# A Quintessential [English/British/Germanic/American...] Composer?



## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

It's often said of Ralph (that's "rafe") Vaughan Williams that either he or his music (perhaps interchangeably so) is "quintessentially English" (or British). See this headline for example.

https://bachtrack.com/review-wigglesworth-vaughan-williams-royal-philharmonic-cadogan-april-2019

For this to be true, there has to be


something identifiable about the term 'English' that is more than just 'from England' (as there are other composers who could lay claim to the same 'quintessential' status);
and something identifiable in the music itself.
One easy answer in the case of RVW is that he based some of his compositions on the English folk tunes he had collected. However, _Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis _and _The Lark Ascending _two of his most famous works that have been voted regularly in the top ten most popular amongst UK listeners were not based on older 'folk' tunes, though the former was based on a piece by a Renaissance English composer and the latter inspired by a poem by an English poet.

My question applies not just to RVW and 'Englishness', but to all nationalities: is it possible to discern something 'quintessentially' [English/American/German/Finnish etc etc] that goes beyond the use of locally found raw materials such as folk tunes from the region/country?

If it is, can you give examples, not just of composers (Copland and Sibelius spring to mind about whom it might be said) but what it is in their music, and how that relates to their national identity?

Thanks


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Edward Elgar, not RVW, is considered the modern father of the English school of music. His patriotic themes reverberated in the nation during the Edwardian era. RVW is more the bucolic Englishman of lily fields and walks in meadows thought he wrote plenty of dramatic music (Symphonies 4 and 6, Job, etc.) But Elgar's Symphony No. 1 set the stage for modern English music in the 20th century.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Ives' entire pile of contradictions in his biography and mindset - a pure populist who despised "pretty" music, an artist who was a highly successful businessman, and someone who may or may not have faked large parts of their biography and "mythology"- always struck me as very specifically American.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

larold said:


> Edward Elgar, not RVW, is considered the modern father of the English school of music. His patriotic themes reverberated in the nation during the Edwardian era. RVW is more the bucolic Englishman of lily fields and walks in meadows thought he wrote plenty of dramatic music (Symphonies 4 and 6, Job, etc.) But Elgar's Symphony No. 1 set the stage for modern English music in the 20th century.


Well, thanks for that. It was Elgar I had in mind when I said that more than one composer might lay claim (or rather, claim might be made on his behalf) to be the 'quintessentially English' composer.

But you don't quite address any of the questions I asked. What is it about Elgar's Symphony No. 1 that marks it out as 'English'? And what is 'English', musically speaking?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

fbjim said:


> Ives' entire pile of contradictions in his biography and mindset - a pure populist who despised "pretty" music, an artist who was a highly successful businessman, and someone who may or may not have faked large parts of their biography and "mythology"- always struck me as very specifically American.


Thanks. So what is it about Ives' music that is 'American'?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

There's something in the strings that is English to me in 20th century English composers in orchestral music. A bit of chromaticism, sort of darkish colours, with more emphasis on middle register. In American music, there's something in the brass, and larger jumps in intervals in melodies. Just off-hand impressions without really looking in detail (which I probably couldn't substantiate anyway if I did).


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> There's something in the strings that is English to me in 20th century English composers in orchestral music. A bit of chromaticism, sort of darkish colours, with more emphasis on middle register. In American music, there's something in the brass, and larger jumps in intervals in melodies. Just off-hand impressions without really looking in detail (which I probably couldn't substantiate anyway if I did).


Well bravo for trying.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Quintessential American composers:

Gershwin - jazz, African American folk elements, popular song
Copland - prairie/cowboy/western references
Bernstein - popular/classical/Broadway genre-mixing
Cage - iconoclastic, individualistic, outlier personality/style, rejection of tradition


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

As much as I like the Elgar symphonies, there is nothing specifically English about them. If you didn't know anything about them there is nothing that says to the listener "this was written by an Englishman". The same could be said of his compatriots Parry and Stanford; they follow the German recipes too closely.

But Vaughan Williams is another matter. Listen to the London Symphony and it's completely obvious where the composer was from. Same for the 3rd and 6th. But not the 7th.

When you've listened to and played a vast amount of music and know something about the culture of the composers it becomes easier to identify the nationality. It shows up in the rhythms (like the Scottish snap), use of scales and modes, phrase patterns. And yes, as stated, the use of folk tunes is a quick giveaway. As music became more cosmopolitan and more artsy a lot of those characteristics are gone, evened out if you will. A serial symphony by a French composer sounds like one from a German. There's nothing to distinguish them. But go back 100 years when new works were abundant and the nationalities of composer like Bartok, Alfven, Shostakovich, Copland, Milhaud, Chavez and others were readily identifiable.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Forster said:


> Thanks. So what is it about Ives' music that is 'American'?


He uses American tunes in his works.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

ORigel said:


> He uses American tunes in his works.


For example...?


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

Forster said:


> For example...?


From Ives's second symphony we find 
-Camptown Races
-Bringing in the Shieves
-Long Long Ago 
-Turkey in the Straw
-America the Beautiful
-Columbia the Gem of the Ocean.

In his New England Holidays symphony you may also hear Yankee Doodle and Battlecry of Freedom, among others. There are countless other examples in Ives's music.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

It's not just that Ives uses American hymns and folk songs in his works. European composers were raiding the wealth of folk songs which were incorporated into their works as well. But the way that Ives does it is like no one in Europe ever did, with snippets going this way and that way off key in bits and pieces in ear-splitting chaos as with the second movement to the wonderful _Symphony #4_ that Harold Schonberg declared to be the greatest symphony ever composed by an American. As wonderful as Copland is as a composer, and as "American" as he is when he incorporates jazz (_Piano Concerto #1_), cowboy music (_Billy the Kid_ and _Rodeo_), and hymns (_Old American Songs_, _Appalachian Spring_); Copland aesthetic is closer to Europe than Ives is because Copland (educated in Paris by Nadia Boulanger) approaches the American folk element more as a European composer would with everything all smooth and finished. Ives by contrast is rough and unfinished, bold, independent, making a break with Europe. Ives didn't approach music as a European might. Ives didn't see the beautiful and well-rounded sounds of, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, as part of his musical vision. Ives loved the sound of amateur musicians. He loved high school band concerts, marching bands, people at a New England Congregational church singing _Rock of Ages_ lustily and off-key.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> As much as I like the Elgar symphonies, there is nothing specifically English about them. If you didn't know anything about them there is nothing that says to the listener "this was written by an Englishman". The same could be said of his compatriots Parry and Stanford; they follow the German recipes too closely.


Whatabout


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

larold said:


> Edward Elgar, not RVW, is considered the modern father of the English school of music. His patriotic themes reverberated in the nation during the Edwardian era. RVW is more the bucolic Englishman of lily fields and walks in meadows thought he wrote plenty of dramatic music (Symphonies 4 and 6, Job, etc.) But Elgar's Symphony No. 1 set the stage for modern English music in the 20th century.


I think Hubert Parry has a better claim than Elgar.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Phil loves classical said:


> There's something in the strings that is English to me in 20th century English composers in orchestral music. A bit of chromaticism, sort of darkish colours, with more emphasis on middle register.


This could be because some, especially RWV were interested in early 17th century viol consort music which is also darkish (compared to later string quartets) and usually in 5 parts (I think?), thus more dense in middle register.

