Question for Porter- Composers who influenced Ives?
Marcello Penso
I know Ives used/stole/quoted a lot of music he was familiar with. I'm
wondering if he may have gotten his 'collage' technique from prior
composers he admired, if any?
Danke.
Marcello
Sonarrat Citalis
news:MPG.17a345408...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...
> DG,
I believe his father did such things with a band he led, if those liner notes
were accurate.
--
-Sonarrat Citalis.
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D.G. Porter
>
> "Marcello Penso" <m.p...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:MPG.17a345408...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...
>
> > DG,
>
> > I know Ives used/stole/quoted a lot of music he was familiar with. I'm
> > wondering if he may have gotten his 'collage' technique from prior
> > composers he admired, if any?
>
> I believe his father did such things with a band he led, if those liner notes
> were accurate.
This is from the "Conductor's Note" to the Comedy mvt. of the 4th
Symphony (also published in Cowell's "American Composers on American
Music," 1933):
"The writer remembers hearing, when a boy, the music of a band in which
the players were arranged in two or three groups arranged around the
town square. The main group in the bandstand at the center usually
played the main themes, while the others, fromthe neighboring roofs and
verandas, played the variations, refrains, and so forth. The piece
remembered was a kind of paraphrase of 'Jerusalem the Golden,' a rathe
elaborate tone-poem for those days. The bandmaster told of a man who,
living living nearer the variations, insisted that they were the real
music and it was more nbeautiful to hear the hymn come sifting through
them than the other way around. Others, walking around the square, were
surprised at the different and interesting effects they got as they
changed position. It was said also that many thought the music lost in
effect when the piece was played by the band all together, though, I
think, the town vote was about even. The writer remembers, as a deep
impression, the echo parts from the roofs played by a chorus of violins
and voices."
In October 1993 at the University of Northern Colorado at Greely, Ken
Singleton and Jim Sinclair re-enacted "the battle of the bands" with the
original instrumental versions of Ives's "March Intercollegiate" (ca.
1894, played at the 1897 McKinley Inauguration as a favor for Ives
composing the McKinley campaign song "William Will") and "March 'Omega
Lambda Chi'." The two groups were originally going to do this outside
but it began snowking so it was done in the hallways of the auditorium.
I made a tape of the event and it wa pretty cool! They both started off
down the halls and criss-crossed each other two times. Funny thing is
that they fell together in beat and meter.
Mark Doran
news:2Qi_8.17$Pd6.161@
>
> > I know Ives used/stole/quoted a lot of music he was familiar with. I'm
> > wondering if he may have gotten his 'collage' technique from prior
> > composers he admired, if any?
>
> I believe his father did such things with a band he led, if those liner
notes
> were accurate.
I've heard it alleged that the First Symphony was largely written by Horatio
Parker during Ives' period of study with him.
Mark D.
Ray Hall
news:3d3a2...@news2.vip.uk.com...
Nevertheless, it still makes a glorious racket. A Brahmsian, Raffian,
Dvorakian pot-pourri of a package all tied up with New England string.
Regards,
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
< NEW Doris Day TV series news >
"It is one of the great tragedies of our society
that from fear, poor teaching, or lack of motivation
the vast majority of people have shut themselves off
from the mathematical poetry and music of nature".
Prof Paul Davies
Ray, Sydney
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Marcello Penso
dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught says...
So Ives' influences were strictly local/fatherly? No other influences or
music he might have heard?
Marcello
D.G. Porter
Of course Ives was familiar with both popular music (Stephen Foster,
Henry Clay Work, etc.) and church repertoire of New England
Protestantism. His father was one of several town bandmasters in
Danbury. If you opened your new barber shop, you hired a band to play
at its opening to promote it, and this is what George Ives did up until
the 1890s. Ives played drums in his father's band, and so of course
knew the standard band repertoire. His father also taught him theory
and the music of Bach. And at Yale, while Ives downplayed Horatio
Parker's influence, it's obvious that Parker taught him "long form" such
as the symphony and of course his cantata "Celestial Country." Of
course Ives knew Beethoven's and Brahms's and Wagner's music, and
Massenet, Tchaikowsky and Sibelius (who he really let into decades later
as being just the kind of "soft" music he didn't like), and as a pianist
of course Chopin. He may have known about Mahler's earlier music. He
was also one of the best keyboardists in New England by the time he
reached the age of 20. So he was about as well-exposed to the music of
his time as an active professional musician up to around 1900.
After that it's a differents story. When he retired from his last
church job in 1902, he seldom went to concerts -- hearing unfamiliar
music interfered with his keeping his own music in his memory until he
could write it down -- and he often carried that music in his head for
as much as 2 years before sketching it out. So he really was not
influenced by anything happening in European music for the first couple
of decades of thd 20th Century. He says he head both Firebird and Chant
du Rossignol, and he say he did not life the former at all. He knew his
Debussey, and in many ways his music is harmonically or philosophically
similar to Debussey. He didn't like Ravel's music (I don't myself, in
general, FWIW). He knew the music of Daniel Gregory Mason, but that's
older stuff, and things like that didn't have much influence or impact
upon him after 1902. He did attend concerts irregularly up to 1910
(after hearing the Kneisel Quartet playing Haydn he wrote a lampoon of
Haydn's music -- "The Work of Art" taking-off on the Surprise Symphony)
and heard music by Reger and Richard Strauss. But he said hearing new
things interfered with his own music, as when you're writing a letter
and someone butts in and reads his letter to you.
Whenhe heard Rossignol in 1919 he was already winding up his work as a
composer of new pieces, since after 1918 he composed little except
songs, the quartertone studies, a few studies for solo piano, and the
Third Orchestral Set (which he left uncompleted). He attemtped an
expansion of the "Earth and Firmament" piece into a "Universe Symphony"
but by 1924 or so he just wan't physically up to the demands of dragging
himself and his imagined audience up that kind of mountain. The song
"Sunrise" was his last fresh composition (1926) and before that he had
only composed one new song ("Sea Dirge," Jan. '25) and he didn't think
either was really up to snuff. My theory is that the piece he was
working on when he finally realized he wa all done as a composer was
"Study 19" (which incorporates the intro to a projected Study #16, hence
the working title "Study #16/19") -- this would be the account Mrs. Ives
related when he came downstairs with tears in his eyes, saying "nothing
went well, nothing sounded right." OTOH it was 1926 that he did a
revamping of the 4th Symphony Comedy movement, and 1929 when he revamped
"3 Places," and he finished his revised full score of Thanksgiving while
in Italy in 1933. So he never entirely abandoned composition, but he
stopped composing new pieces by the age of 52.
D.G. Porter
>
> "Mark Doran" <blocked...@0800dial.com> wrote in message
> news:3d3a2...@news2.vip.uk.com...
> | "Sonarrat Citalis" <sona...@trolls.suck> wrote in message
> | news:2Qi_8.17$Pd6.161@
> | >
> | > > I know Ives used/stole/quoted a lot of music he was familiar with. I'm
> | > > wondering if he may have gotten his 'collage' technique from prior
> | > > composers he admired, if any?
> | >
> | > I believe his father did such things with a band he led, if those liner
> | notes
> | > were accurate.
> |
> |
> | I've heard it alleged that the First Symphony was largely written by
> Horatio
> | Parker during Ives' period of study with him.
>
> Nevertheless, it still makes a glorious racket. A Brahmsian, Raffian,
> Dvorakian pot-pourri of a package all tied up with New England string.
