It is unfortunate that a book entitled "American Music" can spend a painfully small effort discussing influence of black musicians. The great orchestral works drawing on African spirituals prophesied by Dvorak didn't materialize, their promise headed into other genres of jazz and rock, eventually dominating popular music. But there is a dialogue between classical and popular idioms that was extremely influential on American composers. Gershwin and Copland come to mind. Copland had to go to Paris to fall under the spell of jazz, but the influence of jazz-influenced European composers (Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud, Stravinsky, etc.) back on their American counterparts seems to bring things in full circle.
  The African influence on Ives is an interesting story. Ives was proud of his family's staunch abolitionist history: his grandparents supported the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, an industrial school for minorities, and after the Civil War, Charles' parents basically adopted a black boy. Ives was exposed to ragtime and spirituals early on and these, along with Stephen Foster tunes which seem to be equated with minority tunes, contribute to Ives' grab grab of tunes representing the American experience. These are especially poignant in "St. Gaudens in Boston Common," Ives' tribute to one of the Union's first African-American regiments, and mingle with other images of Americana.
  Alex Ross very interestingly suggests in The Rest is Noise that a principle reason for innovation of the black community was the lack of opportunities in the classical establishment; in fact, white composers were experiencing their own discrimination as the urban audiences were only interested in hearing European fare. This in turn led American composers to find their own routes to recognition, whether it was by exploring radical dissonance (Ives and Ruggles), simplicity (Thomson and Copland) or a wedding of black and white styles (Gershwin).
  Musically I was struck by the beautiful impressionism of Ives' "The Housatonic at Stockbridge." There is ravishing water imagery and Ives has arrived by means apart from the French. A lazy English horn melody is surrounded by a collage of gently swirling eddys and quietly burbling rapids before reaching a memorable climax. Ives does not rely on sensual, jazz-influenced harmonies of the Impressionists, but achieves a remarkable affect from exploring color and quiet nuance.
  Although Ives published The Concord in 1920, it languished until Kirkpatrick vigorously promoted it after 1939. Ives became especially celebrated after this iconic 1949 recording:

The Concord Sonata is an uncompromising portrait of the great literary movement through Ives' unique perspective and is unquestionably one of the greatest American compositions.

Though I had known of Griffes as "the American master of impressionism," this was my first exploration of the composer's work. His music is unquestionably beautiful, interesting, and well-constructed, nothing about it sounds American. Griffes' music does not sound exactly like Debussy's, but very similiar. I found myself wondering what he was doing in a discussion surrounded by pioneers who labored to find a voice for America. What is American about Griffes? Is mastery of a European model really so admirable? America is indeed a melting pot and we have forged a heterogeneous culture from our roots. How important is it to find a unique national identity? Does America's searching diminish the achievement of those who turned elegantly and skillfully back to Europe but developed little that was novel?

Initial ramblings on the Avant Garde

In diving into the American avant garde movement, I am struck by the number of pieces that seek to play on our expectations to provoke an emotional response. This manipulation of expectations is not new though-- Mozart comes to mind as being particularly brilliant at setting up expectations and delaying their resolution through some unexpected and interesting diversion. Ultimately Mozart leaves us feeling emotionally satisfied in a way that many new works do not though. Perhaps works of the American avant garde pursue shock value as more central to the work's emotional journey than had been previously explored, Haydn's Surprise Symphony notwithstanding.

As with defining most every other movement, we struggle to deploy accurate and meaningful terms. Wikipedia defines "avant garde music" as "music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres."
This definition is problematic in that it could include any work that seemed to be modern or included elements from another genre; all the Great composers pushed boundaries of what was expected at the time. Wikipedia continues to define avant garde music as "the radical, post-1945 tendencies of a modernist style in several genres of art music after the death of Anton Webern in 1945. In the 1950s the term avant-garde music was mostly associated with serial music." This is more helpful as it includes parameters of time and radicalism, but no aesthetic goals are included.

Wikipedia has a similarly difficult time defining experimental music:
   "A compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable." How are they defining outcome? The musical content resulting from the work's performance? In this case, chance music seems like a better term. Or does the definition refer to the visual impression of the printed musical score? Or to the audience's reaction to the performance? The outcome of the audience reaction is almost always unforeseeable, so might all most of all time periods be included in this definition?
   The Wikipedia definition continues to include music that is a hybrid of desperate styles or music that incorporates unorthodox, new, or unique ingredients. Again, much music written throughout history incorporates new elements, including relatively conservative works, and thus this definition also seems inadequate to define its intended movement.

The article in Grove by Jim Samson has a much more artistically informed and nuanced view but requires some length to view the movement through its musical and cultural roots. I was especially interested in Samson's suggestion that the avant garde has deep historical connections to intellectual specialization and social dissent as these two elements would become extremely important in the postwar era. Indeed, these two ideas seem to relate to the two streams which Samson proposes evolved in the twentieth century: the first being the "project of Greatness in art," the advanced stage of expression advanced by Stockhausen and Boulez; the second being the "subversive, anti-bourgeois protest" advanced in music by Satie and Cage which rejected the institution of art. These two streams have continued to battle for relevance in today's cultural environment where both seem a small part of mass media.

It seems this movement defies easy definition and I return to my initial impressions of shock and emotional impact. Artists of the avant garde movement were seeking to make their own unique statement and concise terms seeking to define everything in the realm seem woefully unhelpful and do not further understanding of the composer's aesthetic goals. Perhaps the diverse personalities and agendas embodied in the experimental movement are too broad to be distilled to a single term. I will for the time being avoid labeling as this or that and instead seek to experience each piece on its own terms, exploring the artistic world suggested by its creator. After surveying the sphere of this art, I might be able to assign aesthetically meaningful designations that compare the work of pioneering artists to their more conservative counterparts.

I will close this blog's inaugural post with an homage to its namesake who continues to defy categorization: Frank Zappa leading Ensemble Modern in the exciting finale of the inexplicable Yellow Shark tour, "G-Spot Tornado."