Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ð1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

Outlines:
  - The Historical Background
  - Vernacular Styles
  - Foundations for an American Art Music
  - Music After 1945
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
The Historical Background
  1. Music in the North American Colonies

    1. Psalm singing is the earliest documented music-making.
      1. The Bay Psalm Book (1640) was the first book printed in North America.
      2. In the eighteenth century, singing schools trained amateurs to sing psalms and anthems in parts.
      3. William Billings (1746–1800) issued several collections of psalm and hymn settings, and anthems.
        1. Example: The Continental Harmony (1794)
        2. Most of his four-part settings were homophonic harmonizations on newly composed melodies, such as Chester.
        3. His later collections included fuguing tunes, which use imitation.

  2. Immigration and Its Influences

    1. Moravians
      1. German-speaking Protestants from Moravia and Bohemia who settled in Pennsylvania and North Carolina
      2. They sang concerted arias and motets in their church services.
      3. They imported chamber music from abroad.

    2. German immigration
      1. After the 1848 Revolution and crop failures in Germany, many Germans came to America, making German immigrants the dominant force in American music education.
      2. Hermann Kotzschmar settled in Maine and taught John Knowles Paine (1839–1906), who became the first music professor at Harvard.

  3. Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

    1. Lowell Mason (1792–1872)
      1. Born in Massachussetts; studied music with Frederick Abel, a German immigrant
      2. Became superintendent of music in the Boston public schools and president of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society; led the founding of the Boston Academy of Music in 1833
      3. Reformed New England hymnody and composed original tunes still used in American hymnals

    2. Religious music in the South
      1. Hymn singing continued to be popular in the South, for example, The Sacred Harp (1844).
      2. After the Civil War the Fisk Jubilee Singers popularized Negro spirituals by touring Europe and the United States singing in polished performances.

  4. Brass and Wind Bands

    1. Were the instrumental counterparts of singing schools

    2. The earliest were military bands, but soon they were in every town and school.

    3. The main genres were marches, quicksteps (fast marches), dances, arrangements of popular songs, and display pieces for soloists.

    4. John Philip Sousa (1854–1932) was the most famous of the bandmaster-composers.
      1. In 1880 he became leader of the U.S. Marine Band.
      2. In 1892 he organized his own band and went on world tours.
      3. He composed more than a hundred marches, including The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897).

    5. Edwin Franko Goldman (1878–1980) and his son, Richard Franko Goldman (1910–1980) promoted the idea of the summer town-band concert through nationally broadcast concerts from New York.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company | Credits