It would be completely off the mark to say that Parker composed it. The
first movement's music began a a song "Judge's Walk" which was rewritten
as "Rough Wind." The original 2nd movement was revamped at Parker's
suggestion (Parker said a movement in F could not begin on a Gb chord --
which is perfectly ridiculous if you think about it, but Ives was
writing the piece as part of his degree work) but as it turned out that
went into the 2nd Symphony (as revised) and Ives wrote a new 2nd
movement. Parker also objected to the Finale and Ives wrote another
one, but he didn't like it and asked Parker if he could stick withthe
original, which he did, even though he ended it in G Major and not G
minor as Parker desired. (Parker must have been a dreary, depressing
guy to work with.) Ives submitted the 2nd, 3rd & 4th movements towards
his degrees, withholding the 1st movement because Parker objected to the
many key changes in the main theme.
There's the story about how Parker was ripping into Ives's setting of
"Summerfields" ("Feldeinsamkeit") one day in class. Again, he said it
went through too many keys (subsequent modulations, not polytonailty as
in the "America Variations" or the 67th Psalm). Parker's former
teacher, George W. Chadwick, came into the class (reeking of beer-breath
BTW from a hearty German lunch at Heublein's), and intrigued, looked at
Ives's setting and criticized Parker (in Parker's class!), saying it had
a natural flow and continuity, capping his comments with the comment,
"It's as good a song as you could write, Horatio." (A martinet like
Parker, IMO, deserved such a come-uppance.)
Also there's the story about when Walter Damrosch attemtped a reading of
the Largo from the 1st Symphony (the 2nd drafted movement). WHen the
"nice" English horn melody started, Damrosch called out, "Charming!"
Then the rhythms got mixed, some in 2/4 and some in quarter=quarter 3/4
(hardly some big innovation, as you find that in all kinds of mid-19th
Century music), so Damrosch stops, turns around and calls out, "You'll
just have to make up your mind, young man, what DO you want, a rhythm of
2 or a rhythm of 3?" (What a dumb-ass.) Then he tells Mrs. Ives, "The
workmanship is admirable, the orchestration is remarkable," but it'll
take too much rehearsal time.
Ives didn't really consider this Symphony to be one of his improtant
pieces, as he wrote three-fourths of it just for the sheepskin, although
late on he said he felt more that he liked it than he had before. It's
also the one early symphony still extant in the copyist's copy. It's
said that he gave his copyist's copy of the 3rd Symphony to Mahler, who
took it to Europe, and reportedly he lent his own ink copies of the 2nd
& 3rd Symphonies to Damrosch, who "lost" them (George Roberts, who was
head of the NBC music copying department and who copied many Ives scores
in the '30s and '40s, said Damrosch thought the 2nd was carelessly
written and that Ives wanted him to "correct" it -- Bernard Herrmann
said Damrosch put it on a shelf and it stayed there unplayed for 40
years).
(Ives also wrote that this ink copy of the 3rd had all the "shadow"
parts. When Lou Harrison was recopying the piece from Ives's pencil
score, which had most of these pars crossed ou, Ives drafted a letter to
Harrison explaining their reinstatement, but apparently Harrison never
got it -- and so the first published score lacked them -- they have been
reinstated in Kenneth Singleton's critical edition, rightly, INO.)
Marcello Penso
dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught says...
his 'collages' are about as 'impressionistic' as they come- I feel
anyway. I'm going to have to listen to some more Ives; it's been a while
since I last heard him (Symphony no.3, Central Park, Unanswered Question
and so forth, all listened almost 14 years ago, but much since....)
Marcello
D.G. Porter
>
> Excellent, thanks. I had thought about a 'Debussy correlation', because
> his 'collages' are about as 'impressionistic' as they come- I feel
> anyway. I'm going to have to listen to some more Ives; it's been a while
> since I last heard him (Symphony no.3, Central Park, Unanswered Question
> and so forth, all listened almost 14 years ago, but much since....)
>
> Marcello
Here's another quote regarding his philopsophy about composition.
"Many American composers, I believe, have been interested in working
things out for themselves to a great extent, but it seems to be the
general opinion that, unless a man has studied most of his life in a
European conservatory, he has no right (and he does not know how) to
throw anything at an audience, good or bad. I saw some time ago an
article in the paper about this matter saying that only quite recently
(or within the last half a dozen years or so [written in 1932], and
after they had gone abroad and studied with some of the modern masters)
were any unusual harmonies, rhythms, or original ideas started to be
found in American music."
Now of course this newspaper areicle is referring to people like Copland
and Thompson, who went over the pond to study with "Ms. Baker" in Pairs
and only then came back over and started "throwing things" at an
audience. I don't know if the write had ever heard anything by Gershwin
or thought of Gershwin when he wrote this article, and George didn't
bother going overseas to study with a "nice and proper European." But
it reflects something that really rankled Ives and still rankled me and
some of my fellow students in the 1970s -- that some American professors
of proper music didn't think American music was legitimate unless it
emulated and reflected a Euopean cast. One in patricular might a well
have been born over there for all he was "American." (Some of you can
guess who he is/was.)
Here are some more of Ives's thoughts on the subject:
"Reber Johnson [Assistant Conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra
at the time] et al. (including David and Clara Mannes) preach the gospel
that "Music crawled into Brahms' coffin and died." They wouldn't think
of saying that in so many words, but that is exactly what their attitude
toward music is. (Their motto -- "All things have a right to live and
grow, even babies and music schools, but _not_ music!") Reber, in 1919,
looking out the big window in Redding, lay back and groaned, "Music is
now a lost art -- it's going to the dogs." But some dogs (he didn't say
this) can give it a beter ride than some men.
"Reber got off another one, after I'd played over the Second Violin
Sonata for him -- that harmless piece. "After stuff like that" -- he
said -- "if you consider that music, and _like_ it, how can you like
Brahms ar any good music?" That is a very common attitude among almost
all the well-known lilies. They take it for granted -- a kid of
self-evident axiom, a settled-for-life matter, ipso facto, admitting of
no argument. The classical is good for all time, the modern is bad for
all time -- so if you like one, you can't like the other. They don't
always limit it to 'good and bad.' They, in a general way,throw (in
their nice little minds) all that fits into their accustomed habits of
sound, technique, etc., all together into a classical idiom, goo dor
bad. Everything not in it they throw out as non-existent in music, as
such. Assuming that there are some good things among the latter class,
that can in essence and substance compare with the beter of the former,
this type of mind then does the same thing as to say -- 'Now if you look
out that window and enjoy the mountains, how can you possibly look out
this window and enjoy the ocean?' Just to think -- a dumb mind!"
"I find that most musicians, critics, etc., take it for granted that a
man who composes music must, as a result, be conversant with all the
music that has been written in the world up to last night. So many
apparently were surprised, and can't understand why I don't know this
piece or that piece of this composer or that composer, especially if it
had just been played by the last conductor from Europe who had appeared
on the scene with the score in his vest pocket. ... when people take it
as a matter of course that I know such and such music, or such and such
a symphony, and I tell them I don't, they seem so surprised, and can't
understand why anybody who is really interested in music shouldn't be
familiar with everything that's going on in the world of music."
"I personally think that many or most of the celebrities of world fame
are the greatest enemies of music -- unless the art is going to lie
forever as an emasculated art, degenerating down to one function and
purpose only -- that is, to massage the mind and ear, bring bodily ease
to the soft, and please the ladies and get their money. For example,
note the expresson that speaks louder in their faces than their music,
when big business men like Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Josef Hofman, etc.,
exhibit their wares.
