A M G
To encourage the composing and appreciation of high class American composition, ten American composers formed an association, the American Music Guild. The members are Marion Bauer, Chalmers Clifton, Louis Gruenberg, Sandor Harmati, Charles Haubiel, Frederick Jacobi, A. Walter Kramer, Harold Morris, Albert Stoessel and Deems Taylor.
Albert Stoessel (1894, St. Louis) is professor of music at New York University, conductor of the New York Oratorio Society, of the New York Symphony concerts at Chautauqua, N. Y., of the Worcester Festival and composer of chamber music and orchestral works.
Deems Taylor (1885, New York) is musical critic of the New York World, and the composer of songs and orchestral works (Through the Looking Glass Suite) and he has written much choral and incidental music for plays and motion pictures. One of his most graceful works is the ballet in The Beggar on Horseback. His opera The King’s Henchman was given at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1927. The book is by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
A. Walter Kramer (1890, New York) is a critic and writer on musical subjects, composer of many songs that have made his name familiar, orchestral works, a Rhapsody for violin and orchestra, pieces for violin, organ and piano, and a symphonic tone poem on Masefield’s Tragedy of Nan.
Harold Morris (1889, Texas) has never written little pieces, but has jumped into classical forms which he treats in a most modern way, in piano sonatas, a violin sonata, a trio, quartet, a concerto for piano and orchestra, and a tone poem on a Tagore text. He has studied only in America.
Frederick Jacobi (1891, San Francisco), had his latest work, a symphony, performed in 1924; he has also written a string quartet on Indian themes, songs with orchestra, short pieces and orchestral tone poems in all of which his gift of poetic expression is uppermost.
Chalmers Clifton (1889, Jackson, Miss.), is conductor of an orchestra which has as object the training of young orchestra players,
a much needed addition to American musical education. He has written some chamber music and music for a pageant.
Sandor Harmati (1894), Hungarian by birth, founded the Lenox String Quartet and has composed several string quartets and orchestral works. He has taken numerous prizes for his compositions and is now conductor of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra.
Charles Haubiel (1894, Delta, Ohio), has composed works in the classical form and is teacher of piano and theory.
Marion Bauer (1887) was born in Walla Walla, Washington. She has written 30 songs, 20 piano pieces, two violin sonatas, a string quartet, and a work for chamber music orchestra, and choruses. She writes and lectures on music, and is Asst. Professor at New York University.
A A
R
A few years ago Edward MacDowell was one of the founders of an Academy in Rome for American students on the principle of the Roman prize of the Paris Conservatory. Several of the young prizewinners have profited by their visit to the ancient city of culture where they are living and working with funds provided by the Academy. Unfortunately the music fellowship does not admit women! Among those to enjoy this advantage are Leo Sowerby (1895, Grand Rapids, Michigan) who has written a piano concerto and a double piano concerto, also a work called Synconata in syncopated rhythms which has been played by Paul Whiteman and many other compositions in large and small forms; Howard Hanson (1896, Wahoo, Nebraska) who is now director of the Eastman School of Music at Rochester, New York, and has written a number of orchestral and chamber music works; and Wintter Watts, the composer of many beautiful art songs and an orchestral tone poem, Young Blood.
“What are discords?” was asked of Leo Ornstein (1895, Russia). “I can not tell,” he answered. “Somewhere there is a law of harmony.... What it is I can not tell. Only I know that under certain conditions ... I hear it, I get color impressions.... If some of the tones are gray, somber, violent is that my fault?... In a word, I am not concerned with form or with standards of any nature.” This is the young composer’s declaration of independence, and in his early compositions he has lived up to it! One of his piano works, Wildmen’s Dance, goes back to primitive man for his inspiration and wild rhythms. He is original and daring as few Americans have ever been. His last work was a piano concerto played by him with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. He has written sonatas for piano, for ’cello and violin, besides many piano pieces, which he plays well, as he is an exceptional pianist.
