AD Concert 2003 Dr. Kleinsasser Lecture
Academic Decathlon Lecture on American Music
Bakersfield Convention Center
October 29, 2003
The following text of the October 29 lecture is offered minus the visual images and recordings referenced.
"The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American, and then write any kind of music you wish." - composer Virgil Thompson
Gilbert Chase, a historian of American Music (America’s music, from the pilgrims to the present, Univ. of Illinois Press (Urbana, 1987)), divided our subject into three general stages: Preparation; Expansion; & Fulfillment.
This afternoon we are going to examine three Stages of Development in American Music:
Preparation
:Yankee tunesmiths in the New England Colonies;
Expansion
:The nation looks westward and also to Europe;
The Civil War: where music takes sides - North vs. South;
Recreating the European model in music conservatories;
Fulfillment
:Turn-of-the-century: 1) ragtime leads to jazz, &
2) the first mature generation of American composers;
Jazz – most influential new style, 1st half 20th century;
An indication of the importance of music to the lives of New England colonists, particularly music for worship, may be assumed from the fact that, in 1640, the first book published in the New England colonies was a book of Psalm texts suitable for singing in the worship service. It was entitled The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated Into English Metre, and is generally known as "The Bay Psalm Book."
The book contained no tunes – it is safe to assume that in 1640 – merely 20 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims, everyone knew the various melodies to which these Psalms were sung. But by 1698, nearly two generations later, the ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book included some 13 hymn tunes, which indicates to me that the younger generations probably needed some assistance in matching words and notes.
All of this is by way of introducing the New England Singing School.
In an attempt to assist the young as well as the ignorant to participate in worship services, the New England Singing School evolved:
1. Originating around 1720, it was the first attempt at music education in America;
2. It was initiated by clergy in an effort to promote "regular" singing (singing as notated, not improvised or "lined out");
3. It marked the birth of the church choir movement in America;
4. It was taught by a "singing master," who trained those enrolled how to read music of psalms and hymns at sight.
Singing Schools were generally held in churches, where a typical routine might be for the singing-school teacher to hold classes in the evenings. There his students (mostly adults, by the way) were taught how to decipher the mysteries of musical notation – to learn to sing at sight.
The school would meet each evening for a week, and then on Saturday night, the group would make some kind of public presentation, displaying what they had learned. The donations of the audience, as well as the purchase of any singing manuals the teacher offered for sale, were the teacher’s sole remuneration. The next week, the singing-school teacher would probably move on to another church or another town, and begin the routine anew.
Eventually a group of New England individuals, several of whom served in the Continental Army, who wrote new hymns and devotional songs, sprung into existence, and they were known as "Yankee Tunesmiths." They are also known as the "First New England School."
Francis Hopkinson (1737 – 1791) – was one of the signators to the Declaration of Independence, and composed the first song published in the United States ("My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free"). There are those who credit Hopkinson with having come up with the original design of the American flag.
Supply Belcher (1752 - 1836) became known as "the Handel of Maine."
Daniel Read (1757 - 1836) wrote singing manuals and musical journals.
Oliver Holden (1765 - 1844) – composed many familiar hymn tunes such as "Coronation," which Protestant hymnals utilize to the words "All hail the power of Jesus’ name."
Justin Morgan (1747 - 1798) –was perhaps best known as the breeder of the Morgan horse, and also was also a tavern keeper and school teacher.
The principal figure in the First New England School, and most important composer here, was a one-eyed tanner named William Billings.
Like many of his colleagues, Billings was largely self-taught, as he acquired his musical skill by reading printed manuals. His admirers included Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. As you may know, Revere was a silversmith by trade, and he even was moved to engrave some of Billings’ music in silver plate. One of Billings contemporaries described him thus: "[Billings] was a singular man of moderate size, short of one leg, with one eye, without any address, and with an enormous negligence of person. Still, he spake and sang and thought as a man above the common abilities."
As 19th-century Romanticism, with its excesses of taste, gradually overshadowed Billings’ simple musical style, the general public lost interest in Billings’ music, but his tunes enjoyed a renaissance in the mid-20th century when it was rediscovered by choral groups and people interested in early American music.
One of Billings’ best-known pieces is Chester, a song known to have been a favorite of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.
Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
and slavery clank her galling chains.
We fear them not, we trust in God.
New England’s God forever reigns.
[CD ex.]
Closer to our own time, the tune has been recorded in updated form like this. [CD ex.]
