# American Composers



## Seening (May 23, 2011)

I'm liking the music coming from across the Atlantic.

Particularly like Aaron Copland - 'Fanfare for the common man'.

Any other famous yet exciting compositions that I should know about from the States?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

You can start with the fourth movement of his 3rd symphony 

)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Barber - Knoxville:summer of 1915, Violin concerto, String quartet (including the original version of the Adagio for strings)
Hanson - Symphonies, in particular #2
Harris - Symphonies, in particular #3
Schuman - Symphonies, in particular #3
Stills - Afro-American symphony

and on a lighter touch:
Grofe - Grand canyon suite


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Copland - Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Billy the Kid.
I personally like David Diamond's symphonies.
I agree with Art Rock's suggestions. As to Howard Hanson, if you've seen Alien, you've heard the last movement of his 2nd symphony.


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## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

I like Gershwin's Piano Concerto, Rhapsody in Blue, Copland's Organ Symphony, Carter's String Quartets #1, 5 and his Boston Concerto.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Some of my favorite American composers include Gottschalk, Barber, Hanson, Copland, and Gershwin.

Good Works:
Gottschalk: Grand Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, Cake Walk Suite, various piano pieces like the _Banjo_.
Barber: Symphony no. 2, Essays no. *1* and 2, School for Scandal Overture, and what's been mentioned already.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Does Mingus count?


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## Guest (Jun 16, 2011)

I will also add my vote to Barber. Marin Alsop has a great series of his orchestral works on Naxos that I would pick up. The string quartet is wonderful - especially the Adagio - and you can also try out the orchestrated version, the Adagio for Strings, which you might remember if you have seen the movie "Platoon."

I would also add Hovhaness. I think that would qualify as American, although I know he wasn't born in the U.S. I really like the symphonies of his that I have heard.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Seening said:


> Any other famous yet exciting compositions that I should know about from the States?


Just a few thousand. The Yanks ruled the 20th century.

Shocking omission of Charles Ives so far. Try his 4th symphony or his unfinished Universe symphony for something a bit different. The Unanswered Question is a gem too.

I'm not going to mention too many because it would be unnecessary and most of them you probably wouldn't like, but I've got to say Henry Cowell's orchestral work is overlooked. There's more to him than just tone clusters.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Alan Hovhaness and Samuel Barber are two of my American favorite composers. The one I could never take to is Bernstein.

Rob


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

My computer is about to run out of battery with no outlet in sight! So I'm just going to quickly name drop some composers I didn't see mentioned yet. 

John Coriligano, Ned Rorem, George Crumb, Roger Sessions, Ernst Bloch is considered an American composer by some but it's probably not what you're looking for. 

And I know imaginary landscapes or 4'33" isn't everyone's cup of tea, but please do try the Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano by John Cage, they're really great. 

Check out Bernstien's symphonies as well. All 3 of them are chalk full of epic-ness.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

So many goodies from the US both past and present - and quite a lot of off-the-beaten-track repertoire can be found on the Naxos label's American Series. The music especially of Charles Ives never palls - I find it both entertaining and fascinating and if many traditionalists still dislike his music as being a structureless, self-indulgent mess with an incongruous side order of hymn/folk tune inanity then I think it must have something going for it. I prefer to think of it as great American music by a great American composer. Argus quite rightly namechecked him and to the works he mentioned I would also add the 'Concord' piano sonata, the 2nd string quartet, the four violin sonatas, any of his songs and Three Places in New England as being especially worthy of investigation.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

GoneBaroque said:


> Alan Hovhaness and Samuel Barber are two of my American favorite composers. The one I could never take to is Bernstein.
> 
> Rob


I love Bernstein's theater music. I thought I didn't like his other music until I sang Chichester Psalms and loved it. My attitude toward a lot of music is often changed by performing it.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Copland: Lincoln's Portrait 
Barber: All the concertos, Adagio for Strings
Ives: Three Places in New England
Adams: China Gates, Violin Concerto
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris
Bernstein: Chichester Psalms

... at least that's what I know and like.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Bernstein - Prelude Fugue and Riffs. It really swings.


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## Comistra (Feb 27, 2010)

Meredith Willson (_The Music Man_) wrote two symphonies, the existence of which I discovered in the gift shop of the Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa. The symphonies celebrate San Francisco, so it's music from an American about America. I definitely recommend picking up a recording (or _the_ recording, since there's only one that I'm aware of).

I'll also echo the recommendation of Howard Hanson. I've got Gerard Schwarz's cycle of his symphonies with the Seattle Symphony, and it's excellent.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Comistra said:


> I'll also echo the recommendation of Howard Hanson. I've got Gerard Schwarz's cycle of his symphonies with the Seattle Symphony, and it's excellent.


I second that.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Actually, Seening, instead of suggesting specific composers, I would suggest you simply go to Amazon.com (or any other online stores that sell CD's) and search "Naxos American Classics"


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

*Scott Joplin*, the great ragtime composer, was one of America's best, imo.

Same goes for *Harry Partch*, who composed music for his own unique microtonal instruments. He said that he began as a composer but ended up as a carpenter! Check out his "Delusion of the Fury" which is a combination of theatrical (operatic) and instrumental music at it's best. A bit like a c20th equivalent of what Wagner was doing in his "total art works," the operas...


