The Expanding Horizon: American Music at 250

An Introduction by David Robertson

In the early 1980s, I began to lecture in Europe on the music of my native America for the State Department. The topics were all over the map, often requested by the local presenters. There was everything from Minimal Music to Tin Pan Alley, the Jazz Influence on Serious Music, or Popular Music between the Wars. I got to see firsthand how American music could surprise, delight, confound, and inspire. Sometimes the questions were surprising, as when a young lady in what is now Podgorica inquired, slightly irked: “Why Rhapsody in Blue? Why not Rhapsody in Red?” A quick explanation of the history and uses of the blues scale and how it can inflect music was called for. Occasionally one came upon prejudices that were held due to prevailing beliefs of what America was. One thing was clear: The freedom found in American music helped break down restrictive boundaries. In one Iron Curtain country, the jazz section of the composers’ union was able to engage with a huge variety of artistic projects simply because the authorities were unable to strictly pin down the word “jazz.”

“The freedom found in American music helped break down restrictive boundaries.”

Nowadays, as a conductor I often present works to orchestras and audiences where American music is not native. This sometimes seems a strange juxtaposition: John Adams in Beijing and Helsinki, Samuel Barber in London and Lyon, Leonard Bernstein in Aalborg and Warsaw, John Cage in Torino and Paris, Elliott Carter in Amsterdam and Munich, Aaron Copland in Kilkenny and Jerusalem, Natalie Dietterich in Luxemburg, Morton Feldman in Edinburgh and Cologne, George Gershwin in Genoa and Montpellier, Charles Ives in Tongyeong and Budapest, Steven Mackey in Vienna and Sydney, Steve Reich in Metz and Munich, Christopher Rouse in Sydney, Frederic Rzewski and Ruth Crawford Seeger in Paris. What do all these composers have in common? Why look to American music?

The story of music in the United States began well before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Our great melting pot of peoples and cultures has known contributions from those who were native to the land, those who came of their free will, and those who were brought by coercion. They all have had a hand in creating this enormous E pluribus unum called American music.

“On the long road to a more perfect union, we are heartened to hear ‘there’s a place for us.’”

The staggering variety of sounds defies adequate description. It starts with song: voices from the heart, trained and untrained, all influencing a breaking down of barriers between work-song and worship, entertainment and artistic aspiration. The open frontier leads to the idea that anything is possible in such a vast land. This independent spirit was beautifully expressed in 1770 by the New Englander William Billings, a tanner by day and songsmith by night: “I don’t think myself confin’d to any Rules for Composition laid down by any that went before me.” It is not hard to see a family resemblance to Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow, Alvin Lucier, La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, and Tod Machover.

America itself is a concept, a continual becoming, experimenting, innovating. This idea of building a better, more perfect union extends to music. Two co-signers of that 1776 declaration, Benjamin Franklin and Francis Hopkinson, worked respectively on building the glass harmonica and improving harpsichord quills by making them out of leather. Inventing, seeing new possibilities, realizing dreams leads one right to Henry Steinway’s pianos, Laurens Hammond’s organs, Leo Fender’s guitars, Robert Moog’s modular synthesizer, or John Chowning’s FM synthesis.

Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn had it right when they said: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!” The physical nature of movement, rhythm’s reign, the dancing body, the tightrope walk of larynx and lips, has meant that the vernacular with all its variations is right at the center of our musical syntax. These cadences make possible Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, Leonard Bernstein, Meredith Monk, John Adams, Robert Ashley, and Steven Mackey, among many others.

The grand story of America is that it is being created constantly, connected to its past, but forging forward into a future unknown. Performing, exploring the American musical landscape can lead to unexpected inspiration, questioning contemplation, and the awareness that self-evident truths are anything but that.

David Robertson—conductor, artist, composer, thinker, American musical visionary—has served in numerous artistic leadership positions, such as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a transformative 13-year tenure as Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble InterContemporain. He appears with the world’s great orchestras and opera houses on five continents, including The Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, and with many ensembles and festivals.