It is always terrific to encounter concert music programming featuring American composers. To paraphrase Charles Ives quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, we have listened too often to the far courts of Europe. It was a fact back in the 1800s; it's a fact that remains true today.
Sadly, in his overview of "one-hit American composers", the producer of Compact Discoveries overlooks such distinctive American voices as Ferde Groffe and William Grant Still, choosing instead to promote those composers who showed themselves to have, perhaps, devoted a little bit too much to Europe in their figurative rearview mirrors.
American concert music has always been fraught subject matter for any number of reasons -- anybody remember who was branded the American "Beethoven"?
In the end, though, there is, in effect, so much missing here we can finger only nothing.
Comments for Compact Discoveries 33: One-Hit American Composers
This piece belongs to the series "Compact Discoveries"
Produced by Fred Flaxman
Other pieces by Fred Flaxman
Rating Summary
1 comment
Jackson Braider
Posted on March 05, 2008 at 05:41 PM | Permalink
Review of Compact Discoveries 33: One-Hit American Composers
It is always terrific to encounter concert music programming featuring American composers. To paraphrase Charles Ives quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, we have listened too often to the far courts of Europe. It was a fact back in the 1800s; it's a fact that remains true today.
Sadly, in his overview of "one-hit American composers", the producer of Compact Discoveries overlooks such distinctive American voices as Ferde Groffe and William Grant Still, choosing instead to promote those composers who showed themselves to have, perhaps, devoted a little bit too much to Europe in their figurative rearview mirrors.
American concert music has always been fraught subject matter for any number of reasons -- anybody remember who was branded the American "Beethoven"?
In the end, though, there is, in effect, so much missing here we can finger only nothing.