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

There were a few pre-20th century American composers worth checking out. *Amy Beach, George Whitefield Chadwick*, and *Edward MacDowell* all wrote fairly thrilling romantic period pieces. I especially enjoy Chadwick's _Aphrodite_ and Beach's piano concerto.

One of the best known post romantic American composers is *Charles Thomlinson Griffes*. If you haven't heard _The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_ or _The White Peacock_, you're in for a treat.

In the realm of film score *Bernard Hermann* is among the most widely recognized. Though he may be best known the jarring string score for Hitchcock's _Psycho_, I enjoy his _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ and _North By Northwest_ the best, the former being the very epitome and archetype of science fiction soundtracks.

For contemporary yet accessible works, one might enjoy *Lowell Leibermann*. His flute concerto is smooooth.

If we can venture into Central and South America, there's a completely different set genres to explore with *Alberto Ginastera, Heitor Villa-Lobos*, and a host of others.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

regarding *Griffes* - his only piano sonata, a late work, is also highly recommended, imo. a fusion of odd harmonies (from oriental and native american sources, as i have read) it points the way forward, but sadly, the composer died very young not long after...


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## Keychick (Jun 9, 2011)

I would like to add 
John Adam's name to the list.
I love Shaker Loopes...


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## jaimsilva (Jun 1, 2011)

Morton Gould "Latin American Symphonette"


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

DrMike said:


> I would also add Hovhaness. I think that would qualify as American, although I know he wasn't born in the U.S. I really like the symphonies of his that I have heard.


Actually, I believe that Hovhaness was born in Eastern Massachusetts, although his Father was Armenian.

Rob


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Well... ignoring the composers/performers within the field of jazz and other genre or style not traditionally counted as "classical" (and personally, I'm of the belief that "classical" or "classic" is simply a term used to define what survives of any genre or style)... and also ignoring the obvious and already suggested examples... there are still a great many:

Stephen Foster:






Charles Griffes:






Walter Piston:






Morton Feldman:






Elliott Carter:






Charles Wuorinen:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

William Bolcom:






John Corigliano:






David Diamond:






Ned Rorem:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Paul Moravec:











Joseph Schwantner:











Philip Glass:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

More Philip Glass:











John Harbison:
















Morten Lauridsen:


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

George Rochberg:











Eric Whitacre:






Kenneth Fuchs:






George Crumb:






Certainly there are any number of other examples. Some composers like Jake Heggie simply don't have any good examples of their representative work available on YouTube.


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## Laudemont (Jun 18, 2011)

There were some fine American composers of the 1800s or early 1900s who have been largely forgotten. I think of John Knowles Paine, Henry Kimball Hadley, George Frederick Bristow, and Edward Burlingame Hill -- to name a few that I don't believe have been mentioned here.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Dear StLukes,

Why for you waste bandwidth with soooooooo many videos.

List will suffice.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Laudemont said:


> There were some fine American composers of the 1800s or early 1900s who have been largely forgotten. I think of John Knowles Paine, Henry Kimball Hadley, George Frederick Bristow, and Edward Burlingame Hill -- to name a few that I don't believe have been mentioned here.


Such as William Henry Fry, for instance? The blurb on the back of the Naxos recording of his Santa Claus Symphony described it as 'drawing-room Romanticism'. I don't know whether that comment is damning the work with faint praise or alluding to its easily-digestible charms but I love listening to it when I'm in the right mood.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Dear StLukes,

Why for you waste bandwidth with soooooooo many videos.

List will suffice.

Give me a break, Argus... is there anyone here who has wasted more bandwidth posting crap no one in their right mind would actually want to listen to?


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## robert (Feb 10, 2007)

Arnold Rosner


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## Stewart Limmson (Feb 15, 2021)

DrMike said:


> I will also add my vote to Barber. Marin Alsop has a great series of his orchestral works on Naxos that I would pick up. The string quartet is wonderful - especially the Adagio - and you can also try out the orchestrated version, the Adagio for Strings, which you might remember if you have seen the movie "Platoon."
> 
> I would also add Hovhaness. I think that would qualify as American, although I know he wasn't born in the U.S. I really like the symphonies of his that I have heard.


Hovhaness was certainly born in the United States (Somerville, MA).


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Others I like not yet mentioned: Don Gillis, Walter Piston, Leo Sowerby, Easley Blackwood, Adolphus Hailstork, Jennifer Higdon, Stacy Garrop


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Seening said:


> I'm liking the music coming from across the Atlantic.
> Particularly like Aaron Copland - 'Fanfare for the common man'.
> Any other famous yet exciting compositions that I should know about from the States?


