idea of music as an imported European commodity and the indigenous
impulse toward musical expression. Obviously, in music criticism this
conflict is clearly visible; for in the beginnings of our musical
development we imported not only music but musical opinion as well.
In the period before World War I, the task of American criticism was
precisely that of imparting some knowledge of the music to which one
listened in the concert halls and opera houses; to introduce the
public to the criteria, controversies, and, above all, to the then
current ideas relating to music; to inform it on composers and their
backgrounds, musical or spiritual, and on the backgrounds from which
music had sprung. The critics of that time were often men of genuine,
and even deep culture, and with cosmopolitan experience; but their
criticism was neither bold nor original. Like the composers of the
period, American critics remained circumspect and cautious in their
judgments of contemporary music. They did not wish to be considered
unorthodox. How could they have done otherwise? They knew perfectly
well that decisive judgments were not made in the United States, and
that intellectual boldness would fall on deaf ears when few people
were in a position to understand what they conceivably had to say. At
most, they could allow themselves an occasional word of encouragement
to the efforts of some American composer, who understood well that it
amounted to no more than a friendly gesture. In the case of young
composers, such gestures, almost always benign, were often coupled with
an express warning not to take themselves too seriously. But even such
judgments were not problematical, since there was virtually nothing in
the American music which offered a challenge to accepted ideas. In the
United States of 1913, the Fourth Symphony of Sibelius was regarded
with suspicion; the _Valses Nobles et Sentimentales_ of Ravel were
controversial; Strauss’s _Elektra_ seemed a shrewdly calculated
shocker which the composer himself had repudiated in a much touted
and likewise suspect _volte-face_ in _Der Rosenkavalier_.
Stravinsky was but a name; and as for Schönberg, his First Quartet
seemed quite obscure and the _Five Orchestral Pieces_ wholly
incoherent.
The third of the recurrent principal motives to be recalled here
is the divergence between professional instruction and instruction
designed for laymen. As has been pointed out, this divergence is found
in no field other than music, and this author has tried to show that
it is related to the idea that music--valid music, at least--is an
imported article. He has tried to demonstrate, too, that it led, as
far as music education is concerned, to a confusion of aims, creating
problems for both teachers and gifted young men and women whose aims
were serious. These problems still survive. A similar divergence
is reflected in music criticism in a somewhat different form. It
is evident that the principal task of the critic, certainly of the
exacting critic, is that which has a bearing on the musical production
of the time and place in which he lives. The music which comes from
abroad or from the past calls for a serious attitude, to be sure,
but it is not comparable to the critic’s responsibilities toward the
culture of his own land and epoch. It does not inevitably imply a
motive for attacking the real problems of either music or culture. Even
research in regard to it is gratuitous to a point, for the very impulse
toward research derives from a curiosity which, like the creative
impulse, is a symptom of vitality or at least of restlessness in the
general atmosphere of the time. It is an indication of an already
highly developed music life.
Generally speaking, music criticism in the United States remained
amateurish for a long time; but if such a state of affairs adequately
served conditions in the years before World War I, it was insufficient
in the twenties, when young composers were beginning to take both
themselves and their musical aims seriously. The influence of the
critics was as powerful in those days as it remains to this day, up to
a certain point; but the criteria which criticism furnished had little
or nothing to give young composers. There was little understanding for
either the needs or the demands of these young creators or for that
which they wished to accomplish.
We think of a well-known and extremely important personality of
that period: Paul Rosenfeld. He was very friendly to young creative
musicians, and a sympathetic promoter of everything they wished to
accomplish. He was a passionate amateur, especially of music that was
new, and above all of the music of the young Americans he knew. In
this respect he stood virtually alone; he dared to write with great
passion and enthusiasm of everything in the “new” music that interested
him--of Schönberg, Stravinsky, Bártòk, Scriabine, and Sibelius--and he
conducted a bold propaganda for new music in a period when the attitude
of other critics, and certainly of the public, was at best cautious
and hesitant. He was also a personal friend of Ernest Bloch, from the
moment the composer, a completely unknown figure in the United States,
arrived here in 1916; Rosenfeld worked tirelessly for the recognition
of Bloch’s music and personality. It is impossible to overestimate
Rosenfeld’s contributions as a writer and as an enthusiastic
propagandist for the contemporary music of his period, and for the
development of music in this country. It is not surprising that this
contribution is still remembered.
