Composer Profile - Activefolio

128 Chapter 10
American works by orchestras and bands outside the United States. Other famous marches
include The Washington Post, Semper Fidelis, and Liberty Bell.
Other influential American composers included Charles Ives (1874–1954) and
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990). Ives, an insurance salesman by trade, was the son of a
band leader and this fact influenced some of his later music. He became a pioneer in
bitonality and polytonality which involves music containing two or more simultaneous
tonal centers. Many of his works draw heavily from church hymns and American themes.
He composed two orchestral sets, the first subtitled “Three Places in New England.”
He also composed five symphonies, winning the Pulitzer Prize for the third in 1947.
Two notable works for chamber orchestra include Central Park in the Dark (1906) and
The Unanswered Question (1908). He composed many other small works including the
sensational Variations on America for organ (1892).
Leonard Bernstein was equally popular as a conductor, composer and educator.
His greatest commercial successes came from his Broadway musicals which included On
the Town (1944), Candide (1956), and his masterpiece West Side Story (1957). He also
composed several large works such as Chichester Psalms (1965), and the beautiful film
score for the movie On the Waterfront (1954). In spite of his great contributions as a
composer, his real fame during his lifetime came from his decades as music director of
the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, produced while he
was with the New York Philharmonic, have served as a model for symphony orchestras
the world over.
William Grant Still (1895–1978) is yet another American composer who had an
influence on the music of the twentieth century. He was an African-American composer
from Mississippi who studied with Edgard Varèse. Most of his works include an African-
American influence, especially his Afro-American Symphony (1931), which includes notes
of the blues scale and a 12-bar blues structure in the first movement. He also composed
other symphonic works including Darker America (1924) and From the Black Belt (1926).
Finland
Listen to This
Track #17 Copland, “Hoedown” from Rodeo
This dance was part of a ballet composed in 1942. Copland had discovered
the secret of making music sound American without ever having to borrow
American folksongs. The Hoedown brings to mind a country celebration at the
end of the rodeo. Sound effects are incorporated into the score, including fireworks
and the sounds of horse hooves. This movement has been used extensively
as background music for television shows and commercials because of
the power of its imagery. Copland imitates the sound of country fiddling in the
violin section and uses syncopated rhythms that resemble cakewalks of the late
nineteenth century.
In Finland, the composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) composed many well known symphonies
and concertos, but had a particular fondness for Finnish folklore and mythology.
Three of his most famous works celebrating Finnish culture are Four Legends from
the Kalevala (1895), Swan of Tuonela (1893) and Finlandia (1899).