William Billings is generally remembered for what are called "fuguing tunes." American fuguing tunes were roughly based on Anglican psalm settings, but they had a more homespun character, which seems right given the circumstances of their origin. Fuguing tunes were generally in four voice parts (SATB), with the melody in the tenor voice. The voices start out in a hymn-like manner, all of them moving together rhythmically. About half-way through, the voices will cadence, and then begin to enter in staggered fashion, one after the other. As a style, it did not challenge the choral fugues of J. S. Bach, or G. F. Handel, but the early American fuguing tune had its own importance and charm. Billing’s Creation will serve as a case in point. The second verse reads:
Strange that a harp of thousand strings should keep in tune so long.
(repeat 2nd line in imitative texture)
[CD ex.]
At the time of the formation of the U. S. government, it was clear that music was an important part of people’s lives. Musical life was restrained and unsophisticated, but those with initiative kept up with developments at home and abroad.
Here are three musical Founding Fathers:
Thomas Jefferson - played the violin; his library had extensive holdings in music manuscripts, method books, & contemporary musical works. (He invented a music stand that automatically turned pages.)
Frances Hopkinson - played harpsichord in concerts in and around Philadelphia; published collections of music; his song "My Days Have Been So Wondrous free" is the earliest surviving secular song written in North America.
Benjamin Franklin - played violin, harp and guitar; wrote a string quartet; invented an instrument for which both Mozart & Beethoven composed music - the glass harmonica;
Making music with glass vessels dates at least as far back as the Renaissance, but the idea of gently stroking the rims of the glasses is a more recent development – from mid-18th century England. While visiting England in 1761, Benjamin Franklin was impressed by the way in which vertical glasses were filled with varying amounts of water to affect their pitch, then they were either tapped lightly with a stick, or players ran a moistened finger around the rim of the glass to produce the sound. Franklin hit upon the idea of arranging glass bowls concentrically on a horizontal rod turned by a pedal. A somewhat later development had the bowls suspended in a trough of water. As they spun, they were then continually moistened. Franklin called his instrument a "glassychord."
Ben Franklin and his "Glassychord."
The instrument was popular in Europe where it attracted the attention of the Mozart family and also the famous hypnotist, Dr. Anton Mesmer, who used the instrument to help induce a hypnotic state among his patients.
Interestingly, many of the early practitioners of the instrument were women.
Here is a brief example of music for glass harmonica composed by Mozart. Mozart’s Adagio dates from August 1791, and was the final example of chamber music he wrote.
[CD ex.]
We now enter the portion of our topic that Gilbert Chase labeled "Expanson."
In the first half of the 19th century, as travel to and from Europe became more common, Americans tended to be awed by famous performers visiting from Europe. This initiated a period dominated by an American musical inferiority complex that lasted well into the 20th century. It dictated that no American composer could gain respect unless he or she had established credentials in European academies of universities.
Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind’s fame extended beyond the concert hall, as a style of furniture bearing her name became the rage, particularly furniture for young children.
Ole Bull
Norwegian violinist Ole Bull appeared in the U. S. as early as 1843, and annually toured this country during the winters between 1867 and 1873. He was particularly celebrated in the Scandinavian communities of the Midwest. "My relationship to the Americans is that of an adopted son," he wrote an acquaintance.
The honor of being the first American to rival the great performers of Europe fell to a native of New Orleans, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. He has rightly been called "America’s first musical superstar."
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
He was:
New Orleans born, went to Paris for study at age 13;
Hailed by Berlioz and Chopin (the latter said "he will become the king of pianists");
The musical idol of the Spanish court by age 23;
Returned to U. S. in 1853 where he incorporated patriotic & popular melodies in his recital pieces;
Traveled over 100,000 miles by railroad giving recitals in U. S. & Central and South America.
His piano music is particularly notable for his attempts to incorporate elements of American popular music [ex. The Union, heard in the morning concert] in his recital pieces long before it became fashionable to do so.
Ojos Criollos ("Creole eyes"), a Cuban Dance – by Gottschalk was written in 1859 while he lived in the Caribbean. Like many kinds of dance music, you will notice it is organized into repeated sections and contains a distinct rhythmic pulse. It is riddled with syncopations that reflect its Caribbean origins, and at times seems to suggest the future style of ragtime.
[Gottschalk’s "Creole Eyes" was then performed by pianists Emily Sayles and Bonnie Farrer.]