A number of American composers and compositions have had a transformative influence on my own life. Here are a few particular recommendations to explore:

Copland - Ballet music from: Appalachian Spring; Billy the Kid
Barber - Symphony #1; Knoxville, Summer of 1915; Piano Sonata
Piston - Symphony #4; Piano Quintet
Mennin - Symphony #5; Symphony #3; String Quartet #2
Diamond - Symphony #4; Suite from Romeo & Juliet
Rorem - Symphony #3
Cowell - Symphony #4 (Short Symphony), but a recording of this may be hard to find
Wm. Schuman - New England Triptych

There are other fine American composers (Harris, Hermann, Thomson, etc.) but the above works are at the top of my mental list.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

A few not mentioned yet (or if I've missed them, my apologies): George Lewis, Gunther Schuller, Charles Wuorinen, Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Lou Harrison, Arthur Berger, Eve Beglarian, Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford Seeger


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

There's probably an "American Big Five": Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Bernstein (the most frequently performed, anyway). After that, it's pretty much up for grabs and a free-for-all. After the five I mentioned, my own personal American Top 10 would be rounded off with the following composers:

Hovhaness (Symphony No. 2, Prayer of St. Gregory, Fra Angelico, Meditation on Orpheus, Magnificat)
Gottschalk (various Latin and African tinged piano pieces)
Floyd (opera composer of Susannah and Of Mice and Men... recently deceased)
Still ('Afro-American' Symphony , Ennenga, Mother and Child, Danzas de Panama)
Chadwick (Symphonic Sketches, Symphony No. 2, Tam O'Shanter, Rip van Winkle)

Hanson is OK, but I find him a bit bland and dull, to be honest. Sousa, Williams and Joplin are wonderful composers but don't fit into the Classical paradigm very well. I have to say I am not that keen on much else by American composers. At the end of the day, I think only the "Big Five" are guaranteed to achieve immortality and probably already have.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Schuman, Mennin, Hanson, Diamond are all major composers in the symphonic field.....certainly equal to Ives, Barber, etc...
Harris, Creston can be very good as well...
Copland is probably the most notable, best known. Gershwin and Bernstein have each carved out their own niche....


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

American composers are my favorites: Bernstein, Cage, Feldman, J.L. Adams, Gershwin, Sondheim, Carter, Wuorinen, Partch, Meredith Monk, Muhly, (I'm sure I"m forgetting some) and Jazz composers such as Ellington, Marsalis, Monk, Mingus, A. Hill, Threadgill, Coltrane, M. Davis, and Shorter.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I have a deep affection for the New England school of American composers: John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, Amy Beach, George Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, and gang. Converse's The Mystic Trumpeter is a masterwork. Every chance I get to conduct a concert I do my best to include something from this group. The music is so little known and played which is a shame. Much of it is quite colorful and enjoyable. So there's no Beethoven or Mahler in the group; it's still worthy music and criminal that so many orchestras have let it slide away. Naxos did them proud with many releases of their music, but there's just so much more that's never been recorded or even played for 100 or more years.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Being a fan of mostly post 1950's modern, avant-garde, atonal, and contemporary classical music, American composers occupy a large part of my collection. 

Among my favorite composers are, off the top of my head:

Elliott Carter
Charles Wuorinen
Joseph Schwantner
Joan Tower
Augusta Read Thomas
Ned Rorem
Christopher Rouse
Victor Feldman
Samuel Barber
Stefan Wolpe
Roger Sessions 
Jennifer Higdon


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Simon Moon said:


> Victor Feldman


Didn't you mean *Morton Feldman*? The only Victor Feldman I know is a L.A. session pianist/vibraphonist.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

For me what defines a composer as "American" is bound up with the idea of iconoclastic individualism exemplified by a direct line

From

*Henry David Thoreau* (not a composer but articulated the American style/personality)

- to -

*Charles Ives*

- to -

*John Cage*

- to -

*Frank Zappa*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I consider *Charles Ives* (1874-1954) to be the first major American composer.

While there were other composers, specifically the "Second New England School" (the First New England School were also called the Yankee tunesmiths), which included *Arthur Foote*, *George Whitefield Chadwick*, *Amy Beach*, *Edward MacDowell*, *John Knowles Paine*, and *Horatio Parker* - these composers have been likened to literature before Walt Whitman. They were greatly influenced by the German Romantic tradition, either through direct study with Germans or by association with German-trained musicians in America, hence their stye is more European than truly American.

We don't get a truly American composer until Charles Ives, although before Ives there was *Scott Joplin*, but since his music is closely in spirit to the Popular genre, I still place Charles Ives at the head of the American School.

Ives received much of his musical training at Harvard under Horatio Parker, but can really be seen as self-taught. He early on decided not to embark on a career as a composer but instead to enter the financial industry, becoming a founding partner in what would become one of the largest insurance firms in the nation. Ives is known as an major innovator for insurance products and is well-known and highly respected in that regard. This livelihood provided Ives with the financial security to allow his musical ambition proceed unobstructed.

His major works include four symphonies, hundreds of art songs, two piano sonatas, four violin sonatas, and a number of orchestral works, some called "sets" which are sometimes also symphonic in nature or tone poems.

Ives' mature style is poly-tonal, poly-metric, and features textures with conflicting instrumental groups with two or more distinct strains of music, e.g. a marching band passing a church with a hymn-singing choir.

*Ives* | _Three Places in New England_ - Boulez / Cleveland Orchestra (1970)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Carl Ruggles* (1876-1971)












> His pieces employed "dissonant counterpoint", a term coined by Charles Seeger to describe Ruggles' music. His method of atonal counterpoint was based on a non-serial technique of avoiding repeating a pitch class until a generally fixed number such as eight pitch classes intervened. He wrote painstakingly slowly so his output is quite small.
> 
> Famous for his prickly personality, Ruggles was nonetheless friends with Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, Charles Ives, Thomas Hart Benton, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Charles Seeger.







_Sun-Treader,_ his best known work, is scored for a large orchestra. It was inspired by the poem "Pauline" by Robert Browning, particularly the line "Sun-treader, light and life be thine forever!". The most common intervals in the piece are minor seconds, perfect fourths and augmented fourths.