True, Rosenfeld had little understanding for the real and
characteristic tendencies of the period between the two wars, and his
ideas remained _au fond_ those of postromanticism, with a strong
admixture of American nationalism. There is no doubt, however, that he
played a significant role in the formation of the musical generation of
the twenties. The present author belongs to that generation; Rosenfeld
was not in complete sympathy with him, but Rosenfeld’s interest and his
willingness to discuss issues were of the greatest possible value to
all who came in contact with him. One found in him, as in few others
of that time, a genuine awareness of the issues, and a desire to
understand the motivating forces behind them.
The foregoing notwithstanding, Rosenfeld was in no sense of the word
a music critic. It may seem paradoxical to say that he possessed
neither authentic musical knowledge nor, very probably, strong
musical instinct. Not only did he shy away from acquiring technical
knowledge which he considered an obstacle to feeling and intuition; he
even refused to speak of music in concrete terms. If he made casual
reference to facts, as occasionally happened, he often was in error; in
speaking of the instrumentation of the _Sinfonia Domestica_ of Strauss,
for example, he referred to the use of the _viola d’amore_ instead of
the oboe--likewise _d’amore_, but hardly to be confused with the viola!
His relation to music remained that of a litterateur to whom music
furnished a stimulus for ideas, sentiments, and attitudes, and, in
consequence, for words.
In spite of his association with mature musicians such as Bloch,
Rosenfeld never learned to regard music as something other than a
means of evocation, an art completely self-sufficient as a mode of
expression, completely developed, an art which demands of its devotees
all their resources of craft and personality. He was therefore not in a
position to help young composers as a connoisseur, to give them a sense
of the demands of their craft or of the essence of musical expression.
He did succeed, to be sure, in giving them something much needed at
that time: a lively sense of belonging to the whole cultural movement
of the period. Other critics gave them not even that feeling. Confined
to the limits of their profession and the premises discussed, they
reported, more or less competently, events and the _faits divers_
of the daily music life. They concerned themselves little, and only
incidentally, with contemporary music. The composers were growing
and developing independently; and when, as toward the end of the
decade, they found performers like Koussevitzky who took an interest
in their music, the critics were neither conspicuously hostile nor
conspicuously friendly, but remained indifferent to the prospects of
a development of music in the United States. They were also reluctant
seriously to consider either the issues involved or the influences
which would have favored such a development. The critics contented
themselves by “going along,” at least tentatively, with Koussevitzky
and others of established reputation showing interest in this music.
We state these facts without malicious intent. We can understand why in
such a situation the critics, confronted with something new, failed.
The appearance on the music scene of an entire group of young American
composers who, so to speak, thought for themselves and were searching
for their individual attitudes and modes of musical speech, forced
the critics of the time to face a series of unaccustomed challenges.
It demanded, for the first time in the United States, that they come
to terms, repeatedly, with music of serious intent, music which had
arrived fresh and free of previous critical judgments. At the same
time, the development of a number of these native composers may well
have been a threat to the _status quo_ and vested interests,
which included the supremacy of the critic in all that concerned the
formation of public taste. There is no evidence, as far as we know,
that any critic actually thought in such terms, and it is not a
question of accusation. Such considerations seem natural at least as
subconscious forces and would adequately explain the reserve which the
music journalists of twenty-five years ago displayed, not toward this
or that young composer, but toward American composers as such; their
reluctance to admit American music to the category of things to be
discussed seriously, either for its own sake or for its significance in
relation to the music culture of the country as a whole, was apparent.