"Also and similarly, a stronger use of the mind and ear would mean less
people (usually ladies) whose greatest interest and pleasure in art, in
music, and in all nice things, is to get their names down among the
Directors and Patrons of Rollo's friends, and in giving dinners to
European artists, conductors, etc., with more reputation than anything
else (that is, arists amd conductors -- not dinners) -- letting
themselves become dumb tools of a monopoly, kowtowing to everything the
monopolists tell them about America being an unmusical country, and
creating a kind of American Music inferiority complex. These
commerncial monopolists, whether prima donna conductors, pianists,
violinists or singers, have so long fostered and held their monopolies
(for just about a hundred years in this country) that as a result too
much of the American ear has become a Soft-Static Co. (Limited), and the
Ossip Gabrilowitsches et al. have gotten the money and collected the
ladies' smiles."
"A newspaper music column prints an incident (so how can we assume that
it is not true?) of an American violinist [Albert Spalding] who called
on Max Reger to tell him how much he (the American) appreciated his
music. Reger gives him a hopless look and cries, 'What! a musician and
not speak German!'"
"The same state of (mind?) is seen in some of the professors in colleges
-- for instance, Dave SmIth [a fellow student of Ives's at Yale]. He is
the Professor of Music at Yale. His stand is exactly that of a
Professor of Transportation who teaches up through the steam engine, and
refuses to admit that any such things exist as electricity, combustion
engines, autromoblies, or aeroplanes. And his students would become
Bachelors of Transportation knowing about as much about transportation
as Dave Smith does of music.
"A student and graduate of his at the Yale Music School, on coming to
New York after receiving his liberal education and degree and four years
of the music classes at New Haven, went to a concert, and heard
something modern or comparatively new -- at least something in music he
had nevre heard before (Clifton Furness told me, I think, but I don't
remember the piece -- I think it was something of Milhaud). Anyway, the
young man's interest was aroused enough to make some study of the new
things, and late he told Furness that he was beginning to feel that he
had been cheated at Yale, as n his courses there he had been kept safely
away from knowing anything about what had been going on in the world of
music except the convictions of former generations."
"A nice man with a lily in his coat and a little satchel of samples in
his head -- from the album which fell out of the old piano when Jenny
first opened and others -- in the evening the nice man goes to a nice
concert. He doesn't pay to go in (he doesn't have to), he is paid to go
in -- he is also paid to go out. In some cases he would have heard the
concert better if he had gone to the prayed meeting instead, because a
soon as the concert begins he snatches up that little satchel just so
quick that it makes the other critic next to him almost stop talking.
In most of the concerts he goes into and out of (about 99 out of 98), he
can sort them right out from his little nest of samples. Then he leans
back quite relieved, as he doesn't have to open his ears but little if
his satchel is open. But gracious, girls! -- how fussy and bothered he
does get when he can't fnd anything in the concert that's in his
samples. He starts to look around and tap his foot, and begins to
complain. And he is some complainer, believe me, Gertie. Sometimes he
doesn't get cross when he hears something he can't find in his satchel,
if somebody or a newspaper in some nice European city has O.K'd the
strange sound -- for he doesn't have to bother much to listen, he just
stamps 'K.O.' and puts it among his samples. But if the fellow across
his own street makes a strange sound and it isn't O.K'd by Censor
Emanuensis or Mrs. Second Vice-President of the Ladies' Symfrolic
Orchestra Committee -- he gets all "snipped up" again, he fusses through
the satchel -- Mercy, Grace! -- it isn't in his samples -- he is at last
in a tight box, he must must use his ears and his brains pretty hard --
or just write about this man's bald head. But you see, -- George he
hasn't used his ears or his wits or his fist or anything that is his in
so long a time that he jest has to write about the bald head and knot
about the music! And he does that real nice."
---
Marcello Penso
dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught says...
on in American architecture of the same time period. 1870s to 1910s saw
many Americans going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to do what Henry Hobson
Richardson and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt did- learn architecture
from Paris. But F.L. Wright's generation, and a bit before (McKim, Mead
and White as examples) looked and molded an 'American' way of doing
architecture. The gilded age in NY was the more conservative approach
(close to the Ecole, but with some stylistic differences,) then you have
architects like Frank Furness, who twisted things up in a mannerist way,
and Wright and others like him who sought new ground.
It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
bit of Imperialism.
Nothing like today of course.
Marcello
PS- if you had to recommend a book on Ives, what would it be?
Peter T. Daniels
> Interestingly, a lot of this is very much in flavor with what was going
> on in American architecture of the same time period. 1870s to 1910s saw
> many Americans going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to do what Henry Hobson
> Richardson and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt did- learn architecture
> from Paris. But F.L. Wright's generation, and a bit before (McKim, Mead
> and White as examples) looked and molded an 'American' way of doing
> architecture. The gilded age in NY was the more conservative approach
> (close to the Ecole, but with some stylistic differences,) then you have
> architects like Frank Furness, who twisted things up in a mannerist way,
> and Wright and others like him who sought new ground.
Hey, hey, Wright apprenticed with and adored Sullivan, and certainly
knew how to do Beaux Arts ornament -- he was probably responsible for
some of the decoration of the Auditorium Theatre Building, and certainly
was concerned with "decorating" his work throughout his career (indeed,
the posthumous Greek Orthodox church in Wauwatosa looks sadly
unfinished, because if he'd supervised the construction, he wouldn't
have left all those plain edges and surfaces!).
I just got a 1999 Dover book by Donald Hoffmann, who usually writes on
one building at a time, on Sullivan's & Wright's approach to the
skyscraper -- he points out that Sullivan's was utterly illogical: he
treated the skyscraper as if it was a vertical object, but in reality it
was a stack of flat objects, i.e. rentable planes (and Wright understood
this). He also points out that F.Ll.W.'s office at Adler & Sullivan
(where he was head draftsman for a couple of years) was bigger than
Adler's ...
(And don't leave Daniel Burnham out of your list of Beaux Artistes -- he
singlehandedly held American architecture back a generation by setting
the standards for the World's Columbian Exposition, where Sullivan's
modernistic Transportation Building was virtually ignored.)
> It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> bit of Imperialism.
But they have to hunt desperately to come up with even one world-class
architect in that period ... hmm, another way music and architecture are
parallel ...
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Marcello Penso
says...
> Marcello Penso wrote:
>
> > Interestingly, a lot of this is very much in flavor with what was going
> > on in American architecture of the same time period. 1870s to 1910s saw
> > many Americans going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to do what Henry Hobson
> > Richardson and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt did- learn architecture
> > from Paris. But F.L. Wright's generation, and a bit before (McKim, Mead
> > and White as examples) looked and molded an 'American' way of doing
> > architecture. The gilded age in NY was the more conservative approach
> > (close to the Ecole, but with some stylistic differences,) then you have
> > architects like Frank Furness, who twisted things up in a mannerist way,
> > and Wright and others like him who sought new ground.
>
> Hey, hey, Wright apprenticed with and adored Sullivan, and certainly
> knew how to do Beaux Arts ornament -- he was probably responsible for
> some of the decoration of the Auditorium Theatre Building, and certainly
> was concerned with "decorating" his work throughout his career (indeed,
> the posthumous Greek Orthodox church in Wauwatosa looks sadly
> unfinished, because if he'd supervised the construction, he wouldn't
> have left all those plain edges and surfaces!).