To me, many of the greatest German-Austrian composers are rather "international" (or they became international). But Schubert is quite Austrian, both in his closeness to some folk/popular music of the time and the melancholy. And Schumann can stand for a peculiar kind of German romanticism. Also Hindemith, very diligent and industrious but often a bit boring


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

IMHO Vaughan Williams is more accurately regarded and described as British rather than English. His ancestry was as much Welsh as English, something which the very Welsh name "Vaughan Williams" makes clear.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Alfacharger said:


> I think Hubert Parry has a better claim than Elgar.


Debatable. Parry's input will have been considerable in the academic sphere but it's doubtful that his compositions had anywhere near the same degree of influence as Elgar's did.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Aside from a use of national or regional folk tunes and rhythms what else might lead to a composer being seen as writing nationalistic music. All that remains perhaps are associations we make in our minds and styles that are influenced by the culture than the composer lived within. As the world gets smaller nationalism in music seems to be disappearing.

Is Elgar's serious music particularly "English"? Well, it is the product of a place _and _time, a culture. But is that nationalistic? Doesn't most music reflect its time and and the culture it grew out of and served? How about Russian music? We feel the great Russians of the 19th century to be very Russian but, again, how much of that is just an association we make in our minds? Perhaps Tchaikovsky, Rimsky and the others defined Russianness for us rather than the other way around. Musicologists find much that is "Russian" in Stravinsky but as far as I can tell this is down to his occasional use of folk and traditional rhythms and tunes or alluding to sounds - particularly of the Orthodox church - that he would have grown up with. In his early music we can also hear the voice of his teacher - Rimsky-Korsakov - and I suppose it is the influence of teachers that also leads us to a feeling that there are national styles.

Dvorak is an interesting case. His music was very distinctively different - Czech? - until, in his maturity, he arrived at a more mainstream (Brahmsian in his case) language. Wasn't that a matter of his world growing as he became more widely known and played? He did continue to use folk music in his music, though.

I also wonder if having a national flavour is necessarily a good thing. Britten might have been the most international of English composers - even though he sometimes drew on Purcell and Dowland - and was also, surely, the greatest among them.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Enthusiast said:


> Dvorak is an interesting case.


He is indeed. If you only know the From the New World Symphony, you'd think he was American - after all, it just _sounds _so American, doesn't it?

Except when the Largo conjures up images of cobbled streets in a Dorset village and the smell of the fresh brown bread, so very English!

I may be jesting, but it helps establish my scepticism about the whole idea of anybody being "quintessentially [nationality]" except to the extent they actually use the distinctive music of their native land. Dvorak says he was influenced by, but did not use any of the Native American tunes he'd encountered (according to Wiki).


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_He uses American tunes in his works. For example...?_

the Third Symphony makes use of several American church hymns, among other things.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Bach, Brahms, and Bruch feel like a quintessential German composers to me. There must be a sort of Germanic complexity to the music, and maybe not too many conventional tunes like the Italians or French liked to do.

Wagner and Beethoven feel more like "universal" composers to me, and Mendelssohn too was more cosmopolitan than German.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Elgar popularized several traditional English tunes in his works. Among them are "Soldiers Of the Queen." 

He wrote the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 that virtually everyone in the English-speaking world marches to at high school graduation.

King Henry's Progress and Repudiation from Falstaff is full of English flavor.

His Symphony No. 1 encapsulates the tune "Land Of Hope and Glory," perhaps the most English tune there is.

He invented the nobilmente thematic devices used in much of his music that was the trademark of the 20th century English school. 

Like composers such as Ives and Copland in USA, Bartok in Hungary and Smetana in Bohemia (part of an empire in his day,) RVW incorporated native folk music in such compositions as Greensleeves, In the Fen Country and Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1.

Though much ballyhooed as such I don't find his "London" symphony any more about that city than any of Respighi's Pines of Rome, Ibert's Suite Symphonie Paris or even Varese's Ameriques to describe New York City. I think all that music could be applied to any great city.

I think Benjamin Britten's music more English than RVW and would say the German-born Londoner Georg Frideric Handel, whose "God Save The King"" from Zadok the Priest, Royal Fireworks Music and Water Music are all more British than the average Vaughan Williams composition.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Forster said:


> He is indeed. If you only know the From the New World Symphony, you'd think he was American - after all, it just _sounds _so American, doesn't it?
> 
> Except when the Largo conjures up images of cobbled streets in a Dorset village and the smell of the fresh brown bread, so very English!
> 
> I may be jesting, but it helps establish my scepticism about the whole idea of anybody being "quintessentially [nationality]" except to the extent they actually use the distinctive music of their native land. Dvorak says he was influenced by, but did not use any of the Native American tunes he'd encountered (according to Wiki).


Whether or not Dvorak was influenced by native or African-American music when he composed _New World_, he could have not been anything but a Czech composer because that was who he was. Americans have tried to claim Dvorak as a seminal force in the "American school", but the language he spoke was straight out of European Romanticism. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, and Hindemith all became American citizens but no one ever thinks of them as "American" composers because they were too much ingrained in their European culture and style. Hindemith comes close to producing a work of "Americana" with his wonderful _When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd_ but that is the exception.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Russia: Mussorgsky
France: Debussy or Rameau
US: Gershwin or Copland
Germany: Brahms 
Italy: Verdi or Vivaldi
Britain: Britten


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## Nedeslusire (Jul 27, 2021)

A quintessential Romanian composer - Ciprian Porumbescu (1853 - 1883)


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> But Vaughan Williams is another matter. Listen to the London Symphony and it's completely obvious where the composer was from. Same for the 3rd and 6th. But not the 7th.
> 
> When you've listened to and played a vast amount of music and know something about the culture of the composers it becomes easier to identify the nationality. It shows up in the rhythms (like the Scottish snap), use of scales and modes, phrase patterns.


When you say it's completely obvious - can you elaborate? And as for the modes, I'd wondered that too, but is that just because the modes in folk songs are readily identifiable?



Coach G said:


> with snippets going this way and that way off key in bits and pieces in ear-splitting chaos [...]. Ives by contrast is rough and unfinished, bold, independent, making a break with Europe. Ives didn't approach music as a European might. Ives didn't see the beautiful and well-rounded sounds of, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, as part of his musical vision. Ives loved the sound of amateur musicians. He loved high school band concerts, marching bands, people at a New England Congregational church singing _Rock of Ages_ lustily and off-key.


Yes, I get that. But does that make his music 'American' or just 'Ives'?



Kreisler jr said:


> To me, many of the greatest German-Austrian composers are rather "international" (or they became international). But Schubert is quite Austrian, both in his closeness to some folk/popular music of the time and the melancholy. And Schumann can stand for a peculiar kind of German romanticism. Also Hindemith, very diligent and industrious but often a bit boring


I can't comment on Schubert or Schumann as I'm not very familiar with their work. But I'm interested in the idea of 'international'. Can you explain this further?



VoiceFromTheEther said:


> Germanic complexity


Interesting idea - I get that '_Germanic _complexity' must be German (!) but is complexity uniquely Germanic?



larold said:


> Elgar popularized several traditional English tunes in his works. Among them are "Soldiers Of the Queen."
> 
> He wrote the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 that virtually everyone in the English-speaking world marches to at high school graduation.
> 
> ...


