It's understandable that American music has lagged somewhat behind Europe.
After all, the U.S. is a very young nation and culture usually needs centuries to develop.
But America has played a very successful game of catch-up over the
past 150 years, with music that developed during a modern era of world wars,
the rise of mass communications, cinema and big business.
And classical composers were just as likely
to be writing for jazz bands, movies and musicals,
as they were for the Symphony Orchestra.
And of course most of them did.
But the seed the heart of American music was, in fact, European.
In the 1920s, for example, just 20 members of
the New York Philharmonic were actually American born.
And lets not forget that the first American masterpiece,
the New World Symphony, was written by
that Czech composer, Antonín Dvořák.
Major composing names to emerge from the U.S.
at the start of the 20th century included Edward McDowell
and Louis Gottschalk, both of whom had actually studied in Europe.
But gradually out of the shadows rose some startingly original voices.
Including, the first great homespun talent, Charles Ives,
whose own brand of crazy modernism,
blending Baptist Church hymns with marching band music.
It far outstripped anything that had been written
in Europe at the end of the 19th century.
And as jazz developed out of the spiritual tradition,
composers such as Aaron Copland,
use their modal harmonies and unusual rhythms
to create something of a national voice.
And lets not forget the likes of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky,
who's move to the U.S. in 1939 was a huge influence
on the new wave of American composers.
And as jazz, Broadway musicals
by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein
and musical sweatshops of Tin Pan Alley took hold,
a young man called George Gershwin,
muddied the waters still more composing Porgy and Bess,
a work that still divides over whether as a musical or a genuine opera.
That mix of commercial and serious art continued with
Leonard Bernstein, Frank Zappa, and more recently Wynton Marsalis,
all of whose music refuses to be categorised.
On the other side of the musical coin,
post-war America was pioneering
a new type of experimental music,
thanks to John Cage, a man whose ideas of music
challenged our very notion of what music is.
From his prepared pianos, to 4′33″,
an ode to ambient noises, and now an iconic work of art,
equally revered and mocked.
And minimalist composers, such as Steve Reich
and Philip Glass were looking to Africa and Asia
for their own brand of hypnotic sounds.
Techniques that then made their way
back across the Atlantic to Europe.
The cultural direction of travel was starting to reverse.
American music had established itself.
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