Although he has been in America since childhood, his early life in Russia, in which he suffered the terrors of the pogroms (the massacres of the Jews), is reflected in his work. His training was under the direction of Bertha Tapper and Percy Goetschius.
A gifted young modernist whose orchestral and chamber works are often played by important organizations, is Aaron Copland (1898), pupil of Rubin Goldmark and Nadia Boulanger, of Paris. He received (1925) the first Guggenheim Fellowship in Music.
E
Henry Eichheim, of Boston, has had many performances of his colorful Chinese and Japanese impressions. Carl Ruggles is an independent thinker and composer, experimenting in many combinations of harmonies and instruments. Two extremists, who have not yet proven the value of their ideas and whose works must be regarded as experiments are Henry Cowell of California and George Antheil who lives in Paris. Sometimes, however, out of the wildest experiment comes something that may make music grow.
S W
There are many composers who are well known not for symphonies and chamber music but for songs. There are so many that we can list but a few: Alexander Russell, R. Huntington Woodman, Carl Deis, William Arms Fischer, Charles Fonteyn Manney, Clayton Johns, Sidney Homer, Charles Gilbert Spross, Oley Speaks, Louis Campbell-Tipton, Philip James, William C. Hammond, G. Bainbridge Crist, Marshall Kernochan, Eastwood Lane, Richard Hammond, Harry Osgood, Charles B. Hawley, Adolph Martin Foerster, Richard Hageman, Edward Ballantine, Clough Leighter, Victor Harris, Isidore Luckstone, Percy Lee Atherton, John Beach, Paolo Gallico, Arthur Bergh, Morris Class, Walter Morse Rummel, Blair Fairchild, Rudolph Ganz (Swiss-American), Eugen Haile (German-American), Frank La Forge, Harold Vincent Milligan, Timothy Spelman, Edward Horsman, Tom Dobson, Oscar G. Sonneck. Mr. Sonneck (1873–1928) was less known as a musicianly composer, than as a musicologist whose vast knowledge made him invaluable as the first librarian of the music division of the Library of Congress in Washington (1902–1915). His books form an important addition to musical Americana. He was editor of the Musical Quarterly, and secretary of the Beethoven Association.
Many who are making music grow in America were born in Europe and while they may not be American composers, they are composers in America, and most of them have become American citizens.
Ernest Bloch, born in Geneva, Switzerland (1880), has been here since 1916, when the Flonzaley Quartet played his String Quartet. Owing to his Jewish descent his work shows an Oriental strain rather than Swiss national feeling. Among his important orchestral works are Jewish Poems, Psalms, a symphony, Israel, Schelomo, for ’cello and orchestra, a prize symphonic rhapsody, America, and a Concerto Grosso for strings. He took the Coolidge prize with his Viola Suite, and has also a violin sonata and a piano quintet. He has taught in New York, Cleveland and San Francisco. A pupil, Ethel Leginska, the English pianist and orchestral conductor, has composed an interesting string quartet, piano pieces and works for orchestra.
Percy Aldridge Grainger, born in Melbourne, Australia (1882), appeared as a pianist at the age of ten and has never stopped since! His mother was his first teacher and later he was a pupil of Busoni and intimate friend of Grieg, whose concerto he played upon his first American appearance (1915). During the World War he became naturalized and served in the American army. As composer he is unique, being self-taught, and although knowing the compositions of all the great masters, he goes to folk music for his themes and ideas, and has become an authority on British and Scandinavian folk music, and is collecting music of the American Indian and the Negro.
Among Grainger’s best known pieces are: Molly on the Shore, Colonial Song, Shepherd’s Hey, Irish Tune from County Derry, Country Gardens and Turkey in the Straw, all folk-melodies around which he has woven most fascinating harmonies, and has brought back the old songs in modern dress. In the spring of 1925 he gave two concerts which he called, with true Grainger originality, “Room Music” instead of chamber music.
Carl Engel, although born in Paris (1883), and educated in France is an American citizen and the director of the Music Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. Engel has written in
addition to essays in delightful style, a Tryptich (a violin sonata in three movements), and enchanting songs, marking him a lover of modern harmony.
