American music timeline

By njcmusic
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    Charles IVES (1874-1954)

    'Founder' of the experimental music movement in the US, has employed ultra-modern techniques (e.g. extended tonality (polytonality, whole tonal, and octatonic), polyrhythm, new forms (cumulative form) and new textures) for his works alluding to American subject matter. Influences on Ives includes his upbringing with his father (a bandmaster) and at Yale with Hartino Parker (Bostonian). Mainly lived in isolation. After 1902, within one work there is stylistic diversity with wider harmonic vocab.
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    Edgard VARESE (1883-1965)

    French composer who went to the US. Has an interest in new timbres through machines and everyday life. Use of sound masses and integrates sound materials. Rejects all schools and 'isms'. Called music as 'organised sound'.

  • Dvorak becomes director of National Conservatory

  • Dvorak: Symphony no 9 (New World)

    Meant to teach what American music should be like. Use of indigenous resources (Native American and spirituals) and elements, such as scotch snap, drone, Quaternary phrase structure, pentatonic mode. Use of cyclic form (very Germanic).

  • Beach: Gaelic symphony (1896)

    Inspiration of Dvorak's New Symphony. Defined 'national' not just due to location but in terms of blood (ethnic roots).

  • MacDowell: Indian Suite

    'Agreeing' with Dvorak's view of American voice. American folk: quarternary phrase, modal/pentatonicity, open 5th drones. European: repeated 'cadential figure', motif develops to different key and more instruments and use of fragmentation of melody
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    Virgil Thomson

    Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoclassist and a surrealist
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    Henry COWELL (1897-1965)

    Started off experimental movement. Has quite some stylistic diversity and innovates on tradition (to add on new principles to what has been done before (NC ref?)). Founded New Music Society & publishes new works through NMR. Pre-mid 30s works rather ultra-modern with extreme chromaticism, rhythmic complexity, ext pno tech & new timbres. After his jail term, went to embrace new transcultural elements (e.g. Gamelan and Indian) and work on hymn & fuguing tunes. (extraspective and retreospective)

  • Ives: Symphony No. 3 (1900-1904)

    First known use of cumulative form. Descriptive work for small orchestra. First movement: Starts of tonally ambiguous but ends with F major. Juxtaposition of fragments at opening (derived from two quotations Erie and Azmon). Rather polyphonic and fugal. Second movement like a scherzo in rounded binary form. Tune quoted (Naomi) undergoes cantus firmus.

  • Ives: Works before 1902

    In the summer fields: Reference to German lied with rolling arpeggios. Tonal.
    Psalms 67: Homorhythmic texture in voices.
    Psalms 54: Whole tone. Complex rhythmic patterns.
    Two Little Flowers: Mix of tonal/non-tonal, functional/non-functional, polymeter
    The Cage: Atonal, use of word painting
    The Circus Band: Mainly tonal functional, directional/progressive tonality, oompah and marching band accompaniment
    Charlie Rutlage: whole-tone planing, cluster chords to imitate percussion, wordpainting
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    Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)

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    Ruth CRAWFORD (1901-1953)

    Experimental composer. Focuses on counterpoint and linear organisation, atonality and serialism. Showcases rhythmic independence of parts.

  • Ives: Central Park in the Dark (1906)

    Central Park as American subject matter. Instruments separated spatially. Various tunes used, each describing different groups of people. Layers of instruments independent of one another, creating chaos in the music. Highly chromatic. Quotation: Hello ma baby, Ben Bolt (bar 12), The worms crawl in

  • Varese: Un grand sommeil noir

  • Ives: String Quartet No. 2 (1907)

    Mockery of a 'feminine' string quartet, with dissonances illustrating strong masculinity.

  • Ives: Unanswered Question (1908)

    Different instrument groups representing different roles:
    Trumpet: Question (octatonic, motif repeated 7x)
    Strings: Silence of druids (TnF at slow tempo in background)
    Woodwinds: Answers. (increasingly chromatic, tempo increases)
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    Elliott CARTER (1908-2012)

    Briefly neo-classical, adopted ultra-modernism elements later after 50s. Sees music as not to portray American scene but the workings of a mind engaged in possibilities of American music. Known for his proportional tempi changes, later having diff parts having diff personalities, more fragmented melodies, coord of harmonic intervals and tempi and complex rhythmic interplay.