I can't argue with a list of compositions that are written by, or strongly associated with British composers, but if you take Land of Hope and Glory, is it only 'English' because of its external associations with the country, not because of something intrinsic to the music?

Elgar 'invented' nobilmente - the term, yes, but the device itself? Wasn't there already a comparable Italian word for the same thing?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Coach G said:


> Whether or not Dvorak was influenced by native or African-American music when he composed _New World_, he could have not been anything but a Czech composer because that was who he was.


So, could a Czech compose something American? Could an American compose something British? Or are you saying that they could only ever compose within their own, ingrained national idiom?

I've often thought that Sibelius's symphonies - especially the 7th - contains a small figure that sounds to me very Spanish. Anyone else notice it?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Forster said:


> So, could a Czech compose something American? Could an American compose something British? Or are you saying that they could only ever compose within their own, ingrained national idiom?
> 
> I've often thought that Sibelius's symphonies - especially the 7th - contains a small figure that sounds to me very Spanish. Anyone else notice it?


I think that a composer can only produce a work that is a part of his or her experience and culture. Mahler incorporated Chinese elements into his wonderful _Das Lied von Der Erde_, which uses texts that are German translations of Chinese poetry, but this doesn't make _Das Lied von der Erde_ any more "Chinese" than the Chinese food that we eat here in America which is more or less Polynesian or Occidental food that is served at your average Chinese-American restaurant (though, if you're willing to travel to a big city such as Boston, New York, or San Francisco, you may find something closer to authentic Chinese food within the "Chinatown" section therein).

In this sense, Mahler was too much a product of his Austro-German culture, and the Viennese tradition; and Leonard Bernstein suggested that a strain of Jewish sensibility is also never far from Mahler's musical vision. While Mahler might have been taken and inspired by Li Po and Tu Fu (in translation, of course), his understanding of the Chinese culture could only be taken as superficial at best.

Tchaikovsky paid tribute to Italy; Rimksy-Korsakov to Spain, and Aaron Copland to Mexico in such wonderful and flavor-filled works as _Cappriccio Italien_, _Cappiricio Espanol_, and _El Salon Mexico_ respectively; each with the idea that it reflected the musical landscape of those sunny regions from the eyes of a tourist.

Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov couldn't be anything but thoroughly Russian even if they tried because that was who they were. As much as the Mighty Five, the Balakirev group, criticized Tchaikovsky for being too "cosmopolitan", and as much as Tchaikovsky admired Mozart, Tchaikovsky's feeling of sad Russian soulfulness is always infused into everything he touches, and in some ways, Tchaikovsky is even more "Russian" than the Mighty Five, because while the Mighty Five _tried_ to Russian, Tchaikovsky does it _without_ trying.

So ,no, in most cases a composer can't really compose something of another culture without making it sound really superficial.

As for Sibelius, as a composer and a "nationalistic" composer, Sibelius strikes me as something of an anomaly in that unlike other nationalistic composers such as Grieg (Norway), Falla (Spain), Villa-Lobos (Brazil), Dvorak, Smetana (Czech), etc; Sibelius, from what I understand hardly ever falls back on Finnish folk music. Sibelius to me, is cosmopolitan, drawing a bit from Beethoven's sense of heroism, as well as from Tchaikovsky's sense of drama, melody and sweeping lushness, in the grand Late-Romantic fashion. In this sense, Sibelius to me is one of the most original composers. His sound is unmistakable and seems to capture images of the icy northern latitudes with much sincerity and authenticity; the mighty pines, the cool lakes, powerful mountains, the midnight sun, etc. (or do I just _think_ that from the cover art featured on my Sibelius records?). Sibelius brings a sense of national pride to Finland, a small country that was bullied by Russia and is considered to be "Scandinavian" even though the Finnish language is unique and is not related to any Scandinavian or Germanic languages; and nor is Finnish related to the dominating Slavic, Latin, or Greek language groups of Europe. Even so, Sibelius brings a certain pride and love to his homeland, and I don't think anyone besides Sibelius could have composed _Finlandia_ which seems to perfectly capture the essence of the Finnish landscape.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

@Forster. The "national styles" meant something rather different in the 17th and 18th century than in the mid-late 19th century. The main baroque "styles" or "tastes" were Italian and French and they were already "united" by Couperin. There was a German tradition of (Lutheran) church music and a South german/Austrian one in the Catholic areas but they didn't really concern instrumental music or opera. Composers like Bach and Telemann fused all of them together but they didn't sound "Germanic", Handel sounded perfectly Italian in his youth and later on his particular fusion came to be an exemplar for British composers.

Mozart travelled all of Europe as a child, he took influences from Italy and France, it is mostly better described as "European" than as "Austrian". (Some bits in the Magic Flute are more local, taken from Viennese comedy but Don Giovanni or Figaro are European.) I'd say the same goes for Haydn and Beethoven. Even Mendelssohn was more popular in Britain than Germany and Weber who wrote Freischuetz that was taken to define German romantic opera wrote "Oberon" for London (and this is a strange revue like piece that apparently fit well with some tastes back then but has become almost impossible to stage nowadays).


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Kreisler jr said:


> ...
> Mozart travelled all of Europe as a child, he took influences from Italy and France, it is mostly better described as "European" than as "Austrian". (Some bits in the Magic Flute are more local, taken from Viennese comedy but Don Giovanni or Figaro are European.) I'd say the same goes for Haydn and Beethoven. Even Mendelssohn was more popular in Britain than Germany and Weber who wrote Freischuetz that was taken to define German romantic opera wrote "Oberon" for London (and this is a strange revue like piece that apparently fit well with some tastes back then but has become almost impossible to stage nowadays).


I think that you describe it well when you say that there is a "European style". I read in more than a few places that there was a group of late 19th century American composers that included Edward MacDowall, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, Horatio Parker, and some others who were trying to establish an "American" school (_The Boston Classicists_). I'm pretty sure that they all studied in Europe and were composing in a style that was straight out of European Romanticism. Though they demonstrated talent, and occasionally managed a work that was pleasant and entertaining, most of it is unmemorable pale reflections of Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak (though Edward MacDowall's delicate and pretty piano miniatures ,_To a Wild Rose_ and _To a Water Lilly_, sometimes make their way into piano recitals). Charles Ives, who (I think) studied under Horatio Parker, would come to break from this mold and compose in way that completely different from Europe and Aaron Copland would later develop a popular style that seemed to capture the natural beauty of the American rural landscape. The international serial movement that started in America post-WW2 included some American composers such as Babbitt and Sessions, with even Piston and Copland jumping on the serial bandwagon late in their careers, as well as Elliott Carter who, if not strictly 12-tone, was highly complex and influenced by this new approach to music. It all seemed to be part and parcel of a new musical language that would strip music of nationalistic and cultural influences; even though the grandfather of serial music, Arnold Schoenberg, saw it as the next logical step in the German tradition stemming from synthesizing Brahms' fine German craftsmanship with Wagner's passion.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Coach G said:


> I think that a composer can only produce a work that is a part of his or her experience and culture. Mahler incorporated Chinese elements into his wonderful _Das Lied von Der Erde_, which uses texts that are German translations of Chinese poetry, but this doesn't make _Das Lied von der Erde_ any more "Chinese" than the Chinese food that we eat here in America which is more or less Polynesian or Occidental food that is served at your average Chinese-American restaurant (though, if you're willing to travel to a big city such as Boston, New York, or San Francisco, you may find something closer to authentic Chinese food within the "Chinatown" section therein).
> 
> In this sense, Mahler was too much a product of his Austro-German culture, and the Viennese tradition; and Leonard Bernstein suggested that a strain of Jewish sensibility is also never far from Mahler's musical vision. While Mahler might have been taken and inspired by Li Po and Tu Fu (in translation, of course), his understanding of the Chinese culture could only be taken as superficial at best.
> 
> ...


