© Robert Scarth, 2005*
The United States celebrates its independence from Britain on the fourth of July, remembering the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. In the run up to this American public holiday, there is no better time to cast an eye over the luminaries of classical music from the Land of the Free.
America’s musical legacy began in the same way as its burgeoning community, with settlers. One of the first notable musical imports was Charles Theodore Pachelbel, a composer and organist of the Baroque period, who decamped to South Carolina from Germany in the 1730s. He composed a Magnificat which is still performed with some regularity, but sadly most of his composition is lost.
The Romantic era, with its central tenets of passionate and expressive musical trappings, oversaw many indigenous American composers come to the fore. Romanticism provided the artistic and musical backdrop to the American Revolution – and, of course, the Declaration of Independence from the British Empire on that fateful Fourth of July.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born in 1829, and so grew up in a New Orleans well-used to the independence and personal freedom that influenced his music. His work, very popular in his lifetime, is shot through with his Creole upbringing and the Haitian influence of his grandmother.
‘The March King’ John Philip Sousa is remembered for his spectacular repertoire of military compositions. Edward MacDowell added a popular chapter of piano suites to the American canon, including ‘New England Idyls’ and ‘Woodland Sketches’.
Amy Beach was a Romantic composer for piano and violin. She was the first American female composer to become widely successful, and found fame particularly for her collection of songs.
As the twentieth century began to loom on the horizon, these Romantic forefathers influenced a new generation of composers who were to take their foundations and build an entirely new era of music upon them: Modernism.
Where Romanticism was imbued with thoughts of individualism, passion and sentiment, Modernism brought with it a fascination with science, rationality and intellectualism. Charles Ives was one of the first Modernists of note who was largely ignored during his lifetime, yet found acclaim later. His ‘Fourth of July movement’ from Holiday Symphony was championed by Leonard Bernstein, who was busy in the 1950s conducting and directing the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Bernstein was a spectacularly talented and diverse composer, responsible for ballets, operas, film scores and orchestral pieces – and he fully cemented his place in the American canon with the score to the musical West Side Story.
The jazz influences that can be found in West Side Story had a profound effect on much contemporary American composition. The Great American Songbook is the collective noun for the twentieth century canon of greatest American songs, including jazz numbers, Broadway musical pieces and the songs from Hollywood movies.
George Gershwin is one of the most enduring members of the Songbook fraternity, responsible alongside his brother Ira for songs that still float in the public consciousness today, such as the irrepressible ‘I Got Rhythm’, the classical/jazz number that first established his reputation, ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, and the opera Porgy and Bess.
Aaron Copland, too, was inspired by jazz but also spoke of the limitations of the genre. A versatile composer, like many of contemporaries, he left behind a legacy of film scores as well as symphonies, not to mention the iconic Fanfare for the Common Man.
Samuel Barber was himself a classicist, studying, in particular, the works of Brahms and Bach. He composed one of the most instantly recognisable pieces of contemporary classical music in the shape of Adagio for Strings, a piece that has enjoyed a whole new realm of success via multiple cover versions by contemporary dance music artists, including Tiësto and William Orbit.
Dance music artists have also remixed the work of Steve Reich –no surprise, since he is cited as a direct influence upon the evolution of dance music. Lauded by sections of the press as the greatest living American composer, Reich is responsible for Electric Counterpoint as well as a myriad of compositions for instruments including the cello, keyboard, glockenspiel, bongo drum, human voice and piece of wood.
John Coolidge Adams has also become involved in contemporary culture through his composition, but by immortalising historic events through his music. He is most well known for his 9/11 memorial piece On the Transmigration of Souls and his opera recounting the building of the first atomic bomb, Doctor Atomic.
Philip Glass has enjoyed flirtations with artists across genres but he remains a steadfast classicist. He has contributed to the American operatic and symphonic repertoires and continues to compose chamber music. Glass has been involved with many groundbreaking projects, including Koyaanisqati, a film comprised entirely from the juxtaposition between images of cities and landscapes against Glass’ score.
The relationship between classical composition and screens, both big and small, has given us some of the most iconic contemporary music. Danny Elfman composed the incredibly catchy theme tune to The Simpsons as well as scoring many of Tim Burton’s films, including Batman and Alice in Wonderland.
James Horner has provided the musical accompaniment to a huge number of films, including the biggest grossing of all time, Titanic and Avatar. The Titanic soundtrack is the best selling film score ever.
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*Robert Scarth's picture of the Stars and Stripes on the Stock Exchange on Wall Street is licensed for use under a Creative Commons licence, details of which can be found here