> Ruggles' compositional style was "trial and error. He sat at the piano and moved his fingers around, listened hard to the sounds... shouting out some of the lines." According to Ruggles himself, he never learned any music theory and never analyzed other composers' pieces. The majority of his early works (before Toys) were destroyed, leaving their compositional style a matter of speculation. Reviews suggest similarities to late 19th-century romanticism.
> 
> His dissonant, contrapuntal style is similar to Arnold Schoenberg's, although he did not employ the same twelve-tone system. He used a method similar to and perhaps influenced by Charles Seeger's dissonant counterpoint, and generally avoided repeating a pitch class within eight notes.


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## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

Beach, Ives, Gershwin, Cage, Feldman, Carter, Reich, J.C.Adams, J.L.Adams, Riley, Rzewski, Lucier, Monk, Tower, Wuorinen, La Monte Young, Cerrone, G.Smith, C.Lamb


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Henry Cowell (1897-1965)*












> Henry Dixon Cowell (/ˈkaʊəl/; March 11, 1897 - December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. A leading figure of avant-garde music, Cowell was an early proponent of many modernist compositional techniques and sensibilities.


Cowell was the central figure in a circle of avant-garde composers that included his good friends *Carl Ruggles* and *Dane Rudhyar*, as well as *Leo Ornstein*, *John Becker*, *Colin McPhee*, French expatriate *Edgard Varèse*, and *Ruth Crawford*, whom he convinced Charles Seeger to take on as a student (Crawford and Seeger would eventually marry). Cowell and his circle were sometimes referred to as "ultra-modernists," a label whose definition is flexible and origin unclear (it has also been applied to a few composers outside the immediate circle, such as George Antheil, and to some of its disciples, such as Nancarrow); Virgil Thomson styled them the "rhythmic research fellows."

In 1925, Cowell organized the *New Music Society*, one of whose primary activities was the staging of concerts of their works along with those of artistic allies such as *Wallingford Riegger* and *Arnold Schoenberg*, who would later ask Cowell to play for his composition class during one of his European tours. In 1927 Cowell founded the periodical *New Music Quarterly*, which would publish many significant new scores under his editorship, both by the ultra-modernists and many others, including *Ernst Bacon*, *Otto Luening*, *Paul Bowles*, and *Aaron Copland*. Before the publication of the first issue, he solicited contributions from a then-obscure composer who would become one of his closest friends, *Charles Ives.* Major scores by Ives, including the Comedy from the Fourth Symphony, Fourth of July, 34 Songs, and 19 Songs, would receive their first publication in New Music; in turn, Ives would provide financial support to a number of Cowell's projects (including, years later, New Music itself). Many of the scores published in Cowell's journal were made even more widely available as performances of them were issued by the record label he established in 1934, New Music Recordings. (Wikipedia)






Henry Cowell: Symphony No.11 "Seven Rituals of Music" (1954)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*George Gershwin (1898-1937)*

Describing the music around him growing up in New York -

_"Gershwin evocatively describes a soundscape that pulses with all kinds of music that are ostensibly at different points in the cultural hierarchy, but that he portrays as equally compelling parts of his personal musical environment. He recognizes no difference between opera and folksongs, chansons and ragtime, old and new music. While some early twentieth-century critics asserted strict distinctions between high and low culture and maintained that one should have little to do with the other, the reality was rather different. American audiences expected to hear references to highbrow and lowbrow culture on vaudeville bills and in musicals, plays, and comedies. Ingenious mixtures of musical and theatrical conventions often provided the mass appeal to productions that otherwise were simply a repackaging of a few familiar plot tropes. Gershwin scholars and critics looking back on his career often focus on Gershwin's modernity, his skillful use of jazz in his concert repertoire, and marvel at his ability to cross the divide between popular and classical music. Many people interpret Gershwin as essentially an art music composer who happened to work in musical theater."_

- _The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin_ (Cambridge Companions to Music) by Anna Harwell Celenza

Gershwin is one of line of composers whose style is based on a combination of influences from Popular and Classical elements. This line could be seen as an outgrowth from the career of composers such as *Scott Joplin* and *James P. Johnson*, both of whom had aspirations beyond their careers in Ragtime/Jazz. In general Jazz exerted a strong impact on Classical composers, but inside and outside the US. But the true American style is also rooted in the egalitarian spirit of the United States which rejected the idea of high and low art, although that argument still rages today.

Other composers in this line include *Aaron Copland*, *Roy Harris*, and *Leonard Bernstein*, as well as *Frank Zappa* whose career as a Classical composer was the most pronounced among Rock musicians. Today's composers *Meredith Monk*, *Laurie Anderson*, and *Nico Muhly* all incorporate elements from Classical as well as Rock or other genres.

There are also some serious Jazz composers, *Duke Ellington*, *Charles Mingus*, leading to *Wynton Marsalis*, all who have written long form works.

Gershwin and other cross-genre composers stand in stark contrast to those academic "international" composers Piston, Hanson, Sessions, and others - whom I don't consider the most representative composers from the US.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Harry Partch (1901-1974)*



> Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 - September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947).












Harry Partch is definitely among the iconoclastic individualistic American composers I listed in my earlier post that was something of an introduction to this more detailed traversal of composers I plan on posting in this thread. Not only did Partch embark on a journey completely outside of the traditional Classical music education and style, but he required making his own instruments in order to play the micro-tonal scales he needed for his work.






