Greatest American composer?
There's been a new-music-blog meme going around about the Greatest American Composer: is it Copland?
Well, it's not a lot of other names bandied about in this. Certainly not Ellington, or the original crossover artist George Gerschwein with his cheesy (if rather skillful) tunemongering. Ives? I want to believe. His was a great mind, and he was a great composer. But it's really hard to call somebody "the greatest" who had such a cavalier attitude about producing finished products. It's a lot easier to argue for a Greatest American 19th-century Composer, who in my opinion was Chadwick, based on the combination of craft and imagination (unless you're going to nominate Ives on the basis of the first 2 symphonies.) But then, when you look at exposure in the concert hall, "Greatest American 19th-century composer" is a bit like "Greatest Swiss naval hero"; there's just not a lot there to choose from. History has ratified its verdict already: the greatest 19th c. American was Sousa, hands down.
The problem with Copland is that he's known almost exclusively for the music of his Socialist Realist period (roughly, El Salon Mexico to The Tender Land). If he's America's Greatest Composer, how did he come to suck ca. 1952 or so? Now, I don't actually think that Copland's later music is bad. But who hears enough of it to decide? When's the last time you heard Inscape or Connotations? The only people besides Copland to have recordings of Inscape out there are Bernstein (who was family) and Leon Botstein (because, well, that's what Botstein does). Ed London used to play the heck out of the Nonet, and flute players do the Duo, of course. the music of the 20s doesn't get much play either, though that's understandable; nobody's juvenilia does (though works like the Organ Symphony are no more "juvenile" than the Shostakovich 1st). Copland's one original work for that most American medium, the concert band, never gets done. Emblems is pretty loosey-goosey structurally, but 2nd-rate Copland beats 1st rate James Swearingen any day.
"Well, Copland was a great composer and a very American composer, so why not the Greatest American? It's that iconic quality." Yeah, there is that. But we're not Eastern Orthodox; we don't need icons. We don't listen to German music for its iconic quality (Who is the iconic German composer? Wagner? Beethoven? When Beethoven's music has been used as an icon, it's generally been for The Other Side, as in London's "V-for-victory" of the 5th Symphony.) There are other iconic American works: the Barber Adagio, maybe the Harris 3rd...speaking of whom, he tried a lot harder than Copland did to be American, but for all his voice and intent, he was not the craftsman Copland was. And if by "iconic" you mean "suitable for use in beef commercials", well, what kind of test of quality is that? By that standard, somebody should put Karl Jenkins in for a Pulitzer.
Maybe the most convincing argument for Copland as GAC is the opposition to him. Copland came to the University of Michigan in 1975, at the beginning of his Alzheimer's, to conduct, and Leslie Bassett urged his students to go, with a half-hearted enthusiasm, basically saying "Well, he doesn't write the sort of American music we believe in, but he's a lonely old man, so go see him." Going over to the Dark (serial) Side really didn't help him with Academia. Then there's the parricide practiced by Nadine Hubbs, who basically argues that Copland stole the whole American shtik from Virgil Thomson, and that the shtik was fundamentally queer (as opposed to being fundamentally Marxist). Thomson, being first, and being queerer than Copland (as silly a concept as "straighter than") deserves to be the Father of American Music. My point is that it's all a game of King of the Castle, knocking the Big Guy off the pedestal, and it wouldn't be happening if Copland weren't ON the pedestal.
Personally, I have reservations about Copland's music. It doesn't have the emotional range I like, he couldn't write a good solid tutti, I can't think of a memorable Copland tune that he didn't steal. But there's so much good stuff happening there that yeah, we can cede the title. But, ya know, people don't argue about whether Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms was the Greatest German composer. They're ALL great, in different ways. Why can't we have more than one too?
Comments
Posted by: kishnevi
Posted on: December 7, 2006 11:44 PM
I never thought of him as being the Greatest American Composer. I always thought that was Barber or Ives. In my book, he's simply the most accessible--which is why the Social realist works are the ones that get the most play.
Besides, he's actually a Russian! (Not to mention one of my landmenschen.)
Posted by: Emilio Rodriguez
Posted on: June 25, 2008 03:32 PM
I'm afraid you gentlemen aren't even close and are quite deluded. Ellington is the greatest American composer and to think otherwise is just wishful racist thinking. Copland? Pathetic classical music. Doesn't even belong in the same thought, let alone the same breath, with the Europeans. Ives? Yeah, okay, when was the last time anyone even cared for any of his compositions? More wishful racist thinking.