Yes, but his ornament and style were quite different from the Beaux Arts
approach, which was all about applying a given decorative language well,
(neoClassical, neo Gothic, neo Romanesque, etc.) but staying within the
confines. To that extent, Sullivan was more conservative than Wright, and
he tended to use quasi-neoclassical elements even when his Art-Noueveau-
ish style. Wright used none of the neo-classical decor, which was a
staple of the Beaux Arts learning. Instead, he developed his own
language's'.
>
> I just got a 1999 Dover book by Donald Hoffmann, who usually writes on
> one building at a time, on Sullivan's & Wright's approach to the
> skyscraper -- he points out that Sullivan's was utterly illogical: he
> treated the skyscraper as if it was a vertical object, but in reality it
> was a stack of flat objects, i.e. rentable planes (and Wright understood
> this). He also points out that F.Ll.W.'s office at Adler & Sullivan
> (where he was head draftsman for a couple of years) was bigger than
> Adler's ...
>
> (And don't leave Daniel Burnham out of your list of Beaux Artistes -- he
> singlehandedly held American architecture back a generation by setting
> the standards for the World's Columbian Exposition, where Sullivan's
> modernistic Transportation Building was virtually ignored.)
Yes Burnham, Root and one other which doesn't come to mind were much more
of the R.M. Hunt tradition than the McKim, Mead & White generation (next
rank up) Oddly M M & W kept their neoclassical language fairly close to
the Beaux Arts style, but did manage to do a lot more with it, especially
in their public/large scale private NYC works, and of course, the Boston
library.
>
> > It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> > Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> > bit of Imperialism.
>
> But they have to hunt desperately to come up with even one world-class
> architect in that period ... hmm, another way music and architecture are
> parallel ...
>
Sullivan was actually much admired in Europe, particularly by the early
modernists like Loos, who used some of Sullivan's notions in his own
architectural writings. Sullivan, after all, was the one who came up with
'form follows function' though his meaning of function was entirely
different from what we mean today, and the context of his discourse was a
'naturalistic' way of designing.
But yes, there seem to be some broadstroke parallels there, which is
always neat.
Marcello
Michael Haslam
> > It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> > Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> > bit of Imperialism.
>
> But they have to hunt desperately to come up with even one world-class
> architect in that period ... hmm, another way music and architecture are
> parallel ...
You should keep a check on that anti-Britism. You might start to lose that
cold, analytical, accurate style of criticism for which you are so admired.
MJHaslam
Peter T. Daniels
Have you been to Chicago, and seen his early work -- Charnley House, the
"pirated" houses in Hyde Park, and the early independent houses in Oak
Park and River Forest? The ornament doesn't show up in the photographs
(Winslow House in River Forest is a real shock), and the books about him
don't dwell on it precisely because he hadn't yet found his own
vocabulary (he was working it out in his own house, the Home and Studio
in Oak Park, before he dared impose it on clients).
Peter T. Daniels
Note that you don't even _try_ to name an architect of the importance
even of RVW, Holst, Elgar, or Delius, who you have to admit aren't
exactly world-class figures.
Michael Haslam
Note that you make no attempt to deny the charge of anti-Britism.
I am no expert in architecture but I wonder how many architects of the period
1900-1930 worked extensively enough outside their country of residence to be
considered world-class. British architects I have heard of include Lutyens, Pugin,
Mackintosh, but they probably only worked in the UK, which had, of course,
produced the Arts & Crafts movement some years before. Gropius and le Corbusier
were, I guess, the most influential Western figures, but would, say, Gaudi count
as a "world-class figure"? Time has its own part to play: Delius and Elgar were
popular and often played in, particularly, Germany before the war in a way that no
US composer was, I should imagine. Similarly, how many of the great US architects
were known and respected in mainland Europe before the war?
MJHaslam
D.G. Porter
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> Marcello Penso wrote:
>
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> > Michael Haslam wrote:
> > >
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> > >
> > > > > It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> > > > > Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> > > > > bit of Imperialism.
> > > >
> > > > But they have to hunt desperately to come up with even one world-class
> > > > architect in that period ... hmm, another way music and architecture are
> > > > parallel ...
> > >
> > > You should keep a check on that anti-Britism. You might start to lose that
> > > cold, analytical, accurate style of criticism for which you are so admired.
> >
> > Note that you don't even _try_ to name an architect of the importance
> > even of RVW, Holst, Elgar, or Delius, who you have to admit aren't
> > exactly world-class figures.
>
> Note that you make no attempt to deny the charge of anti-Britism.
>
> I am no expert in architecture but I wonder how many architects of the period
> 1900-1930 worked extensively enough outside their country of residence to be
> considered world-class. British architects I have heard of include Lutyens, Pugin,
They built some big buildings (they worked for an Empire, of course),
but not with originality; the best comparison here is probably with
Albert Speer and with New York's own Wallace K. Harrison, the
Rockefellers' pet designer, and Edward Durell Stone, who managed to make
Modernism ugly in State Department facilities all over the world.
> Mackintosh, but they probably only worked in the UK, which had, of course,
Ah, yes, assimilating the Scots whenever they accomplish something
worthy ... he's only recently been being recognized, but he's far more
important as a designer than as an architect (built very few buildings,
but what he did was cherce, as Spencer Tracy once almost said).
> produced the Arts & Crafts movement some years before. Gropius and le Corbusier
> were, I guess, the most influential Western figures, but would, say, Gaudi count
> as a "world-class figure"? Time has its own part to play: Delius and Elgar were
> popular and often played in, particularly, Germany before the war in a way that no
> US composer was, I should imagine. Similarly, how many of the great US architects
> were known and respected in mainland Europe before the war?
Now you're mixing eras -- Gropius (and the other Bauhaus folk),
Corbusier, etc., are post-WWI; F.Ll.W. was far more appreciated in
Europe -- and Japan -- than he was at home at least until his California
period in the 20s. (Mies did some great stuff before WWII, but his
deserved recognition didn't really come till he'd moved to Chicago.)
Gaudi is a special case both because he didn't build far from home, and
what he built was just plain weird (and wonderful). (He could be
compared to Bruce Goff.)
I don't think the other name architects of the generation before Wright
were interested in what Europe thought of them -- they were
fantastically busy building New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo(! --
it was the country's 9th largest city for a while), St. Louis, Boston;
and the resorts like Newport, Palm Beach, etc.
Peter T. Daniels
I'm thinkin' it's time you got a new server.
D.G. Porter
>
>
> PS- if you had to recommend a book on Ives, what would it be?
Finally, your post showed up.
I've been quoting from Ives's own "Memos" and "Essays Before a Sonata."
Also the Conductor's Note to the Forth Sym. (Associated 1965 score has
it).
Books by other authors I'd recommend:
"Charles Ives Remembered" by Vivian Perlis (now soon to be back in print
I hear).
"Charles Ives -- A Life with the Music" by Jan Swafford (excellent).
"Charles Ives and His Amrerica" by Frank Rossiter (hard to locate --
check a library).
"Charles Ives: 'My Father's Song'" by Stuart Feder.
The Cowells' book is all right, but the 1955 edition has a better list
of compositions.
David Wooldridge is regarded as a fraud.
I know and dearly like Peter Burkholder but I just can't read his books.
Marcello Penso
Haven't seen Wright's work there though I have seen enumerable books on
Wright, and have several of my own which include his complete opus,
including his early works. I know the houses you speak of, but perhaps
except for one or two, like the Blossom house, most have the seeds of his
own languages.