Partch believed that Western music began to suffer after the adoption of the twelve-tone equal temperament to the exclusion of other tuning systems. He also thought that abstract, instrumental music bgan to take precedence over vocal music, which he sought to bring back to prominence.

Partch developed his tunings and scales based on an idea that these scales were more suitable to singing.






*Instruments by Harry Partch*

One of the most fascinating aspects of the career of Harry Partch was his invemtion and creation of instruments. Many of them resemble free-standing sculpture as well as being musical instruments.




























*HARRY PARTCH* - _Delusion of the Fury_ (Original Film 1969)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Elliott Carter (1908-2012)*












> Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer. One of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century, he combined elements of European modernism and American "ultra-modernism" into a distinctive style with a personal harmonic and rhythmic language, after an early neoclassical phase. His compositions are performed throughout the world, and include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental, and vocal works. The recipient of many awards, Carter was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize.


Elliott Carter is definitely a composer in the line of Charles Ives, the Yankee individualist. His ideas about individual freedoms and the expression of it was a constant in his work. Many of his works revolved around the idea of independence of the voices, the string quartets especially. For the 2nd quartet Carter instructed the players to sit as far apart as possible so that they appear to be playing different pieces simultaneously.






Carter's early style has been called neoclassical, and can sound similar to Aaron Copland with its open harmonies and folk tune melodic content. It was long before his music soon took on the atonal style of the period. However, Carter never embraced Arnold Schoenberg's 12-tone method, choosing to independently develop a collection of all the permutations of 3, 4, and 5 note chords which he compiled in what he called his _Harmony Book_ (it has been published and I own a copy). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized these data into musical set theory.










Carter was prolific and lived a long life and produced works in every imaginable traditional form: orchestral, chamber, vocal, solo instrumental for a variety of instruments from piano to timpani. His birthday concerts were always well attended and opportunities for him to debut new works as well as musicians dedicated to his music to perform and offer their warm well wishes.

*Elliott Carter -- The Last Interview*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*John Cage (1912-1992)*












> John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, artist, and philosopher. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.
> 
> He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.


Possibly the quintessential American composer is John Cage. He has spoken and written about his admiration for American personalities such as Henry David Thoreau, Charles Ives, Buckminster Fuller, and Canadian Marshall McLuhan all of whm espoused an individual-centric philosophy. Cage was an ardently apolitical but did express his opinions about the rights of the individuals trumping government, and advocating a form of anarchy in which like-minded people are free to form communities and live according to their own beliefs and accepted social norms.

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933-35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.

The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text decision-making tool, which uses chance operations to suggest answers to questions one may pose, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life - not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living". (Wikipedia)

The Indian classical master, Gita Sarabbai, answered Cage's question about the meaning of music by telling him that its purpose was "to calm and pacify the mind, thus enabling oneself to welcome the influences from the Divine."

Throughout his life John Cage's spiritual quest led him to question the various religious and mystical traditions of mankind. He'd found an affinity with Zen which he studied with famous author and Zen writer Daisetz Suzuki. Zen originates from both Indian Buddhism and Chan in Chinese Taoism and the meditative technique in the zazen seated position helps find calm by eliminating the uneven flow of thoughts. The inner silent peace which occurs enables hearing the sounds from the outer world without identifying or even naming them. (Memento, "John Cage". 07.25.15)

His most famous and controversial piece is 4'33"



> 4'33'' is a three-movement musical composition by John Cage without a note or even a sound played by the performer which lasts 4 minutes and 33 seconds - its silence is an invitation to listen.
> 
> On 29 August 1952 virtuoso pianist David Tudor plays John Cage's piece of music 4'33'' live for the first time lowering the lid of the piano keyboard. During this piece the musician turned the pages of the score while trying not to make any noise causing quite a stir and obviously would've made some sound.
> 
> Beyond being an artistic gesture it was a way to question the status of a work of art - shedding light on the creative act rather than the result of creation - 4'33" also urges listening to silence, to focus on what the world is murmuring and whispering, coughing, rustling of clothes etc. and every time 4'33'' is played it opens up a new random sequence of sounds where life happening in the immediate surroundings is to be listened to just as if it was a piece of music. (ibid. Memento)


There is much more to John Cage than 4'33", e.g. during his final creative period, late-80s until the end of his life, he composed over two dozen works, called Number Pieces, which I consider some of his best music.

*John Cage*: _Thirteen _(version 1) (1992)






-- Ensemble 13 diretto da Manfred Reichert


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't know if anyone mentioned him but *Samuel Barber* wrote two of the most successful and popular pieces of American music in the 20th century -- his violin concerto and the ubiquitous adagio.

While not born USA *Howard Hanson* is considered an American composer. His "Romantic" Symphony No. 2 is one of the better pieces of American music.

*Paul Creston* wrote three symphonies worth hearing.

This is likely my favorite collection of American music









The CD version comes with *Ruggles'* _Sun Treader,_ a piece I don't care for that many adore.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

larold said:


> While not born USA *Howard Hanson* is considered an American composer. His "Romantic" Symphony No. 2 is one of the better pieces of American music.