Two Frenchmen in New York, Carlos Salzedo, one of the world’s leading harpists, and Edgar Varese are foremost among the innovators, bringing to the public through their own compositions and the work of the International Composers’ Guild, the latest styles in music. They hand the public the new works of the most extreme composers before the ink is dry on the manuscript. Most of these are composed in dissonance or so-called cacophony (from two Greek words kakos,—bad; phono,—sounds). Through the efforts of these men, the League of Composers, and the Pro Musica Society (E. Robert Schmitz, founder and president), many present day compositions are heard in America.
Lazare Saminsky, a Russian, choirmaster at Temple Emanu-El, New York, has written several symphonies and a chamber opera, Gagliarda of a Merry Plague. He has made a deep study of Hebrew music.
Kurt Schindler, (Berlin, 1882), first conductor of the New York Schola Cantorum, a chorus, is an authority on Russian, Spanish and Finnish folk music, of which he has made many collections. He has also written art songs and choruses.
Leopold Godowsky, born in Russia (1870), one of the greatest living pianists, has written much for piano and made many arrangements.
Among the world famous violinists, several living in America, Fritz Kreisler (1875), Mischa Elman (1892) and Efrem Zimbalist (1889), have added to violin literature, arrangements of piano pieces and songs, as well as a few original compositions. Kreisler, with Victor Jacobi, wrote the music for the light opera Apple Blossoms.
America has been fortunate in its patrons of music who like the Esterhazys and Lobkowitzs of old have advanced music by founding and maintaining orchestras, music schools, chamber music, festivals and prize competitions. Among these are Henry Lee Higginson (1834–1919), Boston Symphony; Harry Harkness Flagler, New York Symphony; W. A. Clark, Los Angeles Philharmonic; George Eastman, Rochester Symphony and Eastman School of Music; Juilliard Musical Foundation, Mrs. Edward Bok, Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; the Edward J. de Coppet (1855–1916), the Flonzaley Quartet; Carl Stoeckel, festivals at Norfolk, Connecticut; Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim and Mr. and Mrs. Murry Guggenheim, summer concerts by Edwin Franko Goldman’s Concert Band; Mrs. Elizabeth Shurtleff Coolidge, Berkshire Chamber Music Festivals. Also the American Society for the Publication of Chamber Music, the National Music League, the Walter Naumberg prize, the National Federation of Music Clubs, the League of Composers, the National Bureau for the advancement of Music, and many music schools and settlements have helped to make music grow.
It is not out of place to include here Arthur P. Schmidt (1846–1921) of Boston as a patron of music, for by his devotion to American composers and the faith with which he published their works as early as 1876 has made music grow. Under this head we must also include Gustav Schirmer (1829–1893) and Oliver Ditson (1811–1888).
S O
Besides the orchestras in Boston, New York and Chicago, of which we have already told you, many new ones have been formed to the advancement of music in America: Philadelphia, (Leopold Stokowski, conductor); Detroit, (Ossip Gabrilowitsch); San Francisco, (Alfred Hertz); Cincinnati, (Fritz Reiner); Los Angeles, (Arthur Rodzinsky); St. Louis, (Guest Conductors); Cleveland, (Nikolai Sokoloff and Rudolph Ringwall); Rochester, (Eugene Goossens); Syracuse, (Vladimir Shavitch); Omaha, (Sandor Harmati); Portland, Oregon, (Willem van Hoogstraten); Minneapolis, (Henri Verbrugghen); State Symphony Orchestra, New York City, founded by Josef Stransky, (Emo von Dohnanyi and Alfredo Casella, in the season of 1925–26); and the American Symphony Orchestra composed entirely of Americans under Howard Barlow, founder and conductor; the Young Men’s Symphony Orchestra (Paul Henneberg), founded by the late Alfred Lincoln Seligman with Arnold Volpe, conductor; American Orchestral Society, (Chalmers Clifton). (See page 514.)
Besides the orchestras mentioned, the symphony orchestras of the motion picture houses all over the country are doing a very great service by the excellent music and the fine performances given to millions of people every day.
