From: bobs@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Bob Sutton)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Cardew and "people's music"
Date: 29 Aug 92 10:36:54 GMT
Organization: *laugh*

In article <1992Aug28.150812.24215@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>diarmuid@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Diarmuid Pigott) wrote:
>> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>>: It would be interesting to compare the programming of Soviet orchestras
>>: under Stalin with those of typical American orchestras under their
>>: corporate-influenced dictatorships.  Were they very different?
>> Yes it would - how much Krennikov or Tschedrin was plyed in the US.
>
>Well, the US has got Howard Hanson, Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, William
>Schuman, Vittorio Giannini, and a whole bunch of similar hacks who sound
>pretty near indistinguishable from Khrennikov and Schchedrin and who are
>played by the major orchestras solely because of their similar
>acceptability to a bureaucratic establishment.   ....

Blasphemy!!!!!!!  How can you possibly compare the above American composers 
to a garbage collector like Krennikov?  The one of the above who come
closest to the Stalinist ideal of a composer is Howard Hanson.  His "Song
of Democracy", two Walt Whitman poems put to music singing the praises of
American democracy, closely resembles the politically correct Shostakovich
2nd Symphony, which is a hymn to the dead Lenin by a now-obscure early Soviet 
poet.  But Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, and William Schuman surely
are important composers in the history of American music and western-style
music as a whole.  Especially Barber!!!  (I'm afraid I don't know the 
work of Giannini.)

I don't see how you can lump all of these into one bucket and say they
are indistinguishable.  Each have a distinguishable style, some more than
others.  It's true that all are symphonists; you can put them in that bucket.
You can't fault them for writing some patriotic stuff; many composers write
patriotic music.  But if you're looking for someone who is clearly ident-
ified as "American", try Aaron Copland.  His 3rd Symphony is a landmark
in American music and it has been identified as the most American of all
symphonies written by Americans.  Don't forget "Rodeo", "Billy the Kid",
"Applachian Spring", "Old American Songs", and "A Lincoln Portrait."  

And you missed a few Americans -- like Eliot Carter, Carl Ruggles, Leonard
Berstein, Alan Hovanness, Bernard Herrmann, John Adams, Joseph Schwantner,
Phillip Glass, John Harbison..  I'm sure I missed a bunch.

You seem to assume that orchestras are dictatorial because they are 
partially funded by large corporations.  It appears more likely that
they are dictatorial because they have a music directors like Fritz 
Reiner or George Szell, both tyrrants of the baton, or because they
are operated by a CEO-like person who is a dictator, as in the case 
of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the orchestra I go to see.  If an
orchestra is going to commission a piece they would have better luck
in controlling the style or the content by comissioning a dull composer.
Witold Lutoslawski's "Third Symphony" or John Adam's "El Dorado", both
very dark and disturbing works, are the result of commissions of American
orchestras.

I think the jist of this long-winded blast is the following:  Sir, I
disagree with you; I don't think you know what you're talking about.

-- 
Bob Sutton                        Love, most bitterly and fiercely oppresses
bobs@gnu.ai.mit.edu		  those who fight it than those who offer
al876@cleveland.freenet.edu       their servitude.    -- Ovid (Amores)