American music lovers...do you ignore your own composers?

Many of these people, it seems, aren't as popular in America.

I like Copland...Barber is OK in my perspective (although his only recognized piece is the Adagio..).

I like other musicians from America though. Like Gershwin, Joplin and the like.

I have heard of a few of the guys you mentioned (George Templeton, Schuman...) But I haven't taken the time to look them up extensively.

When I go to a CD shop here, in any place (fye, Barnes and Noble, music stores)...it's always "Beethoven" this "Mozart" that, "Pachabel's Canon" (one CD I saw had 24 tracks of straight Canon, each played with different instruments/ensembles).

Rarely do I find a "Copland CD" and if I do, it's the stereotypical "Hoedown" and other Western ballet themes.

Perhaps I'll start looking some of these guys up more.

Well, I guess I'm not a nationalist. I choose what music I listen to based on whether I like it or not, not by the nationality of the composer.

As for the ones you've listed, I could take or leave MacDowell (have only heard one or two pieces, though), Hovhaness, Virgil Thompson, and Siegmeister. I dislike David Diamond, Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, and William Grant Still. I don't think I've ever heard anything by Grofe, Carpenter, Stong, or McKay.

But I do like some Copland, Barber, Beach, Bernstein (though he's not on the list), and Schuman. And I think that Griffes is an extremely under-appreciated composer.

I'd also suggest that we add Carl Ruggles, Vincent Persichetti, John Adams, and John Corigliano to the list. Then there's the usual suspects of American serialism, which I like, but don't expect many other people to get excited about (Babbitt, Krenek, et al).

Speaking from a Brit's perspective, I enjoy a lot of the composers you have mentioned. I have to admit that my patience wears thin with those such John Alden Carpenter, George Templeton Strong, Gregory Mason, George Chadwick and Willian Henry Fry (some of whose music is so like Verdi's it's unbelievable), who, it must be said, are often just pale imitators of their European contemporaries. I believe it was only with Ives and Ruggles that 'American' composers truly found their voice - and even then, some proved very 'European' in the approach (eg Hanson, Piston, Randall Thompson - even Paul Creston to an extent).

I enjoy the slightly more recent American composers with a clear and original voice such as William Schuman (shamefully neglected), David Diamond, Joseph Schwantner, George Rochberg and John Corigliano. I would be interested to learn just how much exposure such composers receive in their homeland.

Hm, I'm interested in the answers to this question :) I haven't listened to anything but Copland and Barber, but I haven't listened to enough in general. I'll admit, though, that every time I hear Dvorak's "New World" it hits me with a jolt- wait, he's talking about America? Somehow classical music and America just don't seem to go together! Conservatories, sure, great orchestras, undoubtedly, but composers? Even if it's antiquated and not fair, I definitely have a natural bias toward American composers. I think almost everyone does... :(

Interesting question... I must confess that I find most of the music (American and otherwise) pretty banal after the advent of the sixties. Obviously there are some exceptions (Hanson, Ruggles et al) but the charge in more recent times is led by the likes of Adams, Glass, Messiaen and Ligeti (none of whose music I find particularly enthralling at this stage of my life). So much modern music seems unremarkable, but I don't think this matters whether it is European or American. There are few composers in the contemporary period whose output is consistently high. Even the likes of Copland, who you mentioned, can be adequately summarized in a few CDs. The influences outside of the artistic sphere seem to have led particularly American composers astray. Take Gershwin for example, who ultimately became the prototypical "cross over" artist. "Embraceable you" whilst a truly great song, is not really a classical piece. And so it goes, commercialism became the driving force behind musical composition particularly in America (and in most of the west) and more artistic music retreated into the halls of academia, where its various merits and demerits are debated by the grey beards.

I have a great deal more exploring to do before I completely write off music created after 1960, but it seems you have to sift through a lot of chaff to find the few kernels of quality substantial art music, much of which seems to have become disconnected from the more discerning listening public whilst making forays into the weird, ugly and downright "unmusical." This in turn has exacted the ever increasing lack of interest in art music on the part of the public which by and large perceives it as irrelevant.

It is this same phenomenon that causes our perveyors of classical music to program "unadventurous" selections in fear that they will be unable to attract a paying audience.

This is the single most aggravating thing for advocates of the "New" music.

I guess I got a little off topic, but it is how I perceive the lack of attention paid to modern composers... American and otherwise.

Edit: By the way... how refreshing to get a REAL classical music question. They seem to become rarer and rarer, inondated with the FREE sheet music and Bellas questions. This is what the classical music category should be all about.

Most musicians have at least heard of these people. Many know a few pieces here and there. Composers (such as myself) listen to plenty of American music...but it's usually all late 20th and 21st century...I listen to the minimalists, Crumb, Cage, Schwantner, Aaron jay Kernis, Robert Beaser, Corigliano, Rouse, etc etc etc...

Although I don't listen often, I do like David Diamond and Alan Hovhaness. Barber is one my favorites.

Wow, I guess I do ignore our own composers. Copland and Barber I am familiar with, but then some of these guys I have never heard of! And now I'm going to do my research and look these guys and their music up. And this is why I hang out in the classical section, always new stuff to learn. What would I do without you guys? Out of curiosity, with whom do you suggest I start with?

I've listened to and studied several composers on your list, but consider this - the music we perform in the states is typically based on western music traditions, and those traditions came from overseas. We are more likely to know those western greats more than our own American composers.

When referring to jazz, American composers and performers will typically come to mind because they helped cultivate the style (Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Charles, etc.)

What I'm saying is that we typically focus our studies to the musicians who helped develop and cultivate that style or genre, and in the classical realm, they were European composers.