The prominence Gottschalk commanded in concert life in the middle of the 19th century is balanced by the influence of this man, Lowell Mason in public school music. Through his successes as a performer, composer, teacher, and mentor to younger musicians, Mason may well have been the most influential American musician of the 19th century. Mason helped found the Academy of Music in Boston in 1833, and served as superintendent of Music in the Boston public schools from 1837 – 1845. His role in getting the study of music into the curriculum of the schools of Boston in 1840 earned him the title of father of music education in the U. S. He wrote a great deal of music for use in church worship services (a number of his hymn tunes are found in Protestant hymnals yet today), and he assembled large collections of music used in school classrooms. Thus Mason became one of the very few music educators in history to become very wealthy from his profession. He used some of his riches to sponsor research in music; he was underwriter of the first English language biography of Beethoven.
Lowell Mason
While Lowell Mason labored in the vineyard of music education, touring performing individuals and groups, such as Blind Tom and the Hutchinson Family, propagated American popular music during the mid-19th century.
Thomas Bethune - Blind Tom’s talents were evident as early as age four when the family of his slave master undertook his musical training. He was then turned over to a wealthy planter who presented him in programs throughout the slave-holding states of the South. His presentations were part formal recital and part vaudeville act. He flawlessly played music of the masters, such as J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Franz Liszt and others. Part of his recital routine was to have members of the audience suggest themes, either musical or pictorial ideas, and then, on the spot, and he would improvise a grandiose piano piece based on them. His memory was reportedly phenomenal; contemporaries claimed he could listen to extremely complex piano pieces and then sit down at the keyboard and recreate the original, note perfect.
"Blind Tom"
During the Civil War Thomas Bethune toured the South raising money for the Confederate cause (how ironic! - a slave raising money for the Confederacy). After the War, he toured as far north as Canada.
Touring musical families were fairly common in the mid-19th century, but clearly the most prominent one was that of the Hutchinsons.
Hutchinson Family
Beginning in the 1840s, the Hutchinsons appeared in churches and social gatherings throughout the Eastern and Mid-western states, promoting progressive social reforms such as abolitionism, women’s rights, and temperance. As the family grew in number it later split into the "Tribe of John" and "Tribe of Asa."
They were significant in building sympathy for the cause of the
North during the Civil War.
Minstrel shows were the Saturday Night Live of the 19th century. Their skits and songs were heavily doused with political and social satire. With the advent of vaudeville in the later years of the century, interest in minstrel shows gradually waned. The most famous company was that of E. P. Christy. His minstrel shows popularized many songs by Stephen Foster. Christy himself was known to put his name on songs he had hired Foster to write. In his later years, Christy became deranged, and in 1862 he threw himself out of the window of a tall building in NYC.
Christy
Christy’s company was responsible to a considerable degree for the advancement of the career of this man, Stephen Collins Foster.
Stephen Foster was the first successful American composer of popular songs. Foster wrote several hundred songs, mostly sentimental "household" songs and tunes for minstrel shows. These appealed strongly to the middle-class musical taste that held sway in 19th-century America.
Foster
Though many of Foster’s songs evoke an idealized picture of the American South, and were supposedly influenced by slave songs, in actuality he made only one trip to the South, and that was merely a brief steamboat trip down to New Orleans.
One of his most popular tunes was a melancholy air dating from 1854, entitled Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. It may have been the product of one of the very few periods of happiness in his life, that being when he married Jane McDowell in 1850. The song contains poetic references typical of the time, evoking flowers and streams, but the over-riding sentiment is one of loss – she is gone and will not return, presumably a reference to her death
[Musical performance of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair.]
Camptown Races was originally known by the title "Gwine to run all night" and is but one example of the many light-hearted pieces Foster wrote for minstrel shows. It’s refrain – "Gwine to run all night, gwine to run all day, bet my money on a bobtail nag, somebody bet on the bay" – implies it was sung responsively by the audience. The nonsensical intervening lines were then added by the soloist.
[Music performance of Camptown Races.]
Stephen Foster produced a number of songs reflecting loyalty to the Union cause during the Civil War, titles such as "We Are Coming, Father Abraham," and "We’ve a Million in the Field." A genre of songs called "vacant chair songs" sprung up during the War – songs centered about the loss of a family member in the conflict - for which Foster’s tune "Was My Brother in the Battle?" qualifies. Another composer whose songs became associated with the War and vacant chair music was George Frederick Root. (Root was trained in Europe and occasionally he used the snootier German version of his name: Friedrich Wurzel = root.) His song "Battle Cry of Freedom" became the most popular marching song of the Union army.
Now we come to the portion of our topic that Gilbert Chase referred to as "Fulfillment."
