I don't know much about Berstein, but in my little reading I appreciated learning that he marched in Selma, brought black conductors to Tanglewood, and helped integrate the philharmonic. This post paints a much clearer picture that relates to a bigger issue outside of music — Black Americans (specifically DOS) are welcome in white spaces, but are never given the same playing field, have ownership, or get more power. Berstein's disregard for ADOS music being the root of American music speaks volumes. Thank you for this insight.
Hey Doug, I really appreciate your careful attention to presenting quite a bit of "American music" history alla Bernstein. As a composer "Americanizing" classical European techniques (mainly Romantic-era), I have to point out that the nationalist identities we tend to associate with the historical "successful" composers included not only bits of their country's folk music DNA (often in imitation rather than actual), but also that of neighboring countries. Consider how much Hungarian DNA turns up in Verdi's Requiem and his operas, or Brahms' symphonies. Consider also how Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Debussy and Ibert borrowed often from Spain. Performing these in a major orchestra over two decades, I began discovering these influences as I was turning into a composer.
So I suggest that even if jazz influence in classical music does or doesn't really make classical music written in the US American, borrowing folk traditions of nearby countries (Mexico, Cuba, South America, Canada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hawaii) is not unprecedented. One hand washes the other and the contrast seems to helped define (paradoxically) nationalist styles. I suppose this muddies the water, but these composers didn't live in vacuums. Even "I Got Rhythm" seems to derive from the pentatonic scale that China was so fond of.
I can't wait to read more from you, and hopefully read your thoughts on how American is the music of Barber, Gershwin, WG Still and/or Copland.
Over on Twitter, musicologist Naomi Graber kindly pointed out that Bernstein's ideas should be read and analyzed in the context of Jewish thought about race and nation. A point that will hopefully come out in future posts is that *musical eugenics* as a way of describing stylistic evolution had become so normalized by the 1930s that it cut across several different intellectual backgrounds.
I don't know much about Berstein, but in my little reading I appreciated learning that he marched in Selma, brought black conductors to Tanglewood, and helped integrate the philharmonic. This post paints a much clearer picture that relates to a bigger issue outside of music — Black Americans (specifically DOS) are welcome in white spaces, but are never given the same playing field, have ownership, or get more power. Berstein's disregard for ADOS music being the root of American music speaks volumes. Thank you for this insight.
Hey Doug, I really appreciate your careful attention to presenting quite a bit of "American music" history alla Bernstein. As a composer "Americanizing" classical European techniques (mainly Romantic-era), I have to point out that the nationalist identities we tend to associate with the historical "successful" composers included not only bits of their country's folk music DNA (often in imitation rather than actual), but also that of neighboring countries. Consider how much Hungarian DNA turns up in Verdi's Requiem and his operas, or Brahms' symphonies. Consider also how Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, Ravel, Debussy and Ibert borrowed often from Spain. Performing these in a major orchestra over two decades, I began discovering these influences as I was turning into a composer.
So I suggest that even if jazz influence in classical music does or doesn't really make classical music written in the US American, borrowing folk traditions of nearby countries (Mexico, Cuba, South America, Canada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hawaii) is not unprecedented. One hand washes the other and the contrast seems to helped define (paradoxically) nationalist styles. I suppose this muddies the water, but these composers didn't live in vacuums. Even "I Got Rhythm" seems to derive from the pentatonic scale that China was so fond of.
I can't wait to read more from you, and hopefully read your thoughts on how American is the music of Barber, Gershwin, WG Still and/or Copland.
Damn! That ending! Mike drop, and you are out!
Over on Twitter, musicologist Naomi Graber kindly pointed out that Bernstein's ideas should be read and analyzed in the context of Jewish thought about race and nation. A point that will hopefully come out in future posts is that *musical eugenics* as a way of describing stylistic evolution had become so normalized by the 1930s that it cut across several different intellectual backgrounds.