There's much of interest in your post, as you make a case for the failure of,say, a non-Russian to write 'Russian' music. Thanks.

The only trouble is that you don't make the case for something called Russian music to be distinctly identifiable. (See the part I've emboldened). What does 'Russian' music sound like? What do Russian composers write that couldn't have been written by a German/Austrian or French of the same period?

On your last part about Sibelius, he has a head start of course. No other composer from Finland's classical history comes near him, and modern Finnish composers are unlikely to be able to claim to be the 'quintessential' Finn.



Kreisler jr said:


> @Forster. The "national styles" meant something rather different in the 17th and 18th century than in the mid-late 19th century. The main baroque "styles" or "tastes" were Italian and French and they were already "united" by Couperin. There was a German tradition of (Lutheran) church music and a South german/Austrian one in the Catholic areas but they didn't really concern instrumental music or opera. Composers like Bach and Telemann fused all of them together but they didn't sound "Germanic", Handel sounded perfectly Italian in his youth and later on his particular fusion came to be an exemplar for British composers.
> 
> Mozart travelled all of Europe as a child, he took influences from Italy and France, it is mostly better described as "European" than as "Austrian". (Some bits in the Magic Flute are more local, taken from Viennese comedy but Don Giovanni or Figaro are European.) I'd say the same goes for Haydn and Beethoven. Even Mendelssohn was more popular in Britain than Germany and Weber who wrote Freischuetz that was taken to define German romantic opera wrote "Oberon" for London (and this is a strange revue like piece that apparently fit well with some tastes back then but has become almost impossible to stage nowadays).


Ys, but what _is _the 'Italian' or 'Germanic' sound?



Coach G said:


> I think that you describe it well when you say that there is a "European style". I read in more than a few places that there was a group of late 19th century American composers that included Edward MacDowall, Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, Horatio Parker, and some others who were trying to establish an "American" school (_The Boston Classicists_). I'm pretty sure that they all studied in Europe and were composing in a style that was straight out of European Romanticism. Though they demonstrated talent, and occasionally managed a work that was pleasant and entertaining, most of it is unmemorable pale reflections of Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak (though Edward MacDowall's delicate and pretty piano miniatures ,_To a Wild Rose_ and _To a Water Lilly_, sometimes make their way into piano recitals). Charles Ives, who (I think) studied under Horatio Parker, would come to break from this mold and compose in way that completely different from Europe and Aaron Copland would later develop a popular style that seemed to capture the natural beauty of the American rural landscape. The international serial movement that started in America post-WW2 included some American composers such as Babbitt and Sessions, with even Piston and Copland jumping on the serial bandwagon late in their careers, as well as Elliott Carter who, if not strictly 12-tone, was highly complex and influenced by this new approach to music. *It all seemed to be part and parcel of a new musical language that would strip music of nationalistic and cultural influences; even though the grandfather of serial music, Arnold Schoenberg, saw it as the next logical step in the German tradition* stemming from synthesizing Brahms' fine German craftsmanship with Wagner's passion.


Yes. So Schoenberg was, in fact, the quintessential German composer, yes? The idea is, of course, absurd, but it perfectly illustrates another aspect of the problem of what might be called 'nationalityness': that as classical music has evolved from the 17th C to the 21st, national characteristics in music have changed, even if it can be shown that national characteristics have remained unchanged.

I get that music historians can trace lines of development of music composed by a tradition or a school or a sensibility that might be called German or Italian - but that is something different than the idea of 'English' music, that is, music that somehow represents or embodies 'Englishness'.

Or am I totally misunderstanding what was meant by the writer I quoted in my OP?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Whatabout


As a kid I was knocked out by *Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Holst*. Liked Beethoven a lot. Like the stuff on the *2001* and *Fantasia* soundtracks

We had a *Sibelius* album (with this on it) that I despised. Gawd, I hated it. Boring, dull.

50 years later I rather enjoy this work.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Cage - iconoclastic, individualistic, outlier personality/style, rejection of tradition


Are you saying that Americans are uniquely "iconoclastic [etc]"?



hammeredklavier said:


> Whatabout [video of music by Delius]


Well, yes...whatabout it?



pianozach said:


> As a kid I was knocked out by *Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Holst*. Liked Beethoven a lot. Like the stuff on the *2001* and *Fantasia* soundtracks
> 
> We had a *Sibelius* album (with this on it) that I despised. Gawd, I hated it. Boring, dull.
> 
> 50 years later I rather enjoy this work.


Are you saying that it is quintessentially English, and if so, what makes it so?



Nedeslusire said:


> A quintessential Romanian composer - Ciprian Porumbescu (1853 - 1883)


Thanks for the example. What is it about this music that makes it Romanian?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Mozart travelled all of Europe as a child, he took influences from Italy and France, it is mostly better described as "European" than as "Austrian". (Some bits in the Magic Flute are more local, taken from Viennese comedy but Don Giovanni or Figaro are European.) I'd say the same goes for Haydn and Beethoven.


I don't see how Mozart is "Austrian" rather than "Salzburgian", "Bavarian" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_nationality. 
"For administrative purposes, the Holy Roman Empire was divided into "circles". The Austrian Circle included the original Archduchy of Austria, as well as a number of other areas now part of modern Austria. Salzburg was not included; it was part of the Bavarian Circle. In sum, "Austria" in Mozart's time could mean (in increasing order of size), the Archduchy of Austria, the Austrian Circle, and the Habsburg-ruled lands. None of these included Salzburg."
Beethoven and Brahms spent a greater portion of their lifetime in "Austria" than Mozart did. (The idea of "Austrian citizenship" didn't exist in Mozart's time anyway)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Forster said:


> Ys, but what _is _the 'Italian' or 'Germanic' sound?


For example, I'm convinced that this sound is "Salzburgian"; consisting of passages of *syncopated* and *arpeggiated* figurations in *vocal music*, because I don't find much of it in composers of different origin of this period. (There's some of their use in post-Baroque music such as the Ecce enim from J.A. Hasse's Miserere in D minor, but it is not quite done in the same way). I wish I could list more examples from J.E. Eberlin and A.C. Adlgasser, but much of their music hasn't been recorded yet:

J.E. Eberlin (1702-1762) Missa in C [ 3:30 ]
M. Haydn Requiem in C minor (1771) [ 0:55 ]
M. Haydn Te deum in C (1786) [ 0:58 ]
M. Haydn Missa in C, sancti Gotthardi (1792) [ 4:14 ]
W.A. Mozart Missa brevis K.275 in B flat (1772) [ 2:19 ]
W.A. Mozart Missa brevis K.194 in D (1774) [ 11:06 ]
W.A. Mozart Requiem in D minor (1791) [ 0:50 , 28:27 ]


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Forster said:


> Ys, but what _is _the 'Italian' or 'Germanic' sound?