Marcello
David Olen Baird
<m.p...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>Interestingly, a lot of this is very much in flavor with what was going
>on in American architecture of the same time period. 1870s to 1910s saw
>many Americans going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to do what Henry Hobson
>Richardson and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt did- learn architecture
>from Paris. But F.L. Wright's generation, and a bit before (McKim, Mead
>and White as examples) looked and molded an 'American' way of doing
>architecture. The gilded age in NY was the more conservative approach
>(close to the Ecole, but with some stylistic differences,) then you have
>architects like Frank Furness, who twisted things up in a mannerist way,
>and Wright and others like him who sought new ground.
>It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
>Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
>bit of Imperialism.
When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
recognized as a legitmate American school.
>Nothing like today of course.
>
>Marcello
>
>PS- if you had to recommend a book on Ives, what would it be?
>
**************************** The Garden Suite **************************
*
* The Garden Suite CD is now available for your
* listening and dancing pleasure.
*
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*
**************************************************************************
David Olen Baird, Composer
mailto:davb...@tfs.net
http://www.tfs.net/~davbaird/
Marcello Penso
says...
> Michael Haslam wrote:
> >
> > "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> >
> > > Michael Haslam wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > > It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> > > > > > Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> > > > > > bit of Imperialism.
> > > > >
> > > > > But they have to hunt desperately to come up with even one world-class
> > > > > architect in that period ... hmm, another way music and architecture are
> > > > > parallel ...
> > > >
> > > > You should keep a check on that anti-Britism. You might start to lose that
> > > > cold, analytical, accurate style of criticism for which you are so admired.
> > >
> > > Note that you don't even _try_ to name an architect of the importance
> > > even of RVW, Holst, Elgar, or Delius, who you have to admit aren't
> > > exactly world-class figures.
> >
> > Note that you make no attempt to deny the charge of anti-Britism.
> >
> > I am no expert in architecture but I wonder how many architects of the period
> > 1900-1930 worked extensively enough outside their country of residence to be
> > considered world-class. British architects I have heard of include Lutyens, Pugin,
>
> They built some big buildings (they worked for an Empire, of course),
> but not with originality; the best comparison here is probably with
> Albert Speer and with New York's own Wallace K. Harrison, the
> Rockefellers' pet designer, and Edward Durell Stone, who managed to make
> Modernism ugly in State Department facilities all over the world.
Actually Lutyens was very successful and an interesting architect
because, like M M &W, he reinterpreted the neoclassical language and
forged his own version of it. Wright admired Lutyens, in his early years.
Lutyens was much a better architect than either Speer or Harrison, and he
has some interesting works in England, France and India. He also laid out
New Delhi, to some extent, so to that end his stature could be considered
'world'- class (though you won't find as many coffee table books on his
work, at least not yet...)
Missing from the list of important UK architects are Voysey, who was a
bit more original than Lutyens, but did not have as many commissions;
Ebenezer Howard, who played an important role in town planning, and
of course, William Morris and Ruskin, who, though a class earlier than
the turn of the century group, played a critical role in the history of
architecture, setting the stage for similar Arts and Crafts movements in
Germany, central Europe and the US, and for a lot of theoretical
discussion on what role architecture had to play in society. Morris and
Ruskin can't be underestimated, though they may not have built much.
Finally there's William Lethaby, known more for his writings than his
work, both of which are sorely underestimated today.
>
> > Mackintosh, but they probably only worked in the UK, which had, of course,
>
> Ah, yes, assimilating the Scots whenever they accomplish something
> worthy ... he's only recently been being recognized, but he's far more
> important as a designer than as an architect (built very few buildings,
> but what he did was cherce, as Spencer Tracy once almost said).
Actually he's important as both architect and designer. Much like Horta
in Belgium.
>
> > produced the Arts & Crafts movement some years before. Gropius and le Corbusier
> > were, I guess, the most influential Western figures, but would, say, Gaudi count
> > as a "world-class figure"? Time has its own part to play: Delius and Elgar were
> > popular and often played in, particularly, Germany before the war in a way that no
> > US composer was, I should imagine. Similarly, how many of the great US architects
> > were known and respected in mainland Europe before the war?
>
> Now you're mixing eras -- Gropius (and the other Bauhaus folk),
> Corbusier, etc., are post-WWI; F.Ll.W. was far more appreciated in
> Europe -- and Japan -- than he was at home at least until his California
> period in the 20s. (Mies did some great stuff before WWII, but his
> deserved recognition didn't really come till he'd moved to Chicago.)
Actually he had already begun to make a name for himself in Germany as
director of the Bauhaus in the early thirties (I think 1930-33). The
Barcelona pavilion was his signature project, but he had others as well.
His style and 'theory' became stronger and more cogent in the States.
>
> Gaudi is a special case both because he didn't build far from home, and
> what he built was just plain weird (and wonderful). (He could be
> compared to Bruce Goff.)
Gaudi far surpasses Bruce Goff, especially when considering Gaudi's
rather limited material palette and means, and yet his innovative
designs, ornamentation and structural notions. Never was stone, metal or
brick so fluid.
>
> I don't think the other name architects of the generation before Wright
> were interested in what Europe thought of them -- they were
> fantastically busy building New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo(! --
> it was the country's 9th largest city for a while), St. Louis, Boston;
> and the resorts like Newport, Palm Beach, etc.
>
In fact US architects were 'always' (considering it was boat trips back
then) going to Europe to select/get the furniture, decor and finishes so
desired by America's nouveau rich, like Flagler, Vanderbilts, and so
forth.
Marcello
Marcello Penso
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2002 00:00:19 GMT, Marcello Penso
> <m.p...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >>
> >Interestingly, a lot of this is very much in flavor with what was going
> >on in American architecture of the same time period. 1870s to 1910s saw
> >many Americans going to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to do what Henry Hobson
> >Richardson and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt did- learn architecture
> >from Paris. But F.L. Wright's generation, and a bit before (McKim, Mead
> >and White as examples) looked and molded an 'American' way of doing
> >architecture. The gilded age in NY was the more conservative approach
> >(close to the Ecole, but with some stylistic differences,) then you have
> >architects like Frank Furness, who twisted things up in a mannerist way,
> >and Wright and others like him who sought new ground.
> >It must have been interesting time period, even politically. At that time
> >Great Britain ruled all economically, and the US was starting out its own
> >bit of Imperialism.
>
> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
> recognized as a legitmate American school.
Possibly. I'm not sure when American music became 'cool' to study...
American architecture, in general now, still aped European styles up til
the 1920s, when Art Deco started coming out, (and Wright was really doing
his own thing). But even up until the 1930s, with the influx of European
architects, I think there was a lot of looking to 'Europe', until Philip
Johnson did the International Style exhibition.
I think there was a lot of national sentiment in the 1880s and 1890s and
turn of the century, but at least in architecture, American architecture
was either FLW, Art Deco, or 50s modernism for a while. Now there's a
greater palette, and a bit more history too.
Nowadays there's not national or stylistic trends, only 'star' names, or
'old' languages. I'm guess it's like that in other arts.
Marcello
Marcello Penso
dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught says...
Marcello
Michael Haslam
The discussion was about the US and *Great Britain*, I believe. Scots have always been
part of our heritage since the two kingdoms were combined under James I. If you want to
redefine your bigotry as anti-English you go right ahead.