Howard Hanson was born in Wahoo Nebraska which is the USA. His parents were Swedish immigrants.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Alfacharger said:


> Howard Hanson was born in Wahoo Nebraska which is the USA. His parents were Swedish immigrants.


Right, Hanson is American of Scandinavian heritage 
Sym #2 is his best known, but not his best - #3, and #1 are stronger...when in school, i played Sym #2 with Hanson conducting.
I sometimes group him with other notable Scandinavian symphonists - Sibelius, Nielsen...they share a similar sonority - rocky, craggy, brassy, but sometimes very lyrical as well.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)*












> Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Among the most important conductors of his time, he was also the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history".


As a composer, Bernstein's primary stylistic trait is one that was omnivorous, cross-genre, consuming any and all styles of music in order to produce an individual blend that was uniquely American. Popular genres Jazz, Broadway, Pop, Rock, as well as Classical styles Post-romantic, Atonal, and Neo-Classicism, were all colors on his palette.

His works include three symphonies, _Chichester Psalms_, _Serenade after Plato's "Symposium"_, the original score for the film _On the Waterfront_, and theater works including _On the Town_, _Wonderful Town_, _Candide_, and his _MASS_.






Bernstein can be seen as the primary heir to George Gershwin, a composer who also straddled the line between Popular and Classical music. However, Bernstein was more formally trained in Classical music, and brought a deeper awareness of the Classical tradition to his work, if maybe less of a native genius than Gershwin.

Unfortunately, because of his busy schedule as a conductor Bernstein never had enough time to devote solely to composing, and one cannot overlook this reality. Just as Gershwin's life was cut short and the potential works he might have written were never realized, we will never know what works Bernstein might have created had he not had a world class conducting career.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Terry Riley (1935)*












> Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935), is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, and delay systems. He produced his best known works in the 1960s: the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 LP A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental, rock, and contemporary electronic music.


I find it interesting from what region of the US a composer comes from. Riley is from California and can be linked to other Westerners like *Henry Cowell*, and *John Cage*, both of whom were experimenters, as is Terry Riley. Riley also studied Indian Classical music with *Pandit Pran Nath* and making several trips to India for the purpose of expanding his knowledge of this tradition. Riley also cites "the really great chamber music groups of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, and Gil Evans" as influences on his work.

Early on Riley was lumped into the Minimalist camp along with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, although aside from _In C_ I hear his music as being very different from theirs.

Riley began his long-lasting association with the *Kronos Quartet* when he met their founder David Harrington while at Mills College where Riley had taught for a period of time. Riley has composed 13 string quartets for the ensemble, in addition to other works.

Over time Riley has gotten more into traditional forms of Classical music, writing his first orchestral piece, _Jade Palace_, in 1991, and has continued to pursue that avenue, with several commissioned orchestral compositions following.

*Kronos Quartet performs Terry Riley's Sun Rings*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*The New York School*



> The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. They often drew inspiration from surrealism and the contemporary avant-garde art movements, in particular action painting, abstract expressionism, jazz, improvisational theater, experimental music, and the interaction of friends in the New York City art world's vanguard circle.
> 
> The term also refers to a circle of composers in the 1950s which included *John Cage*, *Morton Feldman*, *Earle Brown* and *Christian Wolff*. Their music influenced the music and events of the *Fluxus* group, and drew its name from the Abstract Expressionist painters above.


*Morton Feldman (1926-1987)*












> Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 - September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown. Feldman's works are characterized by notational innovations that he developed to create his characteristic sound: rhythms that seem to be free and floating, pitch shadings that seem softly unfocused, a generally quiet and slowly evolving music, and recurring asymmetric patterns. His later works, after 1977, also explore extremes of duration.


While Feldman has always been associated with John Cage, it would be a mistake to consider him a student or even a disciple since Feldman carved out his own unique path of composition, and in some ways influenced Cage as well. However, the primary effect of Feldman's involvement with Cage, and something other musicians have expressed, was the sense of John Cage as the elder sage of the avant-garde opened the door to experimentation and "gave permission" or the stamp of approval for any method of expression these composers wished to explore.

Feldman's first composition teachers were *Wallingford Riegger,* one of the first American followers of Arnold Schoenberg, and *Stefan Wolpe*, a German-born Jewish composer who studied under Franz Schreker and Anton Webern. Feldman's early works are in line with this kind of atonal, serial style - mostly for piano but also some chamber works. But he moved away for this standard 20th century mode of composition, with encouragement from Cage, to a freer, more improvisatory kind of composition.

Feldman is credited with being among the first to use graphic notation instead of standard notation with a staff and notes, which proved inadequate to describe the process Feldman wished to capture with the notation. However by 1970 Feldman began to abandon graphic scores and returned to standard notation and rhythmic precision, which was to remain for the rest of his career.

His late works became longer and longer, until with the _String Quartet II_ (1983) which achieved a length of between four and six hours. In all cases his music was built of small gestures which he varied slightly over the course of the work, a process of endless variation Feldman described as being inspired by the Persian rugs he owned and admired.

*Morton Feldman - Palais de Mari (1986)*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*James Tenney (1934-2006)*












> James Tenney (August 10, 1934 - August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal music, and tuning systems including extended just intonation. His theoretical writings variously concern musical form, texture, timbre, consonance and dissonance, and harmonic perception.