Among orchestras which helped to build love of music in this country were the Russian Symphony Orchestra (Modest Altschuler), the Volpe Symphony Orchestra (Arnold Volpe), and the People’s Symphony Concerts (F. X. Arens), all of which are out of existence.
Within the last few years the desire for music in the summer time has led to many open air concerts and operas. Of these the concerts of the Philharmonic Orchestra in the Lewisohn Stadium, those in the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, California), Willow Grove, Pa., the Goldman Concert Band, playing on the Campus of New York University and in Central Park are the most widely known.
Ravinia Park which provides one of the most magnificent opera companies possible to assemble makes a delightful summer night playground for Chicago people.
We regret that opera has not kept pace with the symphony orchestras in America. The Metropolitan Opera Company (New York City), the Chicago Opera Company (Chicago, Illinois), the San Francisco Opera Company (G. Merola’s new venture), the Philadelphia Civic and the American Opera Company are in operation (1929). There are many cities holding summer opera.
There is every reason to be proud of the growth of music in America, and New York City today is the great musical center of the world.
Since writing this chapter, New York has lost the State Symphony, The American Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Symphony Society. Walter Damrosch has turned his orchestral interests to the radio in order to enlarge the sphere of music education. Due to the merger of the Philharmonic Symphony, Ernest Schelling conducts the concerts for children.
P M
When we begin our music lessons, we are taught the musical alphabet,—the major scale, and then, the minor and the chromatic. So accustomed are we to these scales that we forget there was a time when they did not exist, and that new ones may be added, for they are not fixed for all time. There have been, as you know, the no-scale time, the pentatonic scale, the Greek modes, the Ecclesiastical or Church modes, the diatonic (major and minor) scale, the chromatic scale and the so-called whole-tone scale of Debussy. Beethoven and all the writers of the classic period used the diatonic scales which gave their works a definite tonality, that is, a home tone to which all the tones try to return. If, for example, you sing Yankee Doodle and stop before the last note, you feel very uncomfortable, because you have not sounded the home tone towards which all the tones are reaching. To the diatonic modes, Chopin and Wagner added a frequent use of the chromatic scale, which enriched music. In addition to diatonic and chromatic harmony, along came Debussy with his melodies in whole steps, and he also went back to the old Greek modes, using them in new and unexpected ways. Today we have all the past to draw upon and the composers are quick to take advantage of their rich inheritance and to add innovations.
In the 20th century the influences have come from Paris and Vienna,—Debussy and Schoenberg,—and later Stravinsky, the Russian. From the French has come a style of writing called polytonality, and from Vienna has come atonality. Don’t be afraid of these names for they are easily explained!
Courtesy of “Musical America.”
Arnold Schoenberg (Austrian).
Igor Stravinsky (Russian).
Composers of Music in Extremely Modern Style.
Claude Achille Debussy.
Leaders of the French Impressionistic School.
Having said that tonality is a system in which all tones gravitate to a central tone (they all come home to roost!) it is not difficult to understand through the formation of the word poly—many, tonal tones, that it means the use of several keys or tonalities at the same time, a counterpoint of key against key, or scale against scale, instead of note against note as it was in the Golden Age of Polyphony. Think of a cantus firmus in C major, and a counter melody in F ♯ minor! (Between ourselves if skilfully handled, it has possibilities!) Ravel, Milhaud and Honegger know how to do it. Of course in the old system we change from key to key by means of a musical bridge called modulation, but in polytonality, the bridge is discarded, and the unrelated keys are heard piled on top of each other in layers.
Courtesy of Roland Manuel.
Maurice Ravel.
Atonality, the system which Schoenberg and his followers use, is based on the chromatic scale of twelve half steps, on each one of which, chords (major and minor) may be built. This gives a more varied tonal paint-box than the old diatonic modes and the chromatic scale of former days, for it has now become an independent scale, and is not a part of the diatonic family.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to specialized publications, self-development books, and children's literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade
Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system, we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and personal growth!
