The Evolution of American Classical Music

Classical music has always thrived in the US. During the 19th century, wealthy American philanthropists set up concert halls and opera houses in major cities, and there was an enthusiastic market for all the latest European novelties and the most fashionable European stars. Famous musical visitors included Tchaikovsky, who conducted his works at the opening of Carnegie Hall, and the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, who undertook a wildly popular concert tour organised by the showman P T Barnum. German symphonic music had a particularly strong place in the American repertoire at this time, as with Italian opera: nobody had greater star wattage in the 1900s and 1910s than Enrico Caruso.

The steady flow of migrants to the US from Europe over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries naturally included countless musicians, who helped to disseminate classical music across the US, writing music for communities large and small. A particularly vocal figure in advocating for the creation of a national musical identity was George Frederick Bristow (1825-98), whose Fifth Symphony is subtitled ‘Niagara’. A group of composers that were significant in the development of large-scale American orchestral music then emerged in New England in the late 19th century, known as the ‘Second New England School’ or the ‘Boston Six’. Their names – John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, Horatio Parker – are almost forgotten today, with one exception. Amy Beach (1867-1944) has attracted renewed interest in recent years as the first American woman to write a symphony.

As the 20th century progressed, American composers began to move away from imitating European styles and experimented in creating a distinctive American sound. For some, the answer was to look to popular musical traditions: George Gershwin (1898-1937) found an innovative way of combining the European orchestral tradition with jazz. Folk music also provided a rich stream of inspiration for American composers of the early 20th century, just as it inspired contemporary European composers from Vaughan Williams to Bartók. Charles Ives (1874-1954) notably drew upon hymns, folksongs, band tunes and parlour songs, blending them with modern harmonic techniques.

A 20th-century composer whose music sounds quintessentially American is Aaron Copland (1900-90), who created an epic sound world evocative of vast sweeping plains. Copland trained in Paris and experimented with writing modernist music before developing a new ‘vernacular’ style, writing the hugely popular ballet scores Rodeo and Appalachian Spring, the stirring, patriotic Fanfare for the Common Man, and the popular Third Symphony. Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber (1910-81) is another highly expressive, accessible work that seems to sum up the spirit of the nation.

American music has benefited from the contributions of diverse composers. During the 1930s, Florence Price (1887-1953) broke boundaries by becoming the first African-American woman to gain recognition as a symphonic composer and have her work played by a major orchestra. The 1930s and 1940s also saw the arrival of a large number of European composers, many of them Jewish, who sought refuge in the US. These included some highly significant figures in the development of 20th-century music. Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) fled Austria in 1933 in response to the rise of the Nazis, working initially in Boston but later settling in Los Angeles. The city would become a particular magnet for European emigrés. Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) arrived there in 1934, establishing a flourishing film music career; his Oscar-winning scores for Hollywood somewhat overshadowing his equally rich output in chamber and orchestral music. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) arrived in town and applied for American citizenship.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) enjoyed parallel careers as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century and an extremely significant voice in American composition. His output was varied, featuring large-scale works for orchestra, including The Age of Anxiety (Symphony No 2) and Symphony No 3, ‘Kaddish’, and for orchestra and choir, such as Chichester Psalms. He was a composer who moved with ease across serious and popular genres, and is celebrated for his dynamic works of musical theatre, including On the Town, Candide and West Side Story, his perennially popular reworking of the Romeo and Juliet story to 1950s New York.

In the second half of the 20th century, American composers were at the forefront of postmodern developments in music. Although of the same generation as composers such as Barber, John Cage (1912-92) pursued a far more experimental path than his contemporaries, embracing radical modern techniques and drawing creatively on Asian musical styles. His most famous, indeed notorious, work is 4’33’’, written in 1952, which comprises three entirely silent movements. A distinctively American strand of postmodern music has been the genre known as Minimalism, first developed in the 1960s and pioneered by figures including Philip Glass (b 1937), John Adams (b 1947) and Steve Reich (b 1936), which makes much use of repeated melodic cells and employs instruments such as synthesisers.

It is hardly surprising that film music should have been a key part of the American musical scene for much of the 20th century and into the 21st. One of the most prolific figures in this arena has been John Williams (b 1932), whose countless scores include those for Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and three of the Harry Potter films. Williams acknowledges being inspired by a variety of earlier composers, most notably Wagner.

The younger American composers active today are making rich and imaginative contributions to the contemporary musical canon. Lowell Liebermann (b 1961) has written harmonically adventurous music that ranges across the main genres of orchestral music and opera; Jennifer Higdon (b 1962) has received commissions from all of the leading American symphony orchestras and won a Pulitzer Prize; and Eric Whitacre (b 1970) has produced a large output of serene choral music that audiences around the world have taken to their hearts. Tremendously varied, American classical music from the past and the present offers the listener a dazzling array of exciting works, just waiting to be discovered.

Written by Alexandra Wilson