Certainly they were aware of the names of some of these creators and
had thought about them, possibly in a stereotyped concept of their
musical physiognomies, and certainly they did not ignore them when
their music appeared on important programs, yet clearly they made no
effort to study such music closely, to seek out and discover young
or unknown personalities, or to interest themselves in events which
took place off the beaten path. In short, what they lacked was genuine
sympathy for what was happening.
Such sympathy, actually, was reserved for another generation of
critics, which arose toward the end of the thirties. No doubt, the most
influential of recent years have been Virgil Thomson, who retired
two years ago from the _New York Herald-Tribune_, and Alfred
Frankenstein, still of the _San Francisco Chronicle_. Both served
modest apprenticeships before arriving at positions of power. Above
all, both are notable for their close relationship to contemporary,
and especially American music, as well as for their experience and
knowledge of the life and the repertory of concert and opera. Thomson
is known also as a composer; as a critic, he is a lively and often
brilliant observer of the contemporary music scene. He makes his
readers constantly aware of his own predilections (he has every right
to do so as a composer) and his predilections are for the French music
of the twenties. One must give him credit also for the efforts made
to understand music of other types. Above all, one must admire his
consistent and tireless emphasis on the work of younger composers,
and the energy with which he reported on interesting and vital events,
however distant they might have been from Fifty-seventh Street or Times
Square.
Frankenstein, for at least twenty-five years, has battled for the cause
of music in the United States. He gave careful attention to the state
of music here, and there is probably no one more qualified to speak of
it authoritatively. He became personally acquainted with the principal
composers who live in our country, but, better still, he familiarized
himself with their music. Possessing an unusual degree of knowledge of
music history, he combines it with an equally rich knowledge of, and
carefully considered judgment on, the problems of contemporary music.
Like Thomson, he brings to his task a deep sense of responsibility for
everything in our music life. One need not always agree with Thomson
and Frankenstein, but it is difficult not to recognize their sincerity.
It is evident that our discussion of music criticism in the United
States has dealt primarily with its relation to the general subject of
our musical development. The music itself and the composers and their
ideas remain to be discussed.
VII
The principal concern of music in the twenties was the idea of a
national or “typically American” school or style and, eventually, a
tradition which would draw to a focus the musical energies of our
country which, as Rosenfeld once said to Aaron Copland and the author,
would “affirm America.” The concern was not limited to composers, and
in fact it was sometimes used as a weapon against individual composers
by those whose preconceived ideas of what “American” music should be
did not square with the music in question. In spite of the abstract and
_a priori_ nature of this concern, it was a natural one in view of
the historical circumstances.
Actually the nationalist current in our music dates back to a period
considerably earlier than the twenties. Its underlying motives are as
curiously varied as are its manifestations. Cultural nationalism has
special aspects which, since they derive from our colonial past, may
be considered as reflex actions, so to speak, of American history.
American musical nationalism, too, is complex. In its earlier phases
it developed gradually on the basis of a music culture which came
to us from abroad. It consisted, as it were, of a deliberate search
for particular picturesque elements derived for the most part from
impressions received from ritual chants of the Indians or from
characteristic songs of the colored people in the South; equally, it
included efforts, such as MacDowell’s, to evoke impressions of the
American landscape. These and similar elements strongly contributed to
the renown of this sympathetic figure, and MacDowell’s name for many
years was virtually identical with American music.
A different feature was furnished by a Protestant culture which in
the beginning came from England, but developed a character all of its
own in the English colonies, especially in New England. Against this
background grew our “classic” writers and thinkers, and the character
found expression in music and painting, though in the latter it is
admittedly less important. Next to MacDowell the most significant
figure in the American music of that time was undoubtedly Horatio
Parker, who, especially in certain religious works, displayed not only
a mature technique, but also a musical nature and profile which were
well defined, even though they were not wholly original.
These men, however, did not represent a genuinely nationalist trend,
but rather idioms which, in much more aggressive and consistent form,
contributed to a nationalist current that was to become strong in the
twenties. The figure and the influence of Paul Rosenfeld again comes to
mind, yet the question was not so much that of an individual per se as
that of a personality embodying a whole complex of reactions deriving
from a new awareness of our national power, of the disillusionment of
the post-War period, and of a recrudescent consciousness of Europe and
European influence on the United States and the world in general.
