# American academies of 50s and 60s dominated by tonal composers



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

In Joseph N. Straus's 'The Myth of Serial "Tyranny" in the 1950s and 1960s' (1999) he concluded that:

_"As the period drew to a close, the American academy was dominated, as it had been throughout the 1950s and 1960s, by tonally oriented composers"._

According to wikipedia:
_"Straus conducted a research study that considered six questions about American compositional activity from the 1950s and 1960s: (1) who controlled the academy? (2) whose music got published? (3) whose music got performed? (4) whose music got recorded? (5) who got the prizes, awards, and fellowships? (6) whose music got reviewed?"_

Has Straus's conclusion been challenged? Was the situation different in Europe and elsewhere?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

this kind of "research" is comical. To whom did he pose the questions and how were they formulated? It would be better to go after some objective facts such as numbers of published papers in the journals of that time or concerts of that time, not some highly subjective questionnaires that can be manipulated.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> this kind of "research" is comical.


Because?



> To whom did he pose the questions and how were they formulated?


I don't know



> It would be better to go after some objective facts such as numbers of published papers in the journals of that time or concerts of that time, not some highly subjective questionnaires that can be manipulated.


His article is published in Oxford Academic's 'The Musical Quarterly'.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

janxharris said:


> His article is published in Oxford Academic's 'The Musical Quarterly'.


these kinds of journals will publish anything
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

And why is it comical? I already answered that: it would be better to go after objective facts, ie make a statistic out of published papers, concerts, academic courses, positions etc. of that time. But that would require some actual work and not just sending a couple of questions


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> these kinds of journals will publish anything
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair


I wouldn't dispute such a possibility.



> And why is it comical? I already answered that: it would be better to go after objective facts, ie make a statistic out of published papers, concerts, academic courses, positions etc. of that time. But that would require some actual work and not just sending a couple of questions


Not sure this proves that his assertions are comical.

Jacck - I'm not taking one side or the other - just interested to know if people have any knowledge on the subject and whether the often heard assertion that serialists dominated academia was merely a canard.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

This from Strange Magic:



Strange Magic said:


> Herbert Pauls in his thesis supports much of what Straus contends, that the American academy--and certainly the listening and recording-buying public-- was, in balance, leaning toward ("dominated" is much too strong and charged a term for the academy; for the CM-listening public, it's a fine term) tonally oriented composition. But Pauls' point is that the major musical history texts of the time, and many writers in journals, gave the strong impression that the serialists and other composers of "advanced" music had swept the field and were the wave of both the present and the future.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Those here with long memories will recall the TC thread on Herbert Pauls' thesis that while academia and its literature was obsessed with avant-garde music--atonal, aleatoric etc.--the majority of composers, works, and listeners continued on with evolved forms of musical romanticism throughout the 20th century. Pauls wrote that this phenomenon was obscured by the fact that the texts and histories of the time were written almost exclusively by strong advocates of avant-garde music who felt that such music was the inevitable result of unstoppable evolutionary forces. But Pauls presents evidence to support his thesis; the curious will find his thesis here:
> 
> http://www.musicweb-international.com/books/Pauls_two_centuries_in_one.pdf


______________________________________________________


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

janxharris said:


> In Joseph N. Straus's 'The Myth of Serial "Tyranny" in the 1950s and 1960s' (1999) he concluded that:
> 
> _"As the period drew to a close, the American academy was dominated, as it had been throughout the 1950s and 1960s, by tonally oriented composers"._
> 
> ...


Here's quite a substantial piece of research which _prima facie_ supports Straus's view, I should say I haven't read more than the abstract yet.

https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/14058/Covey_umd_0117E_14138.pdf;sequence=1


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

What we may have here is a disjunction in what is meant by The Academy. Also we appear to have a disjunction perhaps within The Academy (if defined to include the authors of musical history texts and journal articles) between Things As They Are or Were (an actual leaning toward tonal composition) and Things As They Ought To Be (the grand necessity for "advanced" music being historically inevitable). So we have people like Straus and Pauls telling us what actually happened, and the musical histories and polemicists telling us what they believe and what their readers ought to believe about where music was inevitably going.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

The most succinct rebuttal to Straus is Anne Shreffler's article "The Myth of Empirical Historiography: A Response to Joseph N. Straus" (_Musical Quarterly_ vol. 84, no. 1 [Spring 2000]: pp. 30-39). Shreffler criticizes small-ish points here and there (such as Straus's absurd decision to omit émigré composers from his statistical counts), but the main thrust of her criticism is that Straus erroneously equates statistical prevalence with dominance. Straus provides meticulous headcounts of the number of serialists found in academic music departments in order to show that serialism was just a small sliver of the overall compositional pie and therefore not the domineering ideology it is often made out to be, but Shreffler points out that in academia "dominance" has almost nothing to do with numbers and almost everything to do with administrative power. Anyone who's ever taught in a college or university knows that a department chair can make his or her agenda the dominant one even if it is not the majority agenda of the department's faculty members overall. (It's the same with politics: anyone who has ever lived under an unpopular president knows that the ideology wielding power is hardly synonymous with the most statistically prevalent ideology.)