However, the latest movement of American composers comes from the modernism and postmodernism styles - developing styles and pushing the limits of what we perceive as music and what music should be. While in college, when we studied American composers, they were typically from the 20th and 21st century (John Cage, Edgard Varèse (French born, but lived in the States), Frank Zappa, Charles Ives).

But, that's from the music student standpoint.

I am currently a music teacher. As part of our expectations, we need to be familiar with American and foreign composers in selection of the repertoire - we come to know these composers and expect a certain standard of quality with their name. At the college level, the repertoire is much more expansive due to the abilities of the musicians.

For the average American who *isn't* a musician, their knowledge of composers is limited, and in my opinion, it's because of mainstream(pop) music and the dying fine arts departments in public schools. Call this a plug for my profession if you will, but schools are cutting those departments simply because they don't want to spend the money on them, or they don't have enough funding and consider the music program to be extraneous and unnecessary. Kids are more likely to know who AC/DC is than Beethoven or John Cage, and I would love to see them know all three.

I just learned of a phenomenal little man named Matt Savage, a 14 year old savant with amazing compositional and jazz piano skills:

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_synd...

It's amazing to know how many composers there are not only in America, but all over the world. As another said, I'm interested in seeing who pops up in different answers!

Well I have recordings of every composer you mentioned so yeah, though you forgot Bernstein, and yes they are known in the states, however classical music is not something which comes natural to americans as it does to europeans, I have no idea why that is, so only someone genuinely interested in homegrown composers would know of them.

I guess the same applies for every country, there are plenty of british composers no brit has ever heard of, and I am quite certain that hardly any Dutchman has ever heard of Van Wassenaer

I'd like to point out two factors about American Nationalism. 1) As much as we have had the mike mouse gung-ho yup aren't we great and doesn't everyone just love us and want to be American propaganda shoved down our throats since at least the advent of wonder bread, there has always been a very large (and false) pretense of populism included in the mix. Shrewd and intelligent politicians running for office have to learn how to act 'folksy' and common in order to gain all us yokel's confidence and votes.

2) My country, unlike many European Nations, has never put our intellectual or arts heros On The Money! We did finally arrive at a few artists on our postage, but Elvis and Marylin were licked and pasted before we got to, say, Jasper Johns.

I'm sure none of this is news to you. It does mean that all the public schools (which is not British English for private and paid) do not have on their rota teaching young Americans about 'our heroes in the arts'. A few writers, better if they write about being American. Every Dutch person, whether they like art or not, has been indoctinated early on that Van Gogh and Rembrandt, Frans Hals, etc. are national heroes.

Arts education in the school system here tends to have the quality of a saucer - broad, but very shallow.

I am aware of almost all on your list, have listened, checked out scores, piano music, not out of any sense of home-boy nationalism, but when I was initially and voraciously seeking out modern music. I live in one of the largest metropolitan U.S. cities and devoured the public library, which had an enormous collection on site at that time. The thrill of discovering stuff all by yourself (ahh - a ping of nostalgia ). I don't listen to them anymore because they wore very thin.

Many of these are not only not the best; though they are craftworthy, much of it now in recollection, strikes me as either over-inflated romanticism disguised in a thin cloak of modernism (like non-or low fat products: I don't like fats or schmaltz but I believe if you do you should just go for the real thing), or downright hokey in the import of the basic materials (Copland; Rodeo, El Salon Mexico) THE Roy Harris Symphony (generic 40's movie music played when a shot of telegraph wires transmitting the message was shown) was cliche the moment it was generated.

The symphonic work I've heard of Walter Piston's - why bother. Ditto Diamond, Carpenter, Still.

Hovhaness is to me a weird and bizarre phenomenon, and I think he ought to have burnt all his work....so trite. If I were a nationalist I could wish he was from another country and culture - in order to not have him associated with my own (I feel the same about the Barbie Doll) I find your singling him out as 'American' in this mass media a bit of a national embarrassment. (so is Bella's Lullaby, but that.. that is another story.)

Copland generally wrote of music better than he composed. Ditto Virgil Thompson. But, Copland's Appalachian Spring (suite) in the original pit orchestration for thirteen instruments is somewhere between still remarkably fresh, marvelous and pleasant. The symphony #3 (this I recall from years ago) is sturdy. The songs with Emily Dickens' poetry are pretty strong. I can't abide the piano variations, and that is not based on a dislike of serialism. I wouldn't mind hearing some Virgil Thompson again, just to check it out again.

William Schuman, if not undervalued, is very underplayed. Some of the mid and later Symphonies, Songs and Carols of Death (acappella chorus) are all very worthwhile.

Amy Beach has this one famous string quartet that at least many college level music majors have heard. One movement is truly memorable to most musicians.

One Sam Barber piece has had terrible overexposure due to its inclusion in a movie score - adagio for strings - originally the middle movement of his String Quartet #1. I think his Piano Concerto quite underexposed, as well as Knoxville summer of 19__ (year), for soprano and chamber orchestra, text a prose extract of James Agee. The Capricorn concerto (solo woodwinds concertante) is neo classical and deserves more hearings. The ballet suite Medea is quite o.k, and a set of acapella choral works - one piece being O'Daley is Dead - are marvelous. There are a lot of deservedly well known art songs.

You omitted Roy Harris, who was a sort of one and a half hit wonder.

Also omitted: Leon Nancarrow / Henry Brant (Brandt) / Carl Ruggles - Men and Mountains; Lilacs / Henry Cowell - the piano works.

Is this because they are well known? Or are they Obscure.

To the obverse: how much exposure does Peter Warlock get these days? Is his music also more a fact than something to listen to?

Best, Petr B