> he's only recently been being recognized, but he's far more
> important as a designer than as an architect (built very few buildings,
> but what he did was cherce, as Spencer Tracy once almost said).
>
> > produced the Arts & Crafts movement some years before. Gropius and le Corbusier
> > were, I guess, the most influential Western figures, but would, say, Gaudi count
> > as a "world-class figure"? Time has its own part to play: Delius and Elgar were
> > popular and often played in, particularly, Germany before the war in a way that no
> > US composer was, I should imagine. Similarly, how many of the great US architects
> > were known and respected in mainland Europe before the war?
>
> Now you're mixing eras -- Gropius (and the other Bauhaus folk),
> Corbusier, etc., are post-WWI; F.Ll.W. was far more appreciated in
> Europe -- and Japan -- than he was at home at least until his California
> period in the 20s. (Mies did some great stuff before WWII, but his
> deserved recognition didn't really come till he'd moved to Chicago.)
>
> Gaudi is a special case both because he didn't build far from home, and
> what he built was just plain weird (and wonderful). (He could be
> compared to Bruce Goff.)
>
> I don't think the other name architects of the generation before Wright
> were interested in what Europe thought of them -- they were
> fantastically busy building New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo(! --
> it was the country's 9th largest city for a while), St. Louis, Boston;
> and the resorts like Newport, Palm Beach, etc.
So how does this address your comparison between architecture and music? Particularly
with regard to the world-class status of British and US figures?
MJHaslam
Peter T. Daniels
> In fact US architects were 'always' (considering it was boat trips back
> then) going to Europe to select/get the furniture, decor and finishes so
> desired by America's nouveau rich, like Flagler, Vanderbilts, and so
> forth.
They weren't interested in commissions from Europe; they were plundering
the treasure-rooms of impoverished nobility and cloisters.
Peter T. Daniels
> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
> recognized as a legitmate American school.
Maybe when Lenny was named conductor of a major orchestra? (The first
American ever to have such a position.)
D.G. Porter
>
>
> In fact US architects were 'always' (considering it was boat trips back
> then) going to Europe to select/get the furniture, decor and finishes so
> desired by America's nouveau rich, like Flagler, Vanderbilts, and so
> forth.
Now this is an interesting point and it touches on my family's history.
This is just what my grandfather did. My grandfather John Andrew Porter
left the family farm at age 13 and by the time he was 28 he was working
for Daniels & Fischer (I think that's the name) in Denver as a buyer,
and his job was to go to Europe (by rail & boat) and buy furniture for
the store to sell to rich folk. Eventually he went to Frederick &
Nelson's in Seattle, and did quite well for his family in the 1920s. So
much so that he built a mansion in Tacoma, sold it, and built another
one in Bel Air Los Angeles (it was on No. Perugia Way, and I don't know
if it's still there).
(They lived right next to this country club and guys were always hitting
golf balls onto their property, so old Jack, age 68, shirtless, with
shovel and hat, would be out there working the grounds, and he'd just
stand on the ball as the guy would come up and ask "this old gardener"
if he'd seen his ball. "... no..." Well, the golfer would ask, he was
sure it landed around there. "... oh?" Then the guy would leave and my
father would get another free golf ball.)
Jack also had the sense in the year he retired (1927) to be the first to
use the new Seattle-London phone line. A reporter asked if he thought
this would be a common way of ordering European furniture for the firm
but Jack didn't think so, at least not for a while.
Yeah, Jack got quite wealthy out of his job as European buyer. (None of
his money is left though.)
David Olen Baird
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>David Olen Baird wrote:
>
>> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
>> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
>> recognized as a legitmate American school.
>
>Maybe when Lenny was named conductor of a major orchestra? (The first
>American ever to have such a position.)
Could be. It's certainly in the time frame I had in mind for at least
the beginning of this transition. Perhaps John Adams and Phillip
Glass mark it's completion?
>--
>Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
David Olen Baird
<m.p...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>In article <3d3dc698...@news.birch.net>, davb...@tfs.net says...
>>
>> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
>> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
>> recognized as a legitmate American school.
>
>Possibly. I'm not sure when American music became 'cool' to study...
I'm not too sure about this either.
>American architecture, in general now, still aped European styles up til
>the 1920s, when Art Deco started coming out, (and Wright was really doing
>his own thing). But even up until the 1930s, with the influx of European
>architects, I think there was a lot of looking to 'Europe', until Philip
>Johnson did the International Style exhibition.
>I think there was a lot of national sentiment in the 1880s and 1890s and
>turn of the century, but at least in architecture, American architecture
>was either FLW, Art Deco, or 50s modernism for a while. Now there's a
>greater palette, and a bit more history too.
I think we need to look at the last half of the century before
American symphonic music began being recognized in its own right (with
Gershwin and Ives perhaps being notable exceptions).
In fact, the folk traditions of american music were here for almost
200 years before that, but were eschewed by those trained in the
european tradition as much as by musical training as by America's
reprehensible bigotry.
I need to stop contributing to this thread as if I know what I'm
talking about, because, in fact, I don't. I need to get a musicology
degree :)
>Nowadays there's not national or stylistic trends, only 'star' names, or
>'old' languages. I'm guess it's like that in other arts.
This makes sense -- a globalization of music and the other arts.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:25:43 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >David Olen Baird wrote:
> >
> >> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
> >> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
> >> recognized as a legitmate American school.
> >
> >Maybe when Lenny was named conductor of a major orchestra? (The first
> >American ever to have such a position.)
>
> Could be. It's certainly in the time frame I had in mind for at least
> the beginning of this transition. Perhaps John Adams and Phillip
> Glass mark it's completion?
Ugh. I hope they're not to be considered the legitimate American school.
David Olen Baird
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
I don't know. What european (or non-american, for that matter), would
be so inextricably associated with minimilism?
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Peter T. Daniels
>
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 20:56:18 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >David Olen Baird wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:25:43 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >David Olen Baird wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
> >> >> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
> >> >> recognized as a legitmate American school.
> >> >
> >> >Maybe when Lenny was named conductor of a major orchestra? (The first
> >> >American ever to have such a position.)
> >>
> >> Could be. It's certainly in the time frame I had in mind for at least
> >> the beginning of this transition. Perhaps John Adams and Phillip
> >> Glass mark it's completion?
> >
> >Ugh. I hope they're not to be considered the legitimate American school.
No, the question is who best represents American music, not what's
minimalism's place in history.
Sonarrat Citalis
news:3D3F4B...@worldnet.att.net...
> No, the question is who best represents American music,
In the classical realm, at least, Ives, Carter, Barber, Sessions, Muczynski.
Mostly Ives. Gershwin is an honorable mention, but although he is close to the
heart of America, it's a rather one-dimensional view.
--
-Sonarrat Citalis.
Reply-To address disabled for the duration.
http://www.mp3.com/Sonarrat/
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:3D3F4B...@worldnet.att.net...
>
> > No, the question is who best represents American music,
>
> In the classical realm, at least, Ives, Carter, Barber, Sessions, Muczynski.
> Mostly Ives. Gershwin is an honorable mention, but although he is close to the
> heart of America, it's a rather one-dimensional view.
I never heard of the last one in your first list, but not a one of the
others is remotely contemporary. Do consult the thread before
commenting.
D.G. Porter
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:3D3F4B...@worldnet.att.net...
>
> > No, the question is who best represents American music,
>
> In the classical realm, at least, Ives, Carter,
Carter is VASTLY over-rated.
> Barber, Sessions, Muczynski.
