Chapter 75

Self-Reliance in American Music:

Ives, Seeger, Nancarrow

Self-Reliance in American Classical Music

• Throughout its history, classical music in America has alternatively imitated European models and broken free from them.

• The colonial composer William Billings (1746-1800) declared himself unrestrained by conventional rules– exemplifies the beginnings of self-reliance in

American music.

• 19th-century figures such as Edward McDowell (1860-1908) wrote music squarely in the manner of German romantic contemporaries– typifies the adopted talent (the composer who

aspired primarily to elevate American musical culture to the level of contemporary European music.

Music of Charles Ives• Charles Ives began in the same imitative mold.

• Soon broke with the musical traditions of his time and professed a self-reliance in composing that he found in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

• He sometimes strove for substance in his music making by– making it reflect everyday life, into which a higher spirituality is

usually granted.

• Many of his pieces quote tunes that he heard as a child.

• Other pieces express metaphysical ideas by a variety of innovative means.

• Ives music alternates in style between conventional forms and experiments with:– dissonance– spatiality– non-coordination among strata (groups).

The Life of Charles E. Ives (1874–1954)

• 1874 - born in Danbury, CT, to the family of a musician

• 1894–98 - attends Yale University, studies music

with Horatio Parker

• 1898 - begins career in the insurance industry in New York

• 1912 - settles on a farm near Danbury

• 1930 - retires from the insurance business

• 1947 - wins Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 3

• 1954 - dies in New York

Principal Compositions by Charles Ives

• Orchestra: symphonies (4), tone poems including– The Unanswered Question– Central Park in the Dark– Decoration Day

• Songs: about 150, many published in 1922 in the collection 114 Songs

• Piano and Organ: sonatas (2), character pieces, Variations on America (organ)

• Chorus: works include – Three Harvest Home Chorales– The Celestial Country

• Chamber music: violin sonatas (4), string quartets (2), experimental pieces

Charles Ives, song “Feldeinsamkeit,” 1897

Ternary form

Charles Ives, song “Charlie Rutlage,” c1920

Ternary form

Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question, c1906

Through-composed form

The Life of Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953)

• 1901 - born in Ohio, grows up in Jacksonville, Florida

• 1921 - enters the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, studying mainly piano and composition

• 1929 - moves to New York, studies with Charles Seeger

• 1930 - awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the first female composer to be so honored

• 1932 - marries Charles Seeger

• 1936 - the Seegers move to Washington, DC; work in the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress

• 1953 - dies in Chevy Chase, MD

Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger

• The music of Ruth Crawford Seeger continues the self-reliant spirit of Ives.

• In the andante movement of her string quartet she experiments with a new concept of counterpoint called dissonant counterpoint– made not from simultaneous melodies but

from distinct patterns of crescendos and decrescendos in the four lines.

Principal Compositions by Ruth Crawford Seeger

• Chamber music: includes String Quartet, Violin Sonata, and Woodwind Quintet

• Piano: mainly collections of preludes and other short pieces

• Songs: several collections on the poetry of Carl Sandburg

• Folk song arrangements: collections include Our Singing Country (1941)

Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet, 1934, movement 3

(Andante)

Through-composed form

The Life of Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997)

• 1912 - born in Texarkana, Ark.

• 1929–32 - attends Cincinnati College-Conservatory

• 1937–39 - fights with Communist forces in the Spanish Civil War

• 1940 - emigrates permanently to Mexico

• 1947 - acquires a player piano on which to compose

• 1983 - awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant

• 1997 - dies in Mexico City

Music of Conlon Nancarrow

• Virtually all the music of Conlon Nancarrow is written for the medium of player piano.

• His player-piano studies are often jazzy and combine layers of sounds having differing metric organizations.

• These create complex polyrhythmic and polymetric textures.

Principal Compositions by Conlon Nancarrow

• Player piano: roughly 50 studies

• Piano: several short character pieces

• Chamber music: includes string quartets (3), chamber orchestra pieces

Conlon Nancarrow, Study 3a for player piano, c1948

12-bar blues form