The second half of the 19th century produced a generation of native-born composers of serious concert music, many of whom went abroad for advanced study, and who returned to America to compose and teach in colleges and universities. The godfather, as it were, of the movement was an organist from Portland, Maine, named John Knowles Paine.
John Knowles Paine
Paine spent four years studying in Europe and appearing there in concert as a pianist and organist. When he returned to the U. S. he joined the faculty of Harvard University, making him one of the very earliest professors of music known in this country. He became renowned as a teacher and mentor to younger composers. His work gave rise to a generation of composers who trained in Europe, returned to the U. S. to assume academic positions, and composed in large forms such as symphony and opera. One group in particular goes by the name "The Boston Classicists." Led by Paine, they include Arthur Foote, Charles Martin Loeffler, Horatio Parker, Daniel Gregory Mason, and George Chadwick. Loeffler, born in Alsace, was the only one not native to the U. S. Along with John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, George Chadwick and Daniel Gregory Mason also belong to a group known as "The Second New England School."
The word "School" here is not to be taken literally; it merely serves to indicate that these individuals were contemporaries who lived in the same part of the country and generally shared a common esthetic in their work.
These academically affiliated individuals were active around the turn of the 20th century.
George Chadwick
The most versatile of the New Englanders was George Chadwick, who wrote in large forms, often incorporating ideas from popular music. Like Paine, he became an academic, serving the New England Conservatory of Music for 48 years (was director from 1897 - 1930).
Whereas Paine’s music reflected the clarity of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Chadwick was influenced by the rich chromaticism of Wagner.
This morning we heard a movement from a string quartet by Chadwick.
Horatio Parker’s reputation was sullied to a certain extent by some unflattering comments made about him by his most famous student, Charles Ives. Those comments aside, however, Ives actually had high regard for his teacher, the problem was that Ives’ esthetic was far more progressive than that of Parker, who was hidebound by the ideas of the past.
An accomplished organist, Parker joined the faculty of Yale Univ. in
1894, and later became dean of the School of Music there, a position he held until his death.
Horatio Parker
Charles Ives respected him as a teacher and composer despite Parker’s stubborn allegiance to outdated musical styles.
Another very significant member of the Second New England School was this country’s first important woman composer, Amy Marcy Cheney.
Amy Marcy Cheney
A gifted concert pianist, at age 18, she married a prominent Boston surgeon some 25 years older than she, and Cheney used her married name, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach. Her compositions performed in and around Boston attracted laudatory comments, and in 1896 the Boston Symphony Orchestra presented her Gaelic Symphony, which was based on Irish folk tunes
The Gaelic Symphony is a work of genuine power, and stands beside much of the finest symphonic music that was being produced in this country and in Europe during the 1890s. Here is very brief sample of the Gaelic Symphony by Mrs. H. H. A. Beach.
[CD ex.]
The last member of the Second New England School was Daniel Gregory Mason. He was a student of Paine and Chadwick; Grandson of Lowell Mason, his father Henry was a founder of the Mason & Hamlin piano company; Long association with Columbia University; In addition to composing music, he wrote scholarly books about music and composers; Following the trend of the time, that emphasized American ethnic and cultural sources, his masterpiece was
the String Quartet on Negro Themes (1918 – 1919).
Another American composer from this period, one also trained in Europe, was Edward MacDowell. At the age of 16, in 1867 MacDowell visited Europe, and remained there for study. MacDowell not only studied in Europe, he set up shop there as a pianist and teacher of composition. He was admitted to the inner circles of some of the leading composers of the day, such as Franz Liszt. MacDowell’s music reflects the merging of refined European Romantic musical sentiments with a superb American talent.
MacDowell
MacDowell returned to the U. S. in the 1880s (permanently in 1888), where he was hailed as a major composer, settling in Boston. His return to the land of his birth marked a fresh attempt by him to compose with American themes and images in mind. His Woodland Sketches of 1896 is a series of ten scenic, miniature landscapes for piano that remains one of his most popular compositions. "A Deserted Farm" is the 8th of the sketches and suggests the rather stark subject of the title. But farms weren’t always deserted, and as your resource guide suggests, the middle section, with its change of key and mood, may reflect happier days for the farm of MacDowell’s subject.
[Emily Sayles plays "A Deserted Farm" by Edward MacDowell.]