James Tenney is another Western composer, born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. I can't help but feel that the region where someone grows up is an impotant aspect of their identity. Maybe it meant more in earlier periods prior to the flattening out of society and culture due to global telecommunications, but certainly during the time of James Tenney's life there were regional differences.

Composers from the West can seem to portray an unencumbered attitude of freedom, John Cage, Henry Cowell, Terry Riley and James Tenney, but I may just be focusing on those composers because they are my favorites. I'm sure there are others whose music is more traditionally a part of the Classical tradition.

In any event, James Tenney's music is experimental and avant-garde starting out showing an influence of Webern, Ruggles and Varèse, while a gradual assimilation of the ideas of John Cage influenced the development of his music in the 1960s. After relocating to the New York City he joined with the group Fluxus in their experimental concertizing. He also was an early champion of the music of Charles Ives.



> Tenney's compositions after 1970 are instrumental music (occasionally with tape-delay), and most since 1972 reflect an interest in harmonic perception and unconventional tuning systems.
> 
> Significant works include Clang (1972) for orchestra, Quintext (1972) for string quintet, Spectral CANON for CONLON Nancarrow (1974) for player piano, Glissade (1982) for viola, cello, double bass and tape delay system, Bridge (1982-84) for two pianos eight hands in a microtonal tuning system, Changes (1985) for six harps tuned a sixth of a semitone apart, Critical Band (1988) for variable instrumentation and In a Large Open Space (1994) for variable instrumentation. His pieces are often tributes to other composers or colleagues and subtitled as such.


*James Tenney - Changes*






If they ever made a movie of his life, Bryan Cranston would be perfectly cast.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*The Minimalists*

There was a backlash against the academic hegemony of serialism extending back to the 1960s. In part this was due to the influence of John Cage and his experimental outlook, but also to the rise of musical styles that have come to be called "Minimalism." Its pioneering figures showed that it was possible to reach an audience much larger than the usual one for new music.

According to Philip Glass by 1967 modern music in New York was being transformed by a generation of composer who were in open revolt against the academic musical world.

Minimal music (also called minimalism) is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music.

The approach originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School. In the Western art music tradition, the American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach. (Wikipedia)

*Steve Reich (1936)*












> Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s.
> 
> Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. His compositional style reflects his explicit rejection of Western classical traditions, serialism, and indeterminacy, because, unlike these traditions, he sought to create music in which the compositional process was discernible in the music itself. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." To do so, his music employs the technique of phase shifting, in which a phrase is slightly altered over time, in a flow that is clearly perceptible to the listener. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes, as on Pendulum Music (1968) and Four Organs (1970). The 1978 recording Music for 18 Musicians would help entrench minimalism as a movement. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains (1988).


Steve Reich has described his sense of alienation with the Classical music scene surrounding him in New York as making him feel like a complete outsider. "I was not very much in touch with composers of the type that would be doing new music," he remembered. "On the one hand there were people up at Columbia-Princeton who I felt totally out of touch with and unsympathetic towards, and on the other hand there was the John Cage group who I felt totally out of sympathy with. So there was really no place for me."

Reich was trying to find ways to build on his first musical loves: Jazz, Bach and Stravinsky. Also his discovery of African rhythmic concepts helped him find his own creative path. The stylistic interests and pedigrees of Reich and Glass were entirely out of step with those favored by leaders of New York's musical life.

I constantly say to people, "What we did was not a revolution - this was a restoration." The music we were brought up in school to imitate - the music of Boulez and Stockhausen - had become what we call mannerist. That doesn't mean the music was bad. It just means that it had gotten so recherche that it put itself off in a corner. With just a tiny coterie listening to it. And then someone said, "Wait a minute. Give me a broom! This place is a mess!" And that's what fell to my generation. And the proof of the validity of it is that it was a generation, that independently, Arvo Part, unknown to any of us, was doing the same thing Philip Glass and Terry Riley and I were doing here.

Since the last part of _Drumming_ in 1971, I've been incorporating more aspects of the traditional Western vocabulary - harmony, melody. So it's always one step forward, two steps back for me - one step forward into the new, two steps back into the tradition. (Robert Harris. "Composer Steve Reich on turning 80, writing live music and finding faith". The Globe and Mail. April 13, 2016.)

*Steve Reich* - _Different Trains_






*Philip Glass (1937)*












> Philip Morris Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.


Glass's childhood was surrounded by music, his father owned a record store and was an avid Classical music aficionado. Glass has talked about seeing his father sitting in an armchair listening for hour to records he would bring home from the store, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Bartok and other 20th century masters. Glass would later assemble a large collection of records from the unsold LPs from his father store.

In his teens, Glass entered an accelerated college program at the University of Chicago where he studied mathematics and philosophy. In Chicago, he also discovered the serialism of Anton Webern and composed a twelve-tone string trio.

Glass went onto Juilliard and received a traditional Classical music education, studied primarily piano and composition with Vincent Perschetti and William Bergsma.

Steve Reich met Philip Glass at Juilliard and before long the two and several other musicians formed an ensemble to play the work of its members. At the time this was exceptional since for the most part contemporary composers did not perform their own works. The Minimalists did much to reverse this trend, in fact, composer-led ensembles have been a key aspect to the late 20th century Classical music scene.

It didn't take long before Reich and Glass split up to form their own ensembles and Glass has described the Philip Glass Ensemble as the cornerstone of his career. Having grown up in a household in which music was a money-making enterprise, it was natural for Glass's ensemble to manifest his business known-how, artistic confidence, and ambition.