"On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music." 
-an excerpt from 'Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz' (Benjamin Pearl)


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Forster said:


> There's much of interest in your post, as you make a case for the failure of,say, a non-Russian to write 'Russian' music. Thanks.
> 
> The only trouble is that you don't make the case for something called Russian music to be distinctly identifiable. (See the part I've emboldened). What does 'Russian' music sound like? What do Russian composers write that couldn't have been written by a German/Austrian or French of the same period?
> 
> ...


It's a bit hard to explain what makes a composer "sound" Russian, or German, Italian, American, etc. My knowledge of the inner workings of music is rather limited. I just listen, read liner notes, and have learned from a handful of books such as Harold Schonberg's _Lives of the Great Composers_ and so forth. I did study the slide trombone for a few years, took lessons, never really learned how to sight read very well, but was able to play a little bit. Anyway, I'm sure that there are certain things that are characteristic of the folk music of a given region that can be easily showcased in the work of talented enough composer. Mahler is able to allude to Chinese elements in _Das Lied Von Der Erde_; the German composer, Max Bruch does this in his _Scottish Fantasy_ (featuring the beautiful "Johnny" movement), and he also does this with the moving _Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra_. The _Hebraic Rhapsody_ is so Jewish-sounding that people are often surprised to learn that Bruch (middle name "Christian") was not Jewish! The examples go on and on.

I think, though, and with a few exceptions (maybe Bruch's _Hebraic Rhapsody_); that there is a feeling of authentic, sincere, and even unconscious, ethnic and national culture that carries through in the composer's musical vision. I can't exactly explain why Tchaikovsky's music sounds "Russian" but I know that no one but a Russian could have composed Tchaikovsky's music. I know that no one but an Italian could have composed like Rossini. I know that no one but a German could have composed like Brahms. And no one but an American could have composed music like Ives or Copland. I imagine that your next question is going to be "Yeah, but what _exactly_ makes it Russian, Italian, German, or American?"

To that question, I will not be able to give you the definitive and straight answer to which you may be looking for. I can only say how the music makes me feel, with full disclosure that my intuitions and opinions could even be wrong.

You seem to be a fairly erudite and prolific music enthusiast, so I'm sure that in a blindfold test if I were to play some music that you've never heard before, you could place with some level of accuracy the region to which the music belongs. You might say; well, it sounds like it could be Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff; very "Russian"; even if you couldn't say "why".


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## JohnP (May 27, 2014)

For "Britishness" Arnold Bax holds a notable place. (Note the distinction between "British" and "English.") Most of Bax's music reflects his fascination for things Celtic. Witness the symphonies, especially nos. 1-3 (northern Celtic, Scottish), The Garden of Fand (based on Irish Legend), Tintagel (Cornish). Bax did write English music, but most of his music is laden with a Irish or Scottish flavors that I can hear but not describe. It's something in the harmonies, probably in modalities; but I don't know theory. For more, see Bantock's Celtic and Hebridean Symphonies.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> For example, I'm convinced that this sound is "Salzburgian"; consisting of passages of *syncopated* and *arpeggiated* figures in *vocal music*, (found also in secular vocal music such as Mozart K.196) because I don't find much of it in composers of different origin during this period.


I'll listen to the examples you've posted and come back to you.



hammeredklavier said:


> "On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music."
> -an excerpt from 'Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz' (Benjamin Pearl)


What we have here is what seems to be fashion and style, rather than something intrinsic in the music. So "Italian opera" was a recognisable style, but could be written by non-Italians (at least according to Wiki - I'm far from expert in opera). Since it also changed and developed over time, it would be difficult to point to an Italian composer (Verdi? Puccini?) and label them as creating something "quintessentially Italian" because what was Italian - at least in what was expected of Italian opera - did not stand still.



Coach G said:


> It's a bit hard to explain what makes a composer "sound" Russian, or German, Italian, American, etc. My knowledge of the inner workings of music is rather limited.


Exactly so - and my knowledge is similarly slim. It is hard to explain, but it seems to be very easy to declare.



Coach G said:


> I think, though, and with a few exceptions (maybe Bruch's _Hebraic Rhapsody_); that there is a feeling of authentic, sincere, and even unconscious, ethnic and national culture that carries through in the composer's musical vision. I can't exactly explain why Tchaikovsky's music sounds "Russian" but I know that no one but a Russian could have composed Tchaikovsky's music.


Alternatively, Tchaikovsky's music just sounds as if couldn't have been composed by anyone other than Tchaikovsky.

BTW, I'm glad we're not stuck on RVW. It was not my intention to make any claim for his being the quintessential English composer. It was just that listening to his Fantasia and reading about it prompted me to wonder if the claims made about him could possibly be true; and not only true for him, but for any other contender and for any other nationaility.



Coach G said:


> You seem to be a fairly erudite and prolific music enthusiast, so I'm sure that in a blindfold test if I were to play some music that you've never heard before, you could place with some level of accuracy the region to which the music belongs. You might say; well, it sounds like it could be Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff; very "Russian"; even if you couldn't say "why".


Well I appreciate the compliment, but I'd be lying if I claimed to be prolific. I'm an amateur enthusiast for sure, but more of a magpie in my analysis: I scavenge the shiny bits off the surface and piece them together to try and make an impression :lol:

I think part of our difficulty is that we already know so much 'before the fact'. That is, we already know what 'Russian' music sounds like, because we've so many examples of music by Russian composers that add up to Russian. Even so, Tchaikovsky does not sound like Shostakovich, so it's not really possible to label one of those two as 'quintessentially Russian'. As you say, a blind test using music we don't know might help, and there are members here who would excel at such a challenge. Even so, we might identify a piece and say that it must be by [name] but I doubt it would be first and foremost because of any discernible nationalistic features. More likely we'd identify the period and the style, and then narrow it down to the most likely composers whose work we were familiar with.



JohnP said:


> For "Britishness" Arnold Bax holds a notable place. (Note the distinction between "British" and "English.") Most of Bax's music reflects his fascination for things Celtic. Witness the symphonies, especially nos. 1-3 (northern Celtic, Scottish), The Garden of Fand (based on Irish Legend), Tintagel (Cornish). Bax did write English music, but most of his music is laden with a Irish or Scottish flavors that I can hear but not describe. It's something in the harmonies, probably in modalities; but I don't know theory. For more, see Bantock's Celtic and Hebridean Symphonies.


Yes, perhaps all that is meant is that where music is laden with, as you say, folk flavours, and where a composer writes a lot of such music, they might be regarded as quintessential.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Forster said:


> Are you saying that Americans are uniquely "iconoclastic [etc]"?
> 
> Well, yes...whatabout it?
> 
> ...


I don't know if there's really anything quintessentially "English" about *Delius*, or any other English composers for that matter, other than when compared to concurrent works by composers from other countries, English works seem rather bland, like the food. Germany has Stürm und Drang, Italy had opera, France can claim ballet, the Russians seemed to corner rousing melodies and lush orchestrations.