We know the political effects of these reactions and their
consequences for the world. As far as the cultural results are
concerned, they led to a wave of emigration which took many of our
gifted young writers, artists, and musicians to Europe, especially
to Paris. It was a revulsion against the cultural situation of the
United States of those years. The same reactions also produced a wave
of revulsion against Europe, however, as far as music was concerned,
against the domination of our music life by European musicians and
European ideas, against the mentioned wave of emigration which seemed
to have carried away, if but temporarily, so many young talents and
therefore so much cultural energy, a revulsion, finally, against the
whole complex world of Europe itself. That European world seemed
exigent, disturbing. It was a world from which we had freed ourselves
a century and a half earlier, but which for so many years thereafter
had constituted an implicit threat to American independence, and which
presented itself to American imagination as a mass of quasi-tyrannical
involvements from which our ancestors had fled in order to build a new
country on unsullied soil. The most pointedly American manifestations
were sought for, not always in the most discriminating spirit or with
the most penetrating insight as to value; and the effort was made
to call forth hidden qualities from sources hitherto regarded with
contempt.
The situation indicates an extremely complex movement, partly
constructive and based not just on reflex impulses, and has left
traces which persist in our culture. As a primary motive, it has long
since been left behind; for, though it was an inevitable phase, the
time arrived when it no longer satisfied our cultural needs. One
may, in fact, observe the manner in which (more obvious here than in
Europe since our country is so vast and the distances so great) such a
movement tends to shift, also geographically, and finally to die in the
provinces where it had survived for a certain period after losing its
force in the cultural centers.
From such a background of reflex and impulse the facets of American
musical nationalism grew. Let us distinguish three, though perhaps they
are overdefined. One is the “folklorist” tendency characteristic of a
group of composers of differing types, from Charles Wakefield Cadman
to Charles Ives. Folklore in the United States is something different
from European or Russian folklore. Here it does not involve a popular
culture of ancient or legendary origin, which for centuries grew among
the people and remained, as it were, anonymous; here it is something
recent, less naive, and, let us say, highly specialized. It consists
largely of popular songs originally bound to precise historical
situations and the popularity of which, in fact, derived from their
power to evoke the memory or vision of these situations--the Civil War,
the life of the slaves in the South, or that of cowboys or lumberjacks
in the now virtually extinct Old West--only nostalgia remained. Though
these songs are in no sense lacking in character, they fail to embody
a clear style; and it is difficult to see how, with their origins in
a relatively sophisticated musical vocabulary, they could conceivably
form the basis of a “national” style. Not only a musical, but also
a sociological and psychological basis for such a style is missing.
Therefore, apart from jazz--which is something else, but equally
complex--folklorism in the United States has remained on a relatively
superficial level, not so much for lack of attraction, but for lack of
the elements necessary for expansion into a genuine style or at least
into a “manner.”
Certain composers such as Henry Gilbert, Douglas Moore, and William
Grant Still have made use of folklorism with success. However, even
in the music of these composers the element is evocative rather than
organic; and the success of their efforts seems commensurable with the
degree to which the whole remains on the frankly “popular” level. The
extraordinary figure of Charles Ives might be considered an exception.
He certainly is one of the significant men in American music, and at
the same time one of the most complex and problematical. But among the
various elements of which his music consists--music which sometimes
reaches almost the level of genius, but which, at other times, is
banal and amateurish--the folklorist is the most problematic, the least
characteristic.
Another aspect of our musical nationalism is just that _evocative_
tendency. It makes reference to a quasi-literary type in the
theater, in texts of songs and other vocal works, or to “programs”
in symphonic poems. Many Americans have made use of such reference
in a self-conscious manner. However, the term is used here also to
refer to an effort to achieve a musical vocabulary or “style” apt,
in some manner, to evoke this or that aspect of American landscape
or character. Howard Hanson, for instance, in his postromantic and
somewhat conventional music, has tried to establish an evocative
relationship with the American past as well as with the Nordic past of
his Scandinavian ancestors.