The arrival on these shores in 1892 by one of the leading figures in music, the Bohemian composer, Antonin Dvorak, marks a new departure in American music. Dvorak’s influence on American musical nationalism would be difficult to overstate. Music journals and newspapers of the time seemingly printed articles daily on the man, and his insistence that American composers stop looking to Europe for inspiration. There were ample sources of musical material right here, Dvorak said, pointing in particular to the music of the African-American community and that of Native Americans.
Dvorak
Dvorak assumed the position of director of the newly founded National Conservatory of Music of America in New York, where one of his students was this man, Harry T. Burleigh.
An African-American baritone singer and songwriter, Burleigh was in his mid-20s when he enrolled at the Conservatory headed by Dvorak, and he deeply impressed the great composer with his renditions of spiritual songs such as Deep River, and Go Down, Moses. Scholars often point to the principal melody of the second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony as reflecting the influence of Burleigh. The tune had a life of its own in the concert world as a vocal solo entitled "Goin’ Home."
[CD ex.]
Burleigh
The most famous living American musician of the day was John Philip Sousa. The same year Dvorak arrived in New York, Sousa resigned as leader of the U. S. Marine Corps Band and formed his own celebrated wind band, which he then led for the next 40 years. You are familiar with the Washington Post March by Sousa, which is typical of so many others by him and other composers for wind band.
The Washington Post newspaper ran a writing competition in 1889, and hired John Philip Sousa to provide some musical advertising for it, and thus the WPM was born. It quickly became one of the most popular marches by Sousa, and has remained so lo these 114 years. In Europe it became popularized as a two-step dance tune.
Sousa
In terms of musical structure, marches tend to consist of a four – or 8-bar introduction, followed by repeated 16-bar sections (4 four-measure phrases) presented in a brisk duple meter. The 2nd half of the march, known as the "trio," will most likely be set in a key a fourth higher than the opening.
You’ve already met Charles Ives. Ives’ musical thought was so original that it was completely misunderstood in his time. He and his music went largely unnoticed until long after ill health forced him to stop composing. Only a handful of his contemporaries understood the importance of his music. His third symphony, written in 1911, received the Pulitzer Prize only 36 years later (1947).
Ives
Much of Ives’ music takes on the character of a musical collage, where many recognizable tunes battle it out for supremacy. Consider for a moment just the last 90 seconds of an orchestral piece called "Putnam’s Camp," which he wrote in 1912. This is a typical example of the Ives musical collage. Ostensibly some kind of Civil War march, it is a free intermixing of tunes from the Civil War and elsewhere in our American tradition.
[CD ex. of "Putnam’s Camp"]
History was made on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall in New York City.
Gershwin
As you know, George Gershwin was an early experimenter who attempted to combine elements of 1920s jazz with classical forms, such as the concerto, with his Rhapsody in Blue in 1924. "Jazz is the result of energy stored up in America," said Gershwin. Seven years later, this gentleman, William Grant Still, composed his Symphony No. 1, subtitled the "Afro-American Symphony." Originally from Mississippi and Arkansas, at the age of 21 Still worked as an arranger for the father of the blues, W. C. Handy, and he later served in the army in WWI. His education included Wilberforce University, the Oberlin Conservatory and New England Conservatory of Music where he was a student of George Chadwick. Still became active as an arranger for Broadway musicals. Still’s output was very extensive, including 5 symphonies and 8 operas, much of it translating the African-American experience into formal musical structures. Still worked very hard to establish a body of symphonic music that reflected the Black Experience. Here is a brief sample of one of the main themes from his masterpiece, the Afro-American Symphony:
[CD ex.]
Still
Though his instrumental music makes few overt references to American sources, Samuel Barber’s style forcefully speaks to the neo-Romantic tradition of the mid-20th century. His Adagio for Strings is probably the most widely performed piece of American orchestral music from the 20th century.
No one could sum up the development of American music in the early 20th century as completely as Aaron Copland. Copland developed a musical language that each of us as Americans carries with us. One need listen to only sixty seconds of "Hoedown" from his ballet Rodeo, to realize that this music could only have been composed by an American, and then only by Aaron Copland.
[CD ex.]
Copland
In conclusion, Gilbert Chase, a historian of American Music, divided our subject into three general stages: Promise; Expansion; Fulfillment.
The promise of the New Englanders gave way to expansion in two directions – toward Europe and toward the American West. This expansion embraced new generations of American performers, such as Gottschalk. And finally, Fulfillment, when native composers and performers reveled in ideas that represented our land in its artistic fullness.
In conclusion, let me paraphrase Leonard Bernstein’s final thought on what American music means to us all: it lets us feel what it means to be an American – a descendant of all the nations on Earth.
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