Early on Glass had the priority of reaching a large audience, "I personally knew that I didn't want to spend my life writing music for a handful of people." He has also claimed that he and his fellow Minimalists have restored something valuable to Classical musical life by coming "back to the idea that the composer is the performer." When asked to explain why his music has resonated with a large audience Glass has responded "For one thing, I'm out there playing it all the time. Also, I tend to pick projects that get heard a lot; _Koyaanisqatsi_ is a film that millions of people saw."

*Philip Glass* - _Concerto For Violin And Orchestra_
Gidon Kremer


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> *The Minimalists*
> 
> There was a backlash against the academic hegemony of serialism extending back to the 1960s. In part this was due to the influence of John Cage and his experimental outlook, but also to the rise of musical styles that have come to be called "Minimalism." Its pioneering figures showed that it was possible to reach an audience much larger than the usual one for new music. ...


Thanks very much for this informative post. I'm intrigued by the "academic hegemony of serialism extending back to the 1960s". Can you elaborate a bit on this, or provide a link to more info online? I am particularly interested in where this was (e.g., particular universities?), the causes, and other details. Relates to my efforts to pull together historical info on modern classical music. Thanks ...


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Nawdry said:


> Thanks very much for this informative post. I'm intrigued by the "academic hegemony of serialism extending back to the 1960s". Can you elaborate a bit on this, or provide a link to more info online? I am particularly interested in where this was (e.g., particular universities?), the causes, and other details. Relates to my efforts to pull together historical info on modern classical music. Thanks ...


The Wikipedia article might be helpful for you, especially the section "After World War II".


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Paul Schoenfield* (1947)










Paul Schoenfield is known for combining popular, folk, and classical music forms.

Schoenfield was born in 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. He began to take piano lessons at the age of six, and wrote his first composition a year later. Among his teachers were Julius Chajes, Ozan Marsh and Rudolf Serkin. He holds a B.A. degree from Carnegie-Mellon University and a Doctor of Music Arts degree from the University of Arizona.

Schoenfield was formerly an active concert pianist, as a soloist and with groups including Music from Marlboro. With violinist Sergiu Luca he recorded the complete violin and piano works of Béla Bartók. He gave the premiere of his piano concerto Four Parables with the Toledo Symphony in 1983. Jeffrey Kahane recorded the work in 1994 with John Nelson and the New World Symphony. Also on the Argo CD are Vaudeville, Schoenfeld's concerto for piccolo trumpet, played by Wolfgang Basch, and Klezmer Rondos, concerto for flute, baritone and orchestra, performed by flutist Carol Wincenc. Critic Raymond Tuttle called the CD: "Some of the most life-affirming new music I've heard in a long time", while he characterized _Four Parables_ as "wild silliness in the face of existential dread."






Pianist Andrew Russo describes Gershwin and Bartók as the primary influences on composer Paul Schoenfield, but his music has a sentimentality and overt emotionalism, which seem even more directly descended from the American vaudeville tradition.

*Paul Schoenfield*: _Four Parables_; _Four Souvenirs_; _Café Music_
Andrew Russo









Joann Falletta and the Prague Philharmonia articulate the mischievous scoring and undulating lines of the first piece, the _Four Parables_ for piano and orchestra, with strong clarity and force.

Matching them in commitment is the commanding young pianist Andrew Russo, who handles the frenzied Swing idiom that defines much of the material with vigour and brilliance. Russo tackles the precipitous octaves and busy passagework that recur throughout the work with aplomb and precision, especially in the vertiginous shapes he has to describe in the opening and closing movements.

Schoenfeld's work is musically sophisticated in the skill with which it's put together, but for the most part, it sounds inescapably like something we've heard before. It does have an infectious energy, melodic inventiveness, and strong surface charm, which some listeners will find highly attractive and which may strike others as annoyingly derivative. The composer aptly sums up his approach in his description of his _Café Music_ for piano, violin and cello, "My intention was to write a kind of high-class dinner music -- music which could be played at a restaurant, but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall." His work receives superlative, committed performances on this CD featuring pianist, Andrew Russo, the Prague Philharmonia, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, violinist James Ehnes, and cellist Edward Arron, all of whom play with warmth, deep feeling, and swinging rhythmic energy. Black Box's sound is clean, open, and vibrant.

Schoenfield's music derives much of its interest and tension from the interplay between 'high' and 'low' materials and forms, and our expectations of each. Though the writing can veer into pastiche at times (Gershwin is clearly an important model), he manages to compose and maintain a delicate balance between recycled and hackneyed popular forms and rhythms, and new touches of grace, elision and originality. The second movement of the _Four Parables_, whilst less dynamic than the first, bears this idea out in its tendency towards both repetition and expansion of the material. The third movement, entitled _Elegy_ (all four have loosely programmatic titles such as this), provides a respite from the surrounding fervour. Sounding like a meeker Oscar Peterson, Russo brings out the lyricism and regret of this section well. He employs a restrained rubato and instils a subtle and becalmed expression into his playing whilst always ensuring that a sense of progress is maintained. The music of this section interestingly incorporates nods to Messiaen-like whole tone harmonies, with echoes in the voicing and rhythms of the solo piano writing of the jazz ballad form. The movement presents a unique and gently ambiguous musical sensibility.


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