But I think that *Arthur Sullivan* might be the most quintessential English composer . . . The operettas with Gilbert, and his Grand Opera Ivanhoe, and the smattering of other oddball compositions are pleasant and jolly and "decent", never boat-rocking. Pleasant.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Rushton suggests that "Berlioz's way is neither architectural nor developmental, but illustrative". He judges this to be part of a continuing French musical aesthetic, favouring a "decorative" - rather than the German "architectural" - approach to composition. Abstraction and discursiveness are alien to this tradition, and in operas, and to a large extent in orchestral music, there is little continuous development; instead self-contained numbers or sections are preferred."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz#Works

"Tchaikovsky struggled with sonata form. Its principle of organic growth through the interplay of musical themes was alien to Russian practice. The traditional argument that Tchaikovsky seemed unable to develop themes in this manner fails to consider this point; it also discounts the possibility that Tchaikovsky might have intended the development passages in his large-scale works to act as "enforced hiatuses" to build tension, rather than grow organically as smoothly progressive musical arguments.
According to Brown and musicologists Hans Keller and Daniel Zhitomirsky, Tchaikovsky found his solution to large-scale structure while composing the Fourth Symphony. He essentially sidestepped thematic interaction and kept sonata form only as an "outline", as Zhitomirsky phrases it. Within this outline, the focus centered on periodic alternation and juxtaposition. Tchaikovsky placed blocks of dissimilar tonal and thematic material alongside one another, with what Keller calls "new and violent contrasts" between musical themes, keys, and harmonies. This process, according to Brown and Keller, builds momentum and adds intense drama. While the result, Warrack charges, is still "an ingenious episodic treatment of two tunes rather than a symphonic development of them" in the Germanic sense, Brown counters that it took the listener of the period "through a succession of often highly charged sections which added up to a radically new kind of symphonic experience" (italics Brown), one that functioned not on the basis of summation, as Austro-German symphonies did, but on one of accumulation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky#Structure


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

pianozach said:


> I don't know if there's really anything quintessentially "English" about *Delius*, or any other English composers for that matter,


So, why did you bring Delius up?



hammeredklavier said:


> "Rushton suggests that "Berlioz's way is neither architectural nor developmental, but illustrative". He judges this to be part of a continuing French musical aesthetic, favouring a "decorative" - rather than the German "architectural" - approach to composition. Abstraction and discursiveness are alien to this tradition, and in operas, and to a large extent in orchestral music, there is little continuous development; instead self-contained numbers or sections are preferred."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz#Works
> 
> "Tchaikovsky struggled with sonata form. Its principle of organic growth through the interplay of musical themes was alien to Russian practice. The traditional argument that Tchaikovsky seemed unable to develop themes in this manner fails to consider this point; it also discounts the possibility that Tchaikovsky might have intended the development passages in his large-scale works to act as "enforced hiatuses" to build tension, rather than grow organically as smoothly progressive musical arguments.
> ...


I'm not sure that either of these quotes enlighten. They illustrate that it's possible for academics to describe a French and a German and a Russian 'style' of composition, but none of this tends towards dealing with the idea that one can find a quintessential composer from that country.

It's all very well citing the academics, but without your own comment, I'm not sure what _you _are saying.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I don't see how Mozart is "Austrian" rather than "Salzburgian", "Bavarian" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_nationality.
> "For administrative purposes, the Holy Roman Empire was divided into "circles". The Austrian Circle included the original Archduchy of Austria, as well as a number of other areas now part of modern Austria. Salzburg was not included; it was part of the Bavarian Circle. In sum, "Austria" in Mozart's time could mean (in increasing order of size), the Archduchy of Austria, the Austrian Circle, and the Habsburg-ruled lands. None of these included Salzburg."
> Beethoven and Brahms spent a greater portion of their lifetime in "Austria" than Mozart did. (The idea of "Austrian citizenship" didn't exist in Mozart's time anyway)


You are confusing political or administrative units with culture, besides, Mozart spent his last 10 years in Vienna which is Austrian.
Northern Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire but it was not "German" or "Austrian" culturally. Bavaria and Salzburg and other catholic South German regions were (and often still are) culturally very similar to Austria, certainly more than to Protestant "northern" Hamburg or Leipzig. In any case, the most important contrast at the time was with Italian music, especially opera. There were many people, including Emperor Joseph II. who wanted German (culturally, thus including Austrian) culture and music to emancipate from Italian dominance, that's why he supported German opera like Mozart's Abduction.

Partly because of the multicultural, federalist, decentralized structure of the HRE, the nationalist categories from the post-napeoleonic 19th century do not apply well to 18th century central Europe.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> You are confusing political or administrative units with culture, besides, Mozart spent his last 10 years in Vienna which is Austrian.


Beethoven and Brahms spent more than half of their lifetime in Austria, so they would be Austrian then.



Kreisler jr said:


> Northern Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire but it was not "German" or "Austrian" culturally. Bavaria and Salzburg and other catholic South German regions were (and often still are) culturally very similar to Austria, certainly more than to Protestant "northern" Hamburg or Leipzig.


Southern Germany was predominantly Catholic, Northern Germany was predominantly Protestant, - without having anything to do with Austria. Being Catholic didn't automatically make any German "Austrian". Salzburg was never officially a part of Austria during Mozart's whole lifetime, and that was before the Congress of Vienna and final fall of Napoleon.
There is a dispute that Beethoven's ancestry was Dutch or Belgian (hence the name "Van"). Aren't those countries culturally similar to North-west Germany? But how does that affect Beethoven's own nationality by birth?



Kreisler jr said:


> In any case, the most important contrast at the time was with Italian music, especially opera. There were many people, including Emperor Joseph II. who wanted German (culturally, thus including Austrian) culture and music to emancipate from Italian dominance, that's why he supported German opera like Mozart's Abduction.


I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with this. How does this make Mozart "Austrian" and not "Salzburgian", "Bavarian", or "German", as you claim?



Kreisler jr said:


> Partly because of the multicultural, federalist, decentralized structure of the HRE, the nationalist categories from the post-napeoleonic 19th century do not apply well to 18th century central Europe.


That's what I'm saying. There's no basis to claim Mozart was more "Austrian" than Beethoven or Brahms. The sole "reason" why some choose to consider Mozart Austrian today is because of an incident that happened in 1815. And it's just silly.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

pianozach said:


> I don't know if there's really anything quintessentially "English" about *Delius*, or any other English composers for that matter, other than when compared to concurrent works by composers from other countries, English works seem rather bland, like the food. Germany has Stürm und Drang, Italy had opera, France can claim ballet, the Russians seemed to corner rousing melodies and lush orchestrations.
> 
> But I think that *Arthur Sullivan* might be the most quintessential English composer . . . The operettas with Gilbert, and his Grand Opera Ivanhoe, and the smattering of other oddball compositions are *pleasant and jolly and "decent", never boat-rocking. Pleasant.*


Delius might sound more French than English?

Interesting that you feel pleasantness, jollity, being decent and never rocking the boat to be English characteristics. I can assure you that there is nothing now or in history that justifies that view. I have been in many countries where we English are seen in those lights - so we might have been good at propaganda.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Northern Italy belonged to the Holy Roman Empire but it was not "German" or "Austrian" culturally. Bavaria and Salzburg and other catholic South German regions were (and often still are) culturally very similar to Austria, certainly more than to Protestant "northern" Hamburg or Leipzig.


There was nothing mentally "Austrian" about Mozart, even by the standards of his time.