Another retort to Straus can be found in Richard Taruskin's postscript to his article "How Talented Composers Become Useless" (in his book _The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays_). Taruskin's response is briefer than Shreffler's but goes further in its accusations: Taruskin notes that Straus's statistics concerning recordings, publications, and performances are just a plain old red herring, since no one has ever claimed that serialism was the dominant repertoire being recorded, published, or performed. Taruskin also notes that it is disingenous for Straus to point out how few serial composers received major prizes in the 50s and 60s, because prize committees, especially of very prestigious prizes, are always composed of older members of the profession whose musical allegiances were formed in earlier generations. A truer way to measure the influence of serialism on musical prizes and awards would be to look at which composers got them in the 70s and 80s, when serialists of the 50s and 60s started serving on the committees. (And sure enough, if one compares the Pulitzer Prize winners in music, for example, between the 50s and 60s on the one hand the 70s and 80s on the other, one can see that the Menottis and Barbers give way to the Wuorinens and Martinos.)


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Jacck said:


> these kinds of journals will publish anything
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
> 
> And why is it comical? I already answered that: it would be better to go after objective facts, ie make a statistic out of published papers, concerts, academic courses, positions etc. of that time. But that would require some actual work and not just sending a couple of questions


Those kind of journals? I doubt you have any idea what Kind of journal The Musical Quarterly is. It is a serious journal with a long history and bringing up the Sokal affair in this context only demonstrates that you are unfamiliar with the sources and authors under discussion. Joseph Straus is a well-known theorist worthy of reading carefully - and of refuting thoughtfully for those who have decided to do so. Thank you Eschbeg for giving the relevant context and citing essential sources.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Eschbeg said:


> The most succinct rebuttal to Straus is Anne Shreffler's article "The Myth of Empirical Historiography: A Response to Joseph N. Straus" (_Musical Quarterly_ vol. 84, no. 1 [Spring 2000]: pp. 30-39). Shreffler criticizes small-ish points here and there (such as Straus's absurd decision to omit émigré composers from his statistical counts), but the main thrust of her criticism is that Straus erroneously equates statistical prevalence with dominance. Straus provides meticulous headcounts of the number of serialists found in academic music departments in order to show that serialism was just a small sliver of the overall compositional pie and therefore not the domineering ideology it is often made out to be, but Shreffler points out that in academia "dominance" has almost nothing to do with numbers and almost everything to do with administrative power. Anyone who's ever taught in a college or university knows that a department chair can make his or her agenda the dominant one even if it is not the majority agenda of the department's faculty members overall. (It's the same with politics: anyone who has ever lived under an unpopular president knows that the ideology wielding power is hardly synonymous with the most statistically prevalent ideology.)
> 
> Another retort to Straus can be found in Richard Taruskin's postscript to his article "How Talented Composers Become Useless" (in his book _The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays_). Taruskin's response is briefer than Shreffler's but goes further in its accusations: Taruskin notes that Straus's statistics concerning recordings, publications, and performances are just a plain old red herring, since no one has ever claimed that serialism was the dominant repertoire being recorded, published, or performed. Taruskin also notes that it is disingenous for Straus to point out how few serial composers received major prizes in the 50s and 60s, because prize committees, especially of very prestigious prizes, are always composed of older members of the profession whose musical allegiances were formed in earlier generations. A truer way to measure the influence of serialism on musical prizes and awards would be to look at which composers got them in the 70s and 80s, when serialists of the 50s and 60s started serving on the committees. (And sure enough, if one compares the Pulitzer Prize winners in music, for example, between the 50s and 60s on the one hand the 70s and 80s on the other, one can see that the Menottis and Barbers give way to the Wuorinens and Martinos.)


Very insightful. Doesn't this amount to an admission that neither 'camp' held sway since the statistics can be spun both ways?


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Joseph Straus is a well-known theorist worthy of reading carefully...


Indeed he is, IMHO. His _Introduction to Post Tonal Theory_ is an excellent starting point for anybody interested in that subject. As to whether he had an agenda when he wrote the work under discussion, I have no idea.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

These writers are academics arguing with each other. But the public’s perception, whether accurate or not, was much different in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Their perception was that the serialists, including Stravinsky, the modernists, were reigning supreme, and that it was being taught and promoted in an academic setting, or otherwise as a composer, you were irrelevant. And why not that public perception when universities were supposedly supposed to be forward-looking, progressive, even radical in music, doing research and experimenting, being on the cutting edge. What academics or composers were going to receive a great deal of attention for representing the status quo or tonality, even though it did exist in a university setting? 