More ambitious and possibly more interesting was the effort of Roy
Harris to achieve a style that could be called “national” in a less
external sense. His point of departure was the evocation of American
history or American landscape; but from these beginnings he goes on
to technical and aesthetic concepts aimed toward defining the basis
of a new American music. It cannot be denied that Harris accomplished
some results. For a time during the years just preceding World War II,
his music attracted the attention of musicians on both sides of the
Atlantic and achieved considerable success. His ideas and concepts,
however, must be considered quite by themselves; music and technical
concepts belong to different categories: it would be an error to judge
either in terms of the other. Harris’s ideas of technique often have
little or nothing to do with specifically American motivation, but
to a large extent consist of a strange brew composed of anti-European
revulsion, personal prejudice, and the projection of this or that
problem, or a solution with which he has become acquainted. What
is lacking, as in the entire nationalist movement in our music, is
awareness of the fact that genuine national character comes from within
and must develop and grow of itself, that it cannot be imposed from
without, and that, in the last analysis, it is a by-product, not an
aim, of artistic expression.
A third type of American musical nationalism may be dubbed
“primitivist,” a term implying something different from the primitivism
which for a time was current in European culture. Reference here is not
necessarily to an interest in the culture of the Indians, whether the
primitive of North America or the more highly developed of Central
and South America. Primitivism of this variety is related to frank
rebellion against European culture and is a vague and overstrained
yearning for a type of quasi-music that is to be completely new,
and in which one could find refuge from the demands, conflicts, and
problems of contemporary culture manifesting itself everywhere. It
is expressed in superficial experimentalism, not to be confused, in
its basic concepts, with experimentalism concerned with the problems
of contemporary music and culture. Actually, as happens frequently
in matters of contemporary art, the two types of experimentalism are
sometimes found in association, in a rather strange admixture. It would
require special analysis--one which has no bearing on the present
discussion--to dissociate them. One cannot entirely ignore this trend,
however, a current always existing in one form or the other, though
never achieving importance.
* * * * *
One might possibly add one more brand of nationalism to the folklorist,
evocative, and primitivist--the attempt to base a national style
on jazz. Such classification is of course artificial and of purely
practical value. While folklorism, the evocation of American images,
and the type of primitivism we have been discussing, are related
exclusively to American backgrounds, jazz, on the other hand, though it
originated in this country and is considered a product of our culture,
has had an influence on music outside the United States. It has taken
root in Europe and developed European modes on European soil, not as
an exotic product, but as a phenomenon which is modern rather than
exclusively American.
This author will never forget an occasion at a little restaurant in
Assisi, in the shadow of the church of St. Francis, when he had to ask
that the radio, blaring forth genuine jazz, be lowered so he might
talk quietly with his colleague Dallapiccola; or another occasion
in an Austrian village hotel, where jazz--also genuine though not
of the highest quality--was constantly heard, either from a local
dance band or on the radio: it was craved more by the young German,
Dutch or Danish guests than by the Americans there. Jazz--unless one
insists on an esoteric definition--has become, or is about to become,
an international phenomenon like other mass-produced goods which,
originally manufactured in the United States, lose their association
with it and are assimilated elsewhere.
This is not to minimize the fact that jazz developed via American
popular music, and that it contains a strong primitive ingredient
from this source. However, other elements were added, as it were,
by accretion, elements which derive from a predominantly rhythmic
vitality and are supposedly inherited from the African past of the
negroes. Long before the name jazz was given to this type of music,
its rhythmical and colorist, and to a degree its melodic elements had
attracted the attention of European musicians. Beginning as early as
Debussy’s _Golliwogg’s Cake Walk_, one remembers a series of works
by Stravinsky, Casella, Milhaud, Weill, and others. The influence
remained active for a short time, and by the end of the thirties it
had virtually disappeared.