"This also explains why Mozart was not a political animal: the state was of even less interest to him than society, with political theories belonging in the realm of abstraction, a world that could not be grasped through the senses and for which he therefore had no time. Here, as elsewhere, there was a vast gulf between him and his father, who was unusually interested in both the theory of practice and politics. [...] 
Elsewhere he writes that the well-to-do are incapable of friendship, that the German princes are all niggards and that he thinks little of the honor of serving the emperor. [...] 
Striking, by contrast, are the frequent professions of Germanness that we have already encountered and that we shall encounter on many further occasions in the course of the following pages. In this, Mozart was markedly different from both Haydn and Beethoven. That these were not merely occasional outbursts is clear from their sheer number. Nor was this the egoistical patriotism of his father, a sentiment born of hatred and envy of the Italians, but the increasingly clear awareness that, thanks to the actions of Frederick the Great, intellectual forces were beginning to stir in Germany that he recognized as more closely related to his own view of the world than the spirit that blew in from abroad. As a result, he was not a patriot in the modern, middle-class sense of the term and was probably something more than this: he was pleased to have discovered new wellsprings of artistic strength on German soil and insisted on their exploitation in order to increase Germany's might and prestige. Even today, we may reckon this to his credit."
< W.A. Mozart | Hermann Abert | P. 736~737 >


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

If you had read what I wrote, I never claimed that there was anything Austrian about Mozart's music (although of course the culture he lived in could be so described, it was just that it was not distinguished from Catholic South German, and there was no particular musical style associated with it like with "French" in the Baroque period). _Quite on the contrary, I literally wrote that Mozart's music should NOT be called Austrian, but maybe "European"_ because of the Italian influences etc.

The main point is not Mozart but that the whole classical period should not be conceived with national styles, like one might claim in the late 19th century. Kraus' symphonies did not become "Swedish" when he moved there from central Germany. There were regional styles like Vienna or Mannheim but they were not that strongly distinguished and had no political connonations at all.
There was a sense of competition between the "Germans" (incl. Austrians and Bohemians) and "Italians" because Italian composers and musicians still dominated some European courts, especially opera.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Forster said:


> So, why did you bring Delius up?


Now you've lost me.

Let's go back to the beginning. The thread title:

*Thread: A Quintessential [English/British/Germanic/American...] Composer?*
•

In the thread was THIS comment



hammeredklavier said:


> Whatabout


. . . To which I replied



pianozach said:


> As a kid I was knocked out by *Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Holst*. Liked Beethoven a lot. Like the stuff on the *2001* and *Fantasia* soundtracks
> 
> We had a *Sibelius* album (with this on it) that I despised. Gawd, I hated it. Boring, dull.
> 
> 50 years later I rather enjoy this work.


. . . to which _*you*_ replied



Forster said:


> Are you saying that it is quintessentially English, and if so, what makes it so?


I replied . . .



pianozach said:


> I don't know if there's really anything quintessentially "English" about *Delius*, or any other English composers for that matter, other than when compared to concurrent works by composers from other countries, English works seem rather bland, like the food. Germany has Stürm und Drang, Italy had opera, France can claim ballet, the Russians seemed to corner rousing melodies and lush orchestrations.
> 
> But I think that *Arthur Sullivan* might be the most quintessential English composer . . . The operettas with Gilbert, and his Grand Opera Ivanhoe, and the smattering of other oddball compositions are pleasant and jolly and "decent", never boat-rocking. Pleasant.


And now you're asking



Forster said:


> So, why did you bring Delius up?


Well, in the larger picture that sort of goes back to your original post, but since *hammeredklavier* posted the *Delius* piece in the first place, I'm not really the one that brought up Delius.

Your original post



Forster said:


> If it is, can you *give examples*, not just of composers (Copland and Sibelius spring to mind about whom it might be said) but what it is in their music, and how that relates to their national identity?
> 
> Thanks


You'd originally riffed on Ralph Vaughan Williams, and ruminated on what about his music made it "English".

Frederick Theodore Albert *Delius* CH originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England.

Is Delius "Quintessentially" British sounding? I don't think so. His music, that which I'm familiar with, seems largely generic to me.

I don't know . . . your response to the comments of others seems a bit aggressive, belligerent even. You ask for others' observations but seem to get pissy when you don't understand their answers.

Maybe it's the language barrier . . . I'm guessing you speak English as a first language, while I was brought up speaking the more advanced and evolved American English.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Delius might sound more French than English?
> 
> Interesting that you feel pleasantness, jollity, being decent and never rocking the boat to be English characteristics. I can assure you that there is nothing now or in history that justifies that view. I have been in many countries where we English are seen in those lights - so we might have been good at propaganda.


LOL

Quite right. The Brits, over the centuries, have acted so very civilized and polite, but collectively they were a brutal people that brutally colonized half the world. Americans have emulated them with systemic racism and genocide of indigenous peoples, and "nation-building" abroad.

Of course, one could say the same about the Germans and Portuguese or the Spaniard, or the Christian factions that were behind The Crusades.

Oh, and as for *Delius* sounding more French, well, you may be on to something there. A lot of the stuff I've heard does sound *Impressionistic*, like echoes of Debussey.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

pianozach said:


> Oh, and as for *Delius* sounding more French, well, you may be on to something there. A lot of the stuff I've heard does sound *Impressionistic*, like echoes of Debussey.


As long as you are doing a cut&paste from Wikipedia in a previous post, you might want to continue with a following paragraph...

"Having been influenced by African-American music during his short stay in Florida, he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in Germany beginning in 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and then in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, where he and his wife Jelka lived for the rest of their lives, except during the First World War."


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

As to the original question...



Forster said:


> My question applies not just to RVW and 'Englishness', but to all nationalities: is it possible to discern something 'quintessentially' [English/American/German/Finnish etc etc] that goes beyond the use of locally found raw materials such as folk tunes from the region/country?


No.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Becca said:


> As to the original question...
> 
> No.


Thank heavens for a straight answer.

Writers about composers seem to me to get quite carried away and make all kinds of claims about who they are, what they achieve and what can be heard in their music. Whilst it's almost impossible NOT to create all sorts of images and ideas when listening to music, that's as much down to the listener as it is to the composer. Can I hear and see a 'lark ascending'? Well, if I can, it might only because the bl**dy composer told me what to hear by giving the piece a title. And is England the only country in the world to enjoy larks? No.

So RVW is not quintessentially anything (not even a cow pat), and nor is Mozart or Tchaikovsky or Delius.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

pianozach said:


> Now you've lost me.
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...


Yes, sorry about that. It wasn't you that brought up Delius in the first place, and hammeredklavier hasn't responded to my "Yes, whatabout it?" But as you did pick up their suggestion of Delius, saying that at first you hated it, then that you liked it, I wanted to know if he was a composer you were offering as 'quintessential'. You said not, which is why I wondered, mistakenly, at your bringing him up. I should instead have wondered at your ruminating on him.

I'm not meaning to be belligerent, but I'm obviously being unclear, which might lead to some frustration showing, because some posters have responded as if the question is merely "Is RVW quintessentially English?" or "Name a composer who is quintessentially [nationality]"

It was "can you give examples, *not just of composers (Copland and Sibelius spring to mind about whom it might be said) but what it is in their music*, and how that relates to their national identity?"