Now that all of that nonsense is over, composers who wrote with a predominately tonal palette in the 50s, 60s, and 70s can now be heard and be reevaluated. It’s about time. The depth of gratitude owed to the serialists and experimentalists, or those influenced by them, is that they freed up music more even for those who may have wanted to write primarily in the setting of tonality, and now both sides are available to all without the academic snobbery and stigma. Listen to the music of John Corigliano. It’s brilliant using both.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Previous post (I have submitted several) about the subject:

https://www.talkclassical.com/41978-modernist-anti-modernist-problem-7.html?highlight=eastman#post1018264


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I have found another one:

https://www.talkclassical.com/30237-has-serialism-had-its.html#post594436


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I have recently discovered another composer who survived the supposed tyranny of academic serialism: Samuel Jones. His music has come up in another thread. One of his symphonies was a finalist in a game about American symphonies. He composes tonal music.

He was born in 1935 and is still active. He was a product of Eastman. He served as the first dean of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, building its faculty and facilities over six years as dean. In 1997 Jones was appointed Composer in Residence at the Seattle Symphony. He retired from full-time academic life after 24 years at Rice to relocate to the Pacific Northwest and dedicate more of his attention to composition.

Link to his website:

http://www.samueljones.net/


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Found a third post:

https://www.talkclassical.com/55654-rate-eras-classical-music.html?highlight=machover#post1459094


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

janxharris said:


> Doesn't this amount to an admission that neither 'camp' held sway since the statistics can be spun both ways?


I think the issue in this particular case is not how to spin the statistics but whether the correct statistics are being cited. The "sway" that serialists are accused of having is of a fairly specific kind: sway in academic institutions and prizes. So (to repeat an example from above) Straus's statistics concerning commercial recordings, publications, and concert performances are largely irrelevant, since no one has ever claimed--and indeed, no one in their right mind _would_ ever claim--that serialism ever had any significant sway in those areas. Likewise, Straus's headcounts of serialists in academic music departments is also a non sequitur because no one ever claimed that serialists outnumbered non-serialists. The issue is sway, not majority presence. Straus assumes that the former is a function of the latter, and that the former can therefore be quantified by the latter, but no one who's ever spent time in academia would claim that departments really work that way. (The fact that Straus is himself an academic is what prompts people like Taruskin to accuse him of outright dishonesty, not just naivety.) Again, to repeat something mentioned above, if Straus really wanted to measure the academic sway that serialists had in the 50s and 60s, then he would have been better served doing his stat-counting in the 70s and 80s in order to see how effectively the serialists of the 50s and 60s were able to place their students in prestigious academic positions and prize committees.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> And why not that public perception when universities were supposedly supposed to be forward-looking, progressive, even radical in music, doing research and experimenting, being on the cutting edge. What academics or composers were going to receive a great deal of attention for representing the status quo or tonality, even though it did exist in a university setting?


I disagree strongly with this view of what a university should be doing in its music department. It is not the place for a university to set itself up as a taste-maker.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

JAS said:


> I disagree strongly with this view of what a university should be doing in its music department. It is not the place for a university to set itself up as a taste-maker.


One of the functions of a music school is to teach a student how to be a performer. The most successful musicians, amateur and professional, have to able to perform all different types of music. Whether it is Bach or Rap they have to be able to perform any type of music that is put in front of them. Music schools which teach their students to perform all sorts of music will be more successful than those that only teach whatever. A musician who can perform atonal music as well as tonal will be more likely to get a gig instead of one who can only perform tonal.


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## Guest (Sep 18, 2018)

I absolutely agree with arpeggio.

Furthermore, the best and most enriching learning environments in any music school/conservatory are the ones that hire composition professors that cover a very broad range of styles in contemporary classical music. I will always be sceptical of a composition course that has a huge majority of staff composing in a neo-tonal style or all composing a similar brand of experimental music.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

MUSIC; Midcentury Serialists: The Bullies or the Besieged? By Anthony Tommasini.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> One of the functions of a music school is to teach a student how to be a performer. The most successful musicians, amateur and professional, have to able to perform all different types of music. Whether it is Bach or Rap they have to be able to perform any type of music that is put in front of them. Music schools which teach their students to perform all sorts of music will be more successful than those that only teach whatever. A musician who can perform atonal music as well as tonal will be more likely to get a gig instead of one who can only perform tonal.


