Alfred Wallenstein's takeover of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his announced commitment to an American program and a "fair representation to American Composers. These works will get Philharmonic premieres: Paul Creston's First Symphony, Roy Harris's Third Symphony, Copland's A Lincoln Portrait and Billy the Kid ... Schuman's A Free Song, Barber's Second Essay, excerpts from Porgy and Bess, and an overture by Morton Gould." Other, lesser-known conductors who directed the many orchestras midwived by the WPA also aired native works, especially if the composers resided in their regions.
As far as the promotion of American symphonies is concerned, the most important conductor was Serge Koussevitzky. This musical head of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, though Russian-born, saw it as his duty to champion the compositions of American composers. He found especially congenial those styles that were tonal and not excessively chromatic. He devoted himself to promoting the cause of native music by means of commissioning new works, conducting premieres, and scheduling repeated performances. Among the works presented to the Boston audience were symphonies by Samuel Barber, David Diamond, Aaron Copland, Howard Hanson, Roy Harris, and William Schuman. Winthrop Tryon wrote, in 1943, "Speaking of the regular Friday afternoon and Saturday evening pairs in Symphony Hall, his [Koussevitzky's] audiences will take more unknown and lately-written works than he himself can prepare for them." Fortunately the concertmaster, Richard Burgin, was able to come to his assistance by rehearsing and conducting some of the new works.
It is worth dwelling on Serge Koussevitzky for a while since his actions had a direct impact on composers. To cite one such action, he encountered Walter Piston soon after he took over the conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Piston had just returned from Paris and begun teaching at Harvard. Immediately, Koussevitzky asked, "Why you no write a symphony? You write; I play." For an orchestral conductor to ask an American composer to write a symphony was astonishing at that time. A surprised Piston complied with his Symphonic Piece, premiered in 1928. It was a significant start for a long association between conductor and composer. A genuine Symphony No. 1 came along a decade after, and seven more symphonies over the next three decades.
Another American composer with whom he worked closely was Aaron Copland. In his very first season with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Koussevitzky began to promote Copland's music, performing the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra of the young composer, whom he had met in Paris in 1923. In a 1944 article in the Musical Quarterly, the composer wrote about his first meeting with Koussevitzky, which his teacher, Nadia Boulanger, had set up:
Mademoiselle Boulanger, knowing the Russian conductor's interest in new creative talents of all countries, took it for granted that he would want to meet a young composer from the country he was about to visit for the first time. That she was entirely correct in her assumption was immediately evident from the interest he showed in the orchestral score under my arm. It was a Cortège Macabre, an excerpt from a ballet [Grohg] I had been working on under the guidance of Mademoiselle Boulanger. With all the assurance of youth — I was twenty-two years old at the time — I played it for him. Without hesitation he promised to perform the piece during his first season at Boston.
Later, when Copland mentioned that the conductor might find the works of the neophyte composer William Schuman interesting, Koussevitzky programmed Schuman's music without delay. Furthermore, when the twenty-fifth anniversary of ASCAP arrived in 1939, Koussevitzky scheduled a festival of American music, presenting works by Arthur Foote, Deems Taylor, Henry Hadley, Howard Hanson, William Schuman, George Gershwin, Roy Harris, John Alden Carpenter, and Randall Thompson.
He made it less troublesome for composers to write new works and gain them a hearing. He performed scores that might have lain unnoticed or little-heard. He also established the Berkshire Symphonic Festivals and the Berkshire Music Center. The Festivals' purpose was to secure a new and larger public for symphonic performances. The Center's purpose was to train young composers and promising musicians.
Koussevitzky and his wife became American citizens in February 1941. He said to reporters, "This is where I have carved out my career in life. This is where my friends are, and this is where I want to spend the rest of my days, in an atmosphere of freedom and achievement. The United States is the only country in the world today in which artistic and musical ability can find free expression. I have great hope for the future of America and am proud to be adopted and accepted as one of its citizens."
Finally, after his wife died, Koussevitzky founded the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in 1943 as a memorial to her. The fund has commissioned many European and American composers and has thus kept Koussevitzky's legacy going, even after his death in 1951. David Diamond's Fourth Symphony, Walter Piston's Fourth Symphony, and Aaron Copland's Third Symphony were three of the commissions.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Great American Symphony by Nicholas Tawa. Copyright © 2009 Nicholas Tawa. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
ContentsPreface1. PreliminariesAttitudesThe TimesSymphonism AscendantThe Symphony's Public Role2. Symphonies of the Mid- to Late ThirtiesThe Romantic Symphony: BarberThe Spiritual Symphony: HansonThe All-American Symphony: HarrisThe Muscular Symphony: SchumanThe Civil Symphony: CarpenterAfterthought: Thomson and Cowell3. Symphonies of the War YearsWartime AttitudesThe Commemorative Symphony: AntheilThe Aesthetic Symphony: DiamondThe Dramatic Symphony: BernsteinThe Masterly Symphony: PistonThe Ambivalent Symphony: BarberThe Theatrical Symphony: Blitzstein4. Symphonies of the Immediate Postwar YearsThe Conservatorial Symphony: MooreThe Dynamic Symphony: MenninThe Plain-Spoken Symphony: ThompsonThe August Symphony: CoplandThe Self-Reliant Symphony: CrestonThe Knotty Symphony: Sessions5. American Symphonies after 1950The Symphony in the Leanest YearsThe Symphony after 1990NotesSelected BibliographyIndexWhat People are Saying About This
Out of tragedy emerges great art. This is the message contained in the well-documented book by Nicholas Tawa. He reminds us of rich treasures, both known and yet to be rediscovered. The work will be a valuable resource for musicians, as well as lovers of perhaps, the most creative time in American music.
At a time when the relationship between composer and audience seems to be at the crux of the health and even survival of the classical music world, Nicholas Tawa's The Great American Symphony offers critical and telling insights into an important epoch in American musical history.