American 20th century music

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Have you ever wondered why so much American film music sounds like famous classical works? Or what influence does the, still relatively new, tradition of American classical music have on the genre today?

Delve inside the music with BBC Music Magazine editor Oliver Condy and discover answers to these questions and more.

Discover more classical music at Colston Hall.


Transcript:
It’s understandable that American music has lagged somewhat behind Europe – after all, the US is a very young nation, and culture ideally needs centuries to develop. But America has played a very successful game of catch-up over the past 150 years – with music that developed during a modern era of world wars, the rise of mass communication, cinema, and big business. And classical composers were just as likely to be writing for jazz bands, movies and musicals, as they were for the symphony orchestra. And, of course, most of them did. But the seed at the heart of American music was, in fact, European. In the 1920s, for example, just 20 members of the New York Philharmonic were actually American-born. And let’s not forget that first American masterpiece – the New World Symphony, written by the Czech composer, Anton Dvorak.

Major composing names to emerge from the US at the start of the 20th century included Edward MacDowell and Louis Gottschalk, both of whom had actually studied in Europe. But gradually, out of the shadows, rose some startlingly original voices including the first great home-spun talent Charles Ives, whose own brand of crazy modernism, blending Baptist church hymns with marching band music. It far outstripped anything that had been written in Europe at the end of the 19th century. And as jazz developed out of the spiritual tradition, composers such as Aaron Copland used their modal harmonies and unusual rhythms to create something of a national voice – and let’s not forget the likes of Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, whose move to the US in 1939 was huge influence on the new wave of American composers. And as jazz, Broadway musicals by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and musical sweatshops of tin pan alley took hold – a young man called George Gershwin muddied the waters still more, composing Porgy and Bess, a work that still divides over whether it’s a musical or a genuine opera. That mix of commercial and serious art continued with Leonard Bernstein, Frank Zappa and more recently Wynton Marsalis, all of whose music refuses to be categorised.

On the other side of the musical coin, post-war America was pioneering a new type of experimental music thanks to John Cage, a man whose ideas of music challenged our very notion of what music is, from his prepared pianos to 4’33”, an ode to ambient noises and now an iconic work of art, equally revered and mocked. And Minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass were looking to Africa and Asia for their own brand of hypnotic sounds –techniques that then made their way back across the Atlantic to Europe. The cultural direction of travel was starting to reverse – American music had established itself.