Early American Concert Music

Concert Music vs. Vernacular Music

• Vernacular Music• What is it? • Examples

• Popular vs. Populist(?) • Music purely for entertainment• Music that is entertaining, but still has a purpose/function

• Art Music and Concert Music• Basically the same thing• Music for music’s sake; music as art• Entertainment? Functional?

Think outside the box.

• Blurry lines• Can fit more than one genre at the same time• There is always an exception• Modern Examples

Time Frame

• Generally Mid- to Late-Nineteenth Century

Symphony Orchestras

*warning: overgeneralization alert*• Europe

• Romanticism: “expressive extremes”• $$$$$$$• Large portion of population• Supply and demand

• America• Uh…what is Romanticism?• $• …meh• No supply, no demand

Solo Recitals

• Much more in demand in America than Symphony Orhcestras

• What is a virtuoso? • Idolization • Superhuman

• Tradition of virtuosos in Europe• Mozart, Liszt, Paganini

• As virtuosos were becoming less popular in Europe, they were becoming popular in America

• National concert tours

The Swedish Nightingale

• Jenny Lind (1820-1887)• Born, raised, educated in

Sweden• Child Prodigy• On stage at age 10• 1840: Vocal Health Issues

• 1841-1843: Manuel Garcia

• 1843: Hans Christian Anderson in Denmark• His muse

• 1844-1849: Success in Germany and England

Jenny Lind’s American Tour1850-1852

• 1849: Lind is approached by P.T. Barnum about an American Tour

• Financial demands; Barnum pulls through

• Barnum publicizes • Lind is famous in America

before anyone had actually heard her sing.

• 1850: sails over from Europe and tours for 2 years• “Jenny Lind Fever” • “Lind Mania”

• 1850-1851: $350,000• $7.6 million in today’s currency

She donated everything to charity.

Ole Bull (1810-1880)

• Born and raised in Norway• Five extensive stays in America

• Sara Chapman Thorp

• Part of the Nationalist movement• What is Nationalism?• “…he offered one thousand dollars

to any American composer who would write an opera on an American Subject; no one, however, accepted the challenge and the company soon collapsed.”

• How does this quote reflect the broader attitude about American Nationalism?

• American Nationalist composers are trying to avoid sounding like who?

Ole Bull (cont’d)

Ole Bull’s Villa on Lysøen

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

• 1829-1869• The only one of these virtuosos that

was actually born in America (New Orleans)• (…but he spent most of his career

working outside of the United States.)

• Studied in Paris as a teenager• Traveled extensively

• Cuba and South America

• He wrote most of the music that he played in recitals

• American or European or both?• Nineteenth Century Bieber Fever

Gottschalk’s Piano Music

• General Characteristics• Highly Rhythmic• Often inspired by dance music• “Character Pieces”

• Souvenir de Puerto Rico• Le Bananier• The Banjo

Anthony Philip Heinrich(1781-1861)

• Born in Bohemia• First full time American

composer popular before the Civil War

• Started composing when he was 36; lost business during the Napoleonic Wars

• Stranded in 1810 in Boston• Had no money to return home

• His music was inspired by America, particularly Native American tunes

• Ornithological Combat of Kings, Mvt. III

William Henry Fry(1813-1864)

• First American composer of opera to have an opera produced in the US• Leonora

• Niagra Symphony• Fought to have American

composers represented in the concerts of American Symphonies, particularly the New York Philharmonic• “…the American composer

should not allow the name of Beethoven or Handel or Mozart to prove an eternal bugbear to him.”

George Bristow(1825-1898)

• He and Fry supported each other in the push for representation of American composers

• Violinist in the New York Philharmonic

• Wrote the opera Rip Van Winkle ten years after Fry’s Leonora

Theodore Thomas(1835-1905)

• Born in Germany• Started playing with the New York

Philharmonic at age 19, prior to playing First Violin in Jenny Lind’s touring orchestra

• Most famous today for being a conductor, rather than a composer or violinist

American Concert Music Comes of Age

• Romanticism in Europe• Strong influence on American composers• Most American composers want to sound…?

• American Nationalism• Starts gathering significant support at the very end of the

nineteenth century

• Musical training is still very eurocentric• You go there or they come here

Antonín Dvořák(1841-1904)

• Born near Prague; then Bohemia, currently the Czech Republic

• Famous composer in Europe• Asked by Jeannette Thurber to be

the director of the National Conservatory of Music in NYC (1892-1895)• What is a conservatory?

• Supporter of American Nationalism • Most famous piece:

Ninth Symphony “From the New World” (1893)• Supposedly inspired by:

• Native American Music• African American Spirituals • Vast openness of America

• Uses pentatonic scale for theme

Influence on American Nationalism

• “I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them.”

Second New England School

• AKA: the Boston Classicists, the Boston Six• Focused in and around Boston• Boston Symphony Orchestra

• Founded 1881 and enthusiastically supports American composers, specifically those in the Second New England School

• Still a focus on German ideals in concert music

The Boston Six

• John Knowles Paine (1839-1906)• Arthur Foote (1853-1937) • George Chadwick (1854-1931)• Edward MacDowell (1861-1908)• Horatio Parker (1863-1919)• Amy Beach (1867-1944)

John Knowles Paine(1839-1906)

• From Maine; very music family• Studied organ/composition in US

with a German teacher; traveled to Europe to study with another German teacher

• Toured Europe for 3 years giving organ recitals

• Appointed Harvard Organist and Choirmaster

• First professor of music in America (1875)

• Respected for contributions to orchestral literature

Edward MacDowell(1860-1908)

• Born in NYC; spent much of his adolescence and young adulthood in France and Germany• Paris Conservatory• Hoch Conservatory

• Distinctive style• Embraced ideas of Romanticism • Different philosophy to nationalism

– “capture the spirit”• Still utilized the quotation of Native

American and African American themes

• Second Piano Concerto• Quote from “Symphony from the New

World”

Amy Beach(1867-1944)

• Born into a distinguished family in New Hampshire

• Child prodigy• Family moved to Boston• Superbly talented pianist;

extensive training• 1885: Debut as soloist with the

BSO• Almost entirely self-taught as a

composer• Married surgeon

• Support as professional musician?

• Reviews: a woman composer…• Romance for Violin and Piano