American Mavericks: Program 2 - What's American About American Music?



	Listen to Program 2 (59:00)

	Late 19th century American composers labored under three contradictory pressures: 1. to exhibit a high degree of European polish, 2. to be original, and 3. to create music that would be distinctly American. This debilitating trio of pressures created the fault lines along which American music is still divided today, with each composer deciding which mandate to follow most closely. One can follow this apparently permanent divide from the academics versus the homegrown composers of the 19th century to the New Romanticists versus the art-rockers and post-minimalists of the 1980s.

What is American about American Music?
An essay by music critic and author Kyle Gann.

Hy Cage or John Cage?
Hy Cage created many forward thinking musical cartoons in The Etudes magazine in the early 1930s. At the same time John Cage was studying to be a graphic artist. The themes in both Cages' work are strikingly similar. Are they the same person, or just an amazing coincidence? Either way, Hy's work seems to contain uncanny predictions of John's ideas over the next few decades.

Laurie Anderson
Robert Ashley
Milton Babbitt
Amy Beach
Supply Belcher
William Billings
William Bolcom
Glenn Branca
George Bristow
John Cage
Rhys Chatham
Carlos Chavez
Aaron Copland
John Corigliano
Henry Cowell
David Del Tredici
Antonin Dvorak
William Duckworth
Louis Moreau Gottschalk

John Harbison
Roy Harris

Lou Harrison
Anthony Philip Heinrich
Charles Ives
Lowell Mason
Conlon Nancarrow
John Knowles Paine
Horatio Parker
Harry Partch
Wallingford Riegger
Daniel Read
Carl Ruggles
Arnold Schönberg
William Shuman
Kurt Weill
Edgard Varèse

In addition to host Suzanne Vega and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, this show includes the voices of these composers, performers, and scholars:

Aaron Copland: "Interview" (1977) (19:36s)
Aaron Copland: "Interview" (1977) (41:26s)
Aaron Copland: "Interview" (1977) (59:46s)
Tan Dun: "Interview" (76:04s)
John Adams
Aaron Jay Kernis
Bill McGlaughlin
Martin Bresnick: "Interview" (70:46s)
Elliott Carter: Interview (67:59)
David Del Tredici: "Interview" (34:49s)
Peter Schickele: "Interview" (15:36s)

IN TALK
What's American about American Music?

Is it just a robust nature? A rebellion? What makes American music so...wide open?

Do you think American music is different than European? Canadian? New Zealander?

Laurie Anderson, William Billings, Edgard Varèse, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Amy Beach

Show Audio
Program 2: What's American About American Music (59:00)

Music heard in the radio show:

Schuman: "New England Triptych" (Dallas Symphony/Litton/Dorian DOR-90224)

Billings: "Chester" (Boston Camerata/Cohen/Erato 3984-21668-2)

Haydn: Symphony No. 8 in G (Northern Chamber Orchestra/Ward/Naxos 8.550722)hg

Mason: "Nearer My God to Thee" (Momon Tabernacle Choir/Sony Music Special Projects A 15935)

Trad.: "The Eagles Whistle"(Frank Ferrel/Flying Fish FF 70572)

Beethoven: String Quartet in C, Opus 59, No. 3, 3rd movement (Emerson String Quartet/Deutsche Grammophon 447 078-2)

Heinrich: The Ornithological Combat of Kings (Syracuse Symphony/Keene/New World Records 80208-2

Gottschalk: "L'Union" (Alan Mandel/VoxBox CD3X 3033)

Paine: Mass in D under (St. Louis Symphony & Chorus/Schuller/New World Records 80262-2)

Gottschalk: "The Banjo" (Alan Mandel/VoxBox CD3X 3033)

Beach: "By the Still Water" (Joanne Polk/Arabesque Z6693)

Gottschalk: "The Banjo" (Alan Mandel/VoxBox CD3X 3033)

Carter: String Quartet No. 2 (Juilliard String Quartet Sony SMK 62712)

Dvorak: "New World" Symphony, second movement (Chicago Symphony/Solti/London 410 116-2)

Beach: Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor (The Ambache/Chandos CHAN 9752)

Sessions: Symphony No. 4 (Columbus Symphony/Badea/New World Records NW 345-2)

Anderson: "O Superman" (Warner Bros. 3674-2)

Duckworth: "Time Curve Prelude" No. 1 (Neely Bruce/Lovely Music LCD 2031)

Duckworth: "Time Curve Prelude" No. 24 (Neely Bruce/Lovely Music LCD 2031)



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