A valid point, in its own way, but one that really does not address my point at all.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Who mentioned that this Joseph Straus is some esteemed musical critic? 
http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view...99331444.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199331444-e-44
"_Autism and postwar twelve-tone music may thus be thought of as related forms of cultural modernism (in its postwar American incarnation). This essay both documents the shared stigmatization and pushes back against it. Neurodiversity and cultural diversity require and reward appropriate accommodation, in the recognition that pleasure and value may take many different forms._"

I hate this kind of muddled thinking. The abstract reminded me instantly of the Pomo (Postmodern generator)
http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/
(just click reload and it will generate a new text each time) :lol:


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> I have recently discovered another composer who survived the supposed tyranny of academic serialism: Samuel Jones. His music has come up in another thread. One of his symphonies was a finalist in a game about American symphonies. He composes tonal music.
> 
> He was born in 1935 and is still active. He was a product of Eastman. He served as the first dean of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, building its faculty and facilities over six years as dean. In 1997 Jones was appointed Composer in Residence at the Seattle Symphony. He retired from full-time academic life after 24 years at Rice to relocate to the Pacific Northwest and dedicate more of his attention to composition.
> 
> ...


Samuel Jones is a new name to me. I found youtube performances of his violin concerto and an Elegy (apparently written at the time of JFK's death). The violin concerto did not particularly appeal to me on my first listen, but there was nothing especially off-putting about it and I will certainly give it another try or two. The Elegy seemed more interesting (and may be a case where knowing the context of its composition contributes to an appreciation of it). There may yet be something here worth my pursuit.:tiphat:


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

arpeggio said:


> I have recently discovered another composer who survived the supposed tyranny of academic serialism: Samuel Jones. His music has come up in another thread. One of his symphonies was a finalist in a game about American symphonies. He composes tonal music.
> 
> He was born in 1935 and is still active. He was a product of Eastman. He served as the first dean of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, building its faculty and facilities over six years as dean. In 1997 Jones was appointed Composer in Residence at the Seattle Symphony. He retired from full-time academic life after 24 years at Rice to relocate to the Pacific Northwest and dedicate more of his attention to composition.
> 
> ...


I grew up in the Houston area and way back in 1985 I was 10 years old and attended a community orchestra (Houston Symphony North) concert at a local community college with my parents. I went to hear a piece by Grieg, my favorite composer at the time. The first piece was by a local composer and was called "Overture for the City". I really liked it. Anyway, when it was over they signaled for the composer to stand up and low and behold, he was sitting right next to me! According to the program, his name was Samuel Jones. I never forgot his name or his music.

In 1992, the local PBS station aired a documentary about his Symphony No. 3 and I recorded it on VHS. I still have it after 26 years and watch it every once in a while. He talks about his inspiration for the piece, the technicalities of composing it, and it shows the rehearsals and final performance. It was commissioned by a small community orchestra, the Amarillo (TX) Symphony Orchestra and they did a great job playing it. It's a great piece and I'm so glad to see it has since been recorded by the Seattle and London Symphonies. It totally deserves it. Certainly one of the best symphonies of the last few decades.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

janxharris said:


> MUSIC; Midcentury Serialists: The Bullies or the Besieged? By Anthony Tommasini.


Superb article by Tommasini. Thanks for posting.

Worth mentioning is Schoenberg's connection with academia in the 1930s. There was an influential prewar connection with prominent and prestigious universities and the teaching of such Serial methods that had already been established before the postwar years when the momentum began to intensify in the '50s and continued.



> His first teaching position in the United States was at the Malkin Conservatory in Boston. He moved to Los Angeles, where he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, both of which later named a music building on their respective campuses Schoenberg Hall; University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He was appointed visiting professor at UCLA in 1935 on the recommendation of Otto Klemperer, music director and conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. [unquote]
> 
> Composers needed the income and also personally benefited by being associated with a prestigious institution. The question is whether this was ultimately good creatively for the composers, and I think there was a downside to it in terms of ego, prejudice, and influence against those who weren't following their particular path of musical development.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

A better additional question would be: How much of it (the "tonal" music) has lasted?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Although there are some contentious posts try:

12-tone Music and Contemporary Tonal Music

Post-WW2 Composers Who Are Tonal and Structured


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Jacck said:


> *Who mentioned that this Joseph Straus is some esteemed musical critic?*
> http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view...99331444.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199331444-e-44
> "_Autism and postwar twelve-tone music may thus be thought of as related forms of cultural modernism (in its postwar American incarnation). This essay both documents the shared stigmatization and pushes back against it. Neurodiversity and cultural diversity require and reward appropriate accommodation, in the recognition that pleasure and value may take many different forms._"
> 
> ...


Uh … no one? He is a music theorist. He writes books on music theory. And the history of theory. And the theory of history.


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