> Mostly Ives. Gershwin is an honorable mention, but although he is close to the
> heart of America, it's a rather one-dimensional view.
That's because he died young.
A lot of people don't know this, but Gershwin was aware of Ives's music
(probably the songs) and was quite interested in them, from accounts.
I'll still take Gershwin over Barber ANY Day.
D.G. Porter
>
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 20:56:18 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >David Olen Baird wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:25:43 GMT, "Peter T. Daniels"
> >> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >David Olen Baird wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> When did this euro-centric view of music stop beign so predominant in
> >> >> America? I think it took music much longer than archetecture to be
> >> >> recognized as a legitmate American school.
> >> >
> >> >Maybe when Lenny was named conductor of a major orchestra? (The first
> >> >American ever to have such a position.)
> >>
> >> Could be. It's certainly in the time frame I had in mind for at least
> >> the beginning of this transition. Perhaps John Adams and Phillip
> >> Glass mark it's completion?
> >
> >Ugh. I hope they're not to be considered the legitimate American school.
> >--
> >Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
>
> I don't know. What european (or non-american, for that matter), would
> be so inextricably associated with minimilism?
European music is a victim of its own history. Which is partly tied in
with it being so dominant in America until the middle of the last
century (Lenny being appointed, etc., and the "Cage generation"). You
couldn't have had a Terry Riley in Europe in the '60s. Look at Boulez
and Cage -- Cage used "chance," but Boulez, HE had to have a "system,"
so it became "aleatory." Feldman, Brown and Wolff couldn't have
happened in Europe either.
Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
David Olen Baird
<sona...@trolls.suck> wrote:
>"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>news:3D3F4B...@worldnet.att.net...
>
>> No, the question is who best represents American music,
>
>In the classical realm, at least, Ives, Carter, Barber, Sessions, Muczynski.
>Mostly Ives. Gershwin is an honorable mention, but although he is close to the
>heart of America, it's a rather one-dimensional view.
>
So, this completly blows my latter half of the 20th C. theory?
Then I'm going with Marcello's globalization theory -- which actually
makes sense if you concede that classical music is inexorably tied to
europe. I.e. In a few hours the euoropeans will be reading this and
thinking "There _is_ no american school - never was, never will
be...". Although, I doubt that any would deny the contribution of any
of the acknowledged american composers.
David Olen Baird
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Hmm. Well, the question I was trying to explore is, "when did a
recognized American school of classical music arise?"
I'm guessing - never. Now, let's talk about an American school of
jazz - now you're talking. And, the notion that jazz is America's
classical music begins to make sense.
>--
>Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
**************************** The Garden Suite **************************
David Olen Baird
Absoulutly! "If it sounds good, it _is_ good" - Duke Ellington.
Peter T. Daniels
> European music is a victim of its own history. Which is partly tied in
> with it being so dominant in America until the middle of the last
> century (Lenny being appointed, etc., and the "Cage generation"). You
> couldn't have had a Terry Riley in Europe in the '60s. Look at Boulez
> and Cage -- Cage used "chance," but Boulez, HE had to have a "system,"
> so it became "aleatory." Feldman, Brown and Wolff couldn't have
> happened in Europe either.
>
> Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
> artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
Ah, but what about Wolpe? He was doing interesting stuff before he came
here.
Ray Hall
|
| European music is a victim of its own history. Which is partly tied in
| with it being so dominant in America until the middle of the last
| century (Lenny being appointed, etc., and the "Cage generation"). You
| couldn't have had a Terry Riley in Europe in the '60s. Look at Boulez
| and Cage -- Cage used "chance," but Boulez, HE had to have a "system,"
| so it became "aleatory." Feldman, Brown and Wolff couldn't have
| happened in Europe either.
|
| Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
| artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
Ives is your typical New England composer, and about as "alien" to someone
in New Mexico as to someone in Hampshire, UK. Not that he wasn't supremely
great (and original) of course. But for universality, then Harris, Schuman,
Barber AND Cage were more typical American composers. Imo. A certain
hill-troll from Vermont says that only New Englanders can really cotton on
to the true Ivesian idiom. I half believe him too <g>
Minimalism is generic too, and American in origin. There are those of us who
like the stuff too.
But Ives was not typically American in a generic way. No way Jose.
Regards,
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
< NEW Doris Day TV series news >
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Ray, Sydney
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Jeremy Baguyos
> DG,
>
> I know Ives used/stole/quoted a lot of music he was familiar with. I'm
> wondering if he may have gotten his 'collage' technique from prior
> composers he admired, if any?
>
> Danke.
>
> Marcello
Some credit for the "collage" technique is due to Ives himself. Ives
was very stubborn, but in a productive way. In his compositional
process, gut instinct and intuition trumped the authority of the
Western Art Music tradition and all of its composers/teachers. If the
music was a "collage," it was due in part to his idealistic belief
system of being faithful to his own natural, organic ideas.
Sonarrat Citalis
"David Olen Baird" <davb...@tfs.net> wrote in message
news:3d3f593c...@news.birch.net...
> On Wed, 24 Jul 2002 17:58:09 -0700, "Sonarrat Citalis"
> <sona...@trolls.suck> wrote:
>
> >"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> >news:3D3F4B...@worldnet.att.net...
> >
> >> No, the question is who best represents American music,
> >
> >In the classical realm, at least, Ives, Carter, Barber, Sessions, Muczynski.
> >Mostly Ives. Gershwin is an honorable mention, but although he is close to
the
> >heart of America, it's a rather one-dimensional view.
> >
>
> So, this completly blows my latter half of the 20th C. theory?
>
> Then I'm going with Marcello's globalization theory -- which actually
> makes sense if you concede that classical music is inexorably tied to
> europe. I.e. In a few hours the euoropeans will be reading this and
> thinking "There _is_ no american school - never was, never will
> be...". Although, I doubt that any would deny the contribution of any
> of the acknowledged american composers.
I misunderstood the thread, as you may have guessed...but Robert Muczynski is
still very much around. Lowell Liebermann and George Crumb are two more.
Jeremy Baguyos
> Marcello Penso wrote:
> >
> >
> > PS- if you had to recommend a book on Ives, what would it be?
>
> Books by other authors I'd recommend:
> "Charles Ives Remembered" by Vivian Perlis (now soon to be back in print
> I hear).
> "Charles Ives -- A Life with the Music" by Jan Swafford (excellent).
> "Charles Ives and His Amrerica" by Frank Rossiter (hard to locate --
> check a library).
> "Charles Ives: 'My Father's Song'" by Stuart Feder.
> The Cowells' book is all right, but the 1955 edition has a better list
> of compositions.
> David Wooldridge is regarded as a fraud.
> I know and dearly like Peter Burkholder but I just can't read his books.
There are some great books on this list. You should reconsider J.
Peter Burkholder's CHARLES IVES: THE IDEAS BEHIND THE MUSIC. For a
newbie, I would not recommend trying to read Ives's ESSAYS without
reading Peter Burkholder's book first.
Jeremy Baguyos
Jeremy Baguyos
Jeremy Baguyos
> I don't know. What european (or non-american, for that matter), would
> be so inextricably associated with minimilism?
>
Philip Glass himself has distanced himself from "minimalism." Maybe
Frank Stella could take up Finale..... : )
Jeremy Baguyos
Steven Forrest
[snip]
>Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
>artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
I think Harry Partch is like this too. He embodies several
themes of the American mythology: individualism, the self-made
man, the lone inventor, and American exceptionalism.