  • Ives: Piano trio (1910)

    TSIAJ: Medley of various American tunes.
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    John CAGE (1912-1992)

  • Ives: 3 places in new england (1911-14)

    In three movements (St Gaudens, Putnam's Camp and Housatonic). Slow-Fast-Slow. First two are rather political (Civil war and July 4th celebrations), last is more biographical (walk by the river with a church in background). Programmatic work (e.g. for Putnam's camp past vs present with contrasting tonality between sections), St Gaudens' build-ups to showcase attempts to capture the Fort) Revised in 1929. Form is not cast in any pre-established model (elements of 'cumulative thinking')

  • Ives: General William Booth Enters Into Heaven

    Cumulative form, quotation: There is a fountain filled with blood, O Dem Golden Slippers. Mainly non-tonal non-functional with pitch center A. Moments of tonal functional (Bar 81 long Eb pedal suggests dominant preparation). Quotation of "fountain' implies diatonic harmony, harmonic ostinati, tone clusters 'piano drumming', use of whole tone collection in vocal, wordpainting, military reference using dotted rhythm, oompah accompaniment, bugle calls depiction bar 69, choral reference in bar 108
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    World War I (1914-1918)

    Global war originating in Europe.

  • Ives Piano sonata no 2 Concord (1909-15)

    Transcendentalist writers as title, both European music tradition (sonata genere, corresponding movement conventions, cyclicism, Beethoven 5th's opening motif), and Ives' experimentalism (deliberate stylistic incongruence, atonal, quotations of vernacular, marching band [3rd mvt] and hymnody reference [2nd mvt], numerous quotation. Bee 5th's opening significance is that it's the essence of New England transcendentalism for Ives.

  • Ives: Symphony No. 4 (1910s)

    ???

  • Cowell: The tides of Manaunaun

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    Leonard BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)

  • Varese: Ameriques (1918-21)

    Rev in 1927. An inspiration work with NYC as subject matter - rhythm of labour and bustle of Wall Street. A vivid reaction to life and illustration of the US as a world of new possibilities. Episodic form (25 mins long). Use of various materials and ideas (more gestural). 53 changes in tempo. Avoidance of long stretches of an audible meter (except in the finale with oom-pah). Large orchestration, exploitation of huge pitch and dynamic range.(in contrast to NC)

  • Varese: Integrales

  • Cowell: Aeolian Harp

  • Varese: Hyperprism (1923)

    Short work for 9 wind instruments and 7 percussion players. The omission of strings negate orchestration of previous late romantic/ impressionist. Use of percussion for complex rhythmic writing and more unique timbres (including lion roar, anvils and siren). Interaction between winds and perc varies, sometimes independent of each other, homorhythm and alternation. Pitch class set 012.

  • Cowell: The Banshee

    extended piano techniques; manipulating piano strings --> new timbres

  • Aaron Copland: Music for the theatre

    After Copland return to America from studies in France with Nadia Boulanger in 1924, he is determined to find an American sound, so he incorporated jazz elements in the piece

  • Copland: Piano Concerto

  • Virgil Thomson: Symphony on a Hymn Tune

  • Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts

  • Varese: Ionisation

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    Great Depression

  • Copland: Piano Variations

  • Cowell: Rhythmicana

  • Virgil Thomson: Symphony No.2

  • Varese: Density 21.5 (1936)

    Only work he composed during his depression. Work for platinum flute. Named after the density of platinum. Most of the piece are development of first 8 bars, or alternations of opening motifs. Sense of metrical freedom due to triplets and offbeat rhythm, characteristic of Varese.
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    World War II (1939-1945)

    Another global war. US is involved.

  • Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata (1942)

    First published compo. Neoclassical in Hindemith style. First movement is in sonata form with a as tonal centre. Functionality tend to be cadential by voice leading. 2nd movement has quite some Stravinsky references including natural relations.
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    Cold War (50s onwards)

    Rise of McCarthyism and fears in the atomic age.

  • Bernstein: Prelude, fugue and riffs (1949)

    For solo clarinet and jazz ensemble. Use of jazz elements (e.g. ostinato in 3 3 2 movement, swing rhythms & polymeters). Neoclassical elements include using double fugue in fugue movements, cyclism of themes from previous movements display in riff movement. Additive rhythmic thinking. Rather TnF, with windows of tonal clarity (Hindemith influence).

  • Cowell: Symphony No.11 Seven Rituals of Music

  • Varese: Poeme Electronique (1958)

    Use of percussion instruments and voices, no notation is used. Use of modern technology at the time, eg tapes. Composed for a weirdly-shaped pavillion. More of an experiment on sound. Some recurrence and development of timbres (creating some form of coherence).

  • Cowell: Symphony No.13 Madras