American music was "colonial" for a long time after the colonies won political independence from Britain. Up until the First World War, Americans who were serious about their music were expected to go to Europe for their training, and European artists were given preference over their American counterparts by audiences and impresarios.
The Great War shook up the established nineteenth-century order of world powers and brought America onto the international stage. In the years that followed, American cultural life flourished, nurtured by economic and political progress. By 1939, the United States was a world power in every sense; the New York World's Fair simply underlined what everyone already acknowledged, that America had "arrived."
That same year marked the founding of the American Music Center, an organization to promote the composition and performance of music by American composers. Set up by the most prominent composers, performers, and administrator/educators of the day, the New York-based American Music Center was to play a vital role in the development of national musical excellence.
The Center has long sponsored an annual American Music Week, during which concerts across the country feature works both old and new by American composers. It is always a bit of a festival, as critics scramble from concert trying to hear as many works as possible, since this music is often neglected for the rest of the year. In New York, three of the city's major orchestras joined in last autumn's American Music week. The Orchestra of St. Luke's played in Carnegie Hall on Monday, November 6; the New York Philharmonic performed in Avery fisher Hall on Tuesday, November 7; and the New York City Symphony took the stage at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday, November 8. All three concerts featured American works, with an emphasis on living composers. Equally welcome, though, was the chance to hear some classics that deserve more attention than they usually receive.
The Orchestra of St. Luke's celebrated American Music Week with composer/conductors John Adams and Charles Wuorinen leading their own compositions. Adams also conducted works of Copland and Gershwin.
The "senior citizens," Copland and Gershwin, stole the show. Of course, they were mere musical striplings (Copland was twenty-five, Gershwin, twenty-six) when they wrote the pieces representing them in this concert. Copland's Music for the Theatre retains a brash brilliance that makes it immediately appealing. There's a lot of the open, fanfare sound that is associated with the composer, as well as a communicative use of solo instruments - notably the clarinet, the original "crossover" instrument between the classical and jazz traditions. Although not written for any particular theatrical show, the piece goes through a dramatic sequence with a balanced combination of sprightliness and seriousness, and a healthy dash of American humor. Adams led it without exaggeration; he is an economical, businesslike conductor, clear and to the point. That was all that was needed in this case; Copland had done the rest.
The highlight of the evening, though, was Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, performed in the original scoring. In 1922, the then famous band leader Paul Whiteman commissioned the almost unknown Gershwin to write a "jazz concerto" for his band. In a mere three weeks Gershwin composed
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