-Steve
D.G. Porter
Frankly, I find Ives more rewarding to read than Peter's prose.
Now, I know Peter and he's a friend, but really, his writing is not very
rewarding to actually sit down and read....
I have his book. Looking at any given page, it's very factual, well
laid out, but it's such a DRY read. Ives himself is such an "activity"
writer -- although the Essays are HORRIBLY punctuated -- Howard
Boatwright once told me that the publisher decided to take out almost
all the commas -- which is a disaster for a writer like Ives.
D.G. Porter
>
> "D.G. Porter" <dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught> wrote in message
> |
> | European music is a victim of its own history. Which is partly tied in
> | with it being so dominant in America until the middle of the last
> | century (Lenny being appointed, etc., and the "Cage generation"). You
> | couldn't have had a Terry Riley in Europe in the '60s. Look at Boulez
> | and Cage -- Cage used "chance," but Boulez, HE had to have a "system,"
> | so it became "aleatory." Feldman, Brown and Wolff couldn't have
> | happened in Europe either.
> |
> | Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
> | artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
>
> Ives is your typical New England composer, and about as "alien" to someone
> in New Mexico as to someone in Hampshire, UK.
Well, what has NM offered us in the way of music anyway? What has
Utah? What has Nebraska? What has Montana? What has Wyoming? At
least Harris knew to "git outa there" and go where things were
happening!
> Not that he wasn't supremely
> great (and original) of course. But for universality, then Harris, Schuman,
> Barber AND Cage were more typical American composers. Imo.
"Universailty"! Ives has a real shitload to say about that! But I'll
quote him some other time. See the Essays' Epilogue. And reference
"Smith Grabholtz"! And the man "born down to "Babbit's Corners." And
"get[ting] a good bass drummer." And the whole idea of New ENg,and
hymns and gospel tunes being "universal." And "Memos," p. 77, last
paragraph, on provincial v. universal ("Why choose 'local' authors,"
etc.).
> A certain
> hill-troll from Vermont says that only New Englanders can really cotton on
> to the true Ivesian idiom. I half believe him too <g>
Well that's silly. It helps if you growing up knowing the tunes, but
I've learned them, and I'm thoroughly "Los Angeles," and I'd say I'm one
of the best and most appreciative of his idiom. Of course I've been
working with his stuff actively since 1974...
Another thing, I think the MIDI files I make sond a helluva lot more
"Ivesian" than 98.6% of all the Ives recordings I've heard.
If you want to hear a rip-roaring Ives performance, get a copy of the
1924 recording of "In the Barn." "WHOA!!!"
I've still never heard anyone try "They Are There" at Ives's tempo.
> Minimalism is generic too, and American in origin. There are those of us who
> like the stuff too.
>
> But Ives was not typically American in a generic way. No way Jose.
Since blues, R&B and rock are all "American" idioms, then yes I'd say
Ives is "generic." He was listening to black music from the start.
Listen to Copland's 1920s ragtime next to the Ives's. Who sounds more
"American"? No question.
D.G. Porter
Here I am like Ives -- I don't know anything about Wolpe.
John Harrington
Did Ayn Rand write a book about him?
J
Steven Forrest
>sfor...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu (Steven Forrest) wrote in message
>> [snip]
>> >Ives is your typical "American" composer -- "The hell with these
>> >artificial 'rules,' to hell with 'form,' I like how this sounds!"
>>
>> I think Harry Partch is like this too. He embodies several
>> themes of the American mythology: individualism, the self-made
>> man, the lone inventor, and American exceptionalism.
>
>Did Ayn Rand write a book about him?
Ha-ha, no, I don't think so.
Perhaps I exaggerate ("self-made man") but Partch was certainly
a unique composer not bound by the traditions of European
art music.
-Steve
Marcello Penso
dgpo...@NOSPAMMERSpacbell.naught says...
> Marcello Penso wrote:
> >
> >
> > In fact US architects were 'always' (considering it was boat trips back
> > then) going to Europe to select/get the furniture, decor and finishes so
> > desired by America's nouveau rich, like Flagler, Vanderbilts, and so
> > forth.
>
> Now this is an interesting point and it touches on my family's history.
> This is just what my grandfather did. My grandfather John Andrew Porter
> left the family farm at age 13 and by the time he was 28 he was working
> for Daniels & Fischer (I think that's the name) in Denver as a buyer,
> and his job was to go to Europe (by rail & boat) and buy furniture for
> the store to sell to rich folk. Eventually he went to Frederick &
> Nelson's in Seattle, and did quite well for his family in the 1920s. So
> much so that he built a mansion in Tacoma, sold it, and built another
> one in Bel Air Los Angeles (it was on No. Perugia Way, and I don't know
> if it's still there).
> (They lived right next to this country club and guys were always hitting
> golf balls onto their property, so old Jack, age 68, shirtless, with
> shovel and hat, would be out there working the grounds, and he'd just
> stand on the ball as the guy would come up and ask "this old gardener"
> if he'd seen his ball. "... no..." Well, the golfer would ask, he was
> sure it landed around there. "... oh?" Then the guy would leave and my
> father would get another free golf ball.)
> Jack also had the sense in the year he retired (1927) to be the first to
> use the new Seattle-London phone line. A reporter asked if he thought
> this would be a common way of ordering European furniture for the firm
> but Jack didn't think so, at least not for a while.
> Yeah, Jack got quite wealthy out of his job as European buyer. (None of
> his money is left though.)
>
Great story. Must have been an interesting job. I knw for the studio I
work for in Milan which did Verasce stores, they were also working on a
10,000 square meter (note meter, not feet) villa for a sheikh's wife and
we had a girl (by coincidence also American, of German extraction) who
went around hunting down furniture for the sheikhs. Lots of time spent in
London, Paris and Istanbul. I even went to measure the wood decor of a
17 century 'Damascus' room, sold at Southeby's in London, so that a room
could be sized to get the decor to fit properly.
Now that's rich.
Oddly enough, neither of my grandfathers had anything to do with
architecture, but my great grandfather was a ship builder out oa town
near Venice (Chioggia) working for the Austro-Hungarian royal navy for a
time, before moving on to Istanbul (where my grandfather was born.)
Marcello
D.G. Porter
>
> >
> Great story. Must have been an interesting job. I knw for the studio I
> work for in Milan which did Verasce stores, they were also working on a
> 10,000 square meter (note meter, not feet) villa for a sheikh's wife and
> we had a girl (by coincidence also American, of German extraction) who
> went around hunting down furniture for the sheikhs. Lots of time spent in
> London, Paris and Istanbul. I even went to measure the wood decor of a
> 17 century 'Damascus' room, sold at Southeby's in London, so that a room
> could be sized to get the decor to fit properly.
>
> Now that's rich.
>
> Oddly enough, neither of my grandfathers had anything to do with
> architecture, but my great grandfather was a ship builder out oa town
> near Venice (Chioggia) working for the Austro-Hungarian royal navy for a
> time, before moving on to Istanbul (where my grandfather was born.)
>
> Marcello
Another good story.
D.G. Porter
Last year here in Santa Ana we heard the original versions of "Bartsow"
(John Schneider, guitar and voice) and "The Letter." The latter was
performed with a kithara Partch built here in an Adult Education class.
I can imagine the teacher coming around, "What've you got there, Mr.
Partch?" "A kithara." "What's it do?" "Plays microtones and you can
slap it." (Demostrates.) "Okayyyy...."