I can see that going back to those who simply offered the name of a composer, to ask for something more might seem aggressive, but I'm trying to take what people say and engage with it, rather than just ignore it as unacceptable.

(I'm also frustrated at the side discussions about the political history of the Austro-Hungarian empire!)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Forster said:


> My question applies not just to RVW and 'Englishness', but to all nationalities: is it possible to discern something 'quintessentially' [English/American/German/Finnish etc etc] that goes beyond the use of locally found raw materials such as folk tunes from the region/country?
> 
> ...you don't make the case for something called Russian music to be distinctly identifiable... What does 'Russian' music sound like? What do Russian composers write that couldn't have been written by a German/Austrian or French of the same period?
> 
> ...


If we dismiss the concept of "quintessentialness" as a rhetorical flourish we'll be better off. "Quintessentialness" is not an actual property of anything, but merely someone's idea of what makes something typical. There are no "quintessentially" English (or Russian, or French) composers. There are only composers whose music makes sounds we are most likely to hear in the music of these nations. It's tempting to think that these typical sounds express something typical of the national character of their countries of origin, but that's tough to demonstrate (which doesn't necessarily make it untrue). In describing typical traits - whether of nations, persons or music - there are rarely any exclusive characteristics or clear boundaries; almost everything is a matter of degree. There might be a number of characteristics in Vaughan Williams' music, some more obvious than others, that point clearly to his Englishness, and it's undoubtedly true that were he not English his music would have sounded different. We can say this confidently without looking for imaginary metaphysical essences and resorting to such constructs as "quintessentialness."


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> If we dismiss the concept of "quintessentialness" as a rhetorical flourish we'll be better off.


You're right, though some here do like the idea of "quintessentialness" and seem quite keen to argue in favour of other candidates.



Woodduck said:


> There are no "quintessentially" English (or Russian, or French) composers.


I'm greatly reassured, but it does nevertheless seem quite a common assertion "in the literature" that seems more than just a rhetorical flourish; that there is nevertheless something in it.



> There might be a number of characteristics in Vaughan Williams' music, some more obvious than others, that point clearly to his Englishness


Would you venture at least what you think are the obvious? Thanks


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Forster said:


> You're right, though some here do like the idea of "quintessentialness" and seem quite keen to argue in favour of other candidates.
> 
> I'm greatly reassured, but it does nevertheless seem quite a common assertion "in the literature" that seems more than just a rhetorical flourish; that there is nevertheless something in it.
> 
> Would you venture at least what you think are the obvious? Thanks


VW's use of British traditional music has already been mentioned. It's obviously possible for any composer to incorporate folk and other traditional material from any country, but in VW's case the absorption of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic traits goes far beyond simple quotation. He also reaches back into the great era of English polyphony for inspiration, a source as favorable as traditional music for his his use of modes, which he develops into a subtle and complex harmonic language that often exhibits polymodality, a sort of British answer to the polytonal effects of neoclassicism. These are things that can be heard and require no further attribution of imagined qualities of "Englishness." If you want to find those you'd best talk to Brits, who probably won't agree with each other.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> VW's use of British traditional music has already been mentioned. It's obviously possible for any composer to incorporate folk and other traditional material from any country, but in VW's case the absorption of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic traits goes far beyond simple quotation. He also reaches back into the great era of English polyphony for inspiration, a source as favorable as traditional music for his his use of modes, which he develops into a subtle and complex harmonic language that often exhibits polymodality, a sort of British answer to the polytonal effects of neoclassicism. These are things that can be heard and require no further attribution of imagined qualities of "Englishness." If you want to find those you'd best talk to Brits, who probably won't agree with each other.


'Polymodality', eh? Well, I can find a plain definition, but it's less easy to understand what it might sound like. Can you point me to an example? Thanks.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Forster said:


> 'Polymodality', eh? Well, I can find a plain definition, but it's less easy to understand what it might sound like. Can you point me to an example? Thanks.







Listen to the second movement beginning at about 10:21. There are some wonderful examples of overlapping modes, especially striking at 15:57.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Listen to the second movement beginning at about 10:21. There are some wonderful examples of overlapping modes, especially striking at 15:57.


So, to be clear, it's an F minor string chord with a horn in F major - always been intrigued by this from RVW.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

In my simple mind - there is no 'quintessential' sound whether discussing Englishness or any other countries music. I believe the terms to be merely convenient descriptors used to communicate in a verbal/written manner sound/music which is otherwise difficult to describe.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> Listen to the second movement beginning at about 10:21. There are some wonderful examples of overlapping modes, especially striking at 15:57.


Thanks for the suggestion.

So, I'm listening, but not sure what I'm getting. I mean, whatever the technical description for what RVW is doing, I'm not sure what the effect is. If I said that the mood of the piece is calm, reflective, but with a subtle undertone of disquiet...would that be the effect?



Woodduck said:


> polymodality, *a sort of British answer* to the polytonal effects of neoclassicism. These are things that can be heard and require no further attribution of imagined qualities of "Englishness."


Are you saying that this technique was common among and/or unique to British composers? That composers in Europe and elsewhere either used different techniques for the same effect, or didn't seek such an effect at all?


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Malx said:


> In my simple mind - there is no 'quintessential' sound whether discussing Englishness or any other countries music. I believe the terms to be merely convenient descriptors used to communicate in a verbal/written manner sound/music which is otherwise difficult to describe.


Dunno Malx, I'd say the bagpipes can still evoke terror for an Englishman....


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> Dunno Malx, I'd say the bagpipes can still evoke terror for an Englishman....


And who can forget this - 0:48




When I was in secondary school, our band played a piece that had this tune in it. I forgot the title though.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> Dunno Malx, I'd say the bagpipes can still evoke terror for an Englishman....


Played badly they can also create terror for a Scotsman


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> And who can forget this - 0:48
> 
> 
> 
> ...


'The British Grenadiers'


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Malx said:


> 'The British Grenadiers'


I learnt it in primary school (that's when I was 11).

We may have won the battle, but we lost the war. Probably not enough bagpipes.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Malx said:


> 'The British Grenadiers'


I mean the title of the piece of music we played. It was some kind of a fantasia piece


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Malx said:


> Played badly they can also create terror for a Scotsman


How can you tell whether they're being being played badly?


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> How can you tell whether they're being being played badly?


.....Touché.....


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

So reactions to my OP fall into four broad camps. The notion of 'quintessential [nationality]' might be


merely a rhetorical device (though it's not clear to what end this is used) and/or; 
a representation of the musical techniques, or sources of material (eg folk songs), or preferred genres common to composers of a particular nationality and/or; 
drawing on or fighting against the perceived national tradition and/or; 
a representation of certain perceived characteristics of the nation's citizens. 

Did I miss anything, or misrepresent anything in my summary?

What also seemed clear to me is that several simply wanted to assert that a composer is, if not 'quintessential', certainly Russian, or Germanic, or English (or British) but without offering much evidence other than that was their nationality.

I guess I should take any notion of national characteristics coming through music with a pinch of salt. Last night, I listened to _Overture: The Wasps _(Vaughan Williams) for the very first time. It might have been taken from the soundtrack to _Whisky Galore!_ so Scottish did it seem.

Given that it was for a Greek play written by Aristophanes, it just goes to show that it's all to easy to be fooled by the surface, or to read too much into the music.


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