The American Symphony Orchestra is honored and pleased once again to be part of the open-air concert programs in Bryant Park, right next to the glorious New York Public Library.

Today’s concert addresses a habit to which we have become accustomed: assigning unique national characteristics to facets of our culture. It seems entirely understandable that people want to know what makes some music “American.” The assertion of unique national characteristics to any music may be unpersuasive, misleading, unnecessary and even undesirable, but the habit is hard to break. So it is appropriate to ask: is there a distinctly American musical tradition in any of the many forms music takes, from the vernacular or so-called folk music that has existed over generations through oral transmission without being notated or written down, to music that participates in the largely European tradition of written musical notation—and its most amazing consequence, the blossoming of instrumental and vocal musician—that has generated and sustained the variety of forms and sounds we have come to term loosely as “classical” music?

Is there a truly American tradition of classical music and if so, what makes that music uniquely American? There are many possible answers. The European migration to North America brought with it European traditions of music-making, just as the European conquest in Mexico and South America brought with them traditions of sacred and secular music from Spain. In New England, the initial musical heritage came through England, but for most of the 19th century the prevailing body of immigrants came from German-speaking Europe and they brought German cultural traditions with them. Americans were also influenced by African musical traditions that came with slavery and developed in novel ways among the descendants of enslaved people. And then there were the musical traditions of the indigenous populations that lived on the continent before the arrival of Europeans. Additionally, various kinds of music evolved in the encounter between African and the Caribbean practices that found their way to the United States. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that by the mid-19th century, a vibrant community of composers born and raised on the American side of the Atlantic came into being. These mid-19th century American composers sought to create a unique synthesis between European traditions and local American musical materials. One thinks of George Bristow (1825-1898) and William Henry Fry (1813-1864). They were succeeded by a later 19th-century generation of composers who studied abroad, primarily in German-speaking Europe. Among the most famous of these were John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), Horatio Parker (1863-1919) and George Chadwick (1854-1931). Until the outbreak of the first World War in Europe in 1914, one can reasonably say that American “classical” music was heavily influenced by the musical practices of German-speaking Europe. 

The waves of immigration from eastern Europe would challenge this Germano-centric aesthetic, though the Russian, Polish, and Czech traditions of classical music were themselves profoundly influenced by the dominance of the German. This is apparent in the founding of the first grand musical institutions in this country. When Carnegie Hall was opened in 1891 there was a debate about which world-famous composer should be invited to open New York’s magnificent new concert hall. The choice fell on Tchaikovsky, a Russian and arguably the “official” composer of Tsar Alexander III. But a French composer, himself allied with German traditions, Camille Saint-Saëns, was also considered. And we should not forget that the first attempt at a national conservatory of music in America based in New York was undertaken with the condition that the leading Czech composer of the time, Antonín Dvořák, would become its director. When he arrived in the 1890s, he made the startling and influential prediction that what would distinguish American music from European music in the “classical” tradition would be the strength it drew from uniquely American sources, the music of the continent’s indigenous population and the black descendants of enslaved people.

After World War I American composers turned away from Germany and chose to continue their studies in France, absorbing the flourishing French and Franco-Russian musical styles that dominated during the 1920s. Aaron Copland went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger but his initial training was under Rubin Goldmark (nephew of the Viennese composer Karl Goldmark) whose ambition was to create “American” music rooted in central European traditions, just as George Bristow had done several generations before. The influence of the German musical heritage never totally vanished. Two of the composers on today’s program, Norman Dello Joio and Ulysses Kay, studied with the prominent 20th-century protagonist of the German tradition, Paul Hindemith, who emigrated from Nazi Germany and taught at Tanglewood and Yale. 

What can be said to define, for composers and listeners, the distinctly American aspect of classical music written by Americans should not be limited to the varied regional, local and national musical practices that found their way into musical compositions. Beyond the use of folk tunes and melodies one has to consider that what has made music sound American is also the response in sound to the landscape of a country with a spatial and temporal expanse distinct from Europe, the sheer size of our cities and plains, mountains, rivers and lakes, and ultimately, the two great oceans on either side of the continent. Beyond the landscape, the distinct aspects of American language, its dialects and regional variations, many profoundly influenced by the languages that came with immigration also played their part. One must add as well the spiritual and ideological conceits that developed during the 19th century particularly after the Civil War, about what made America different. Most important among these conceits is perhaps the ideal of democracy, the diversity of its people and a concept of citizenship defined by law that is not tied to a specific ethnicity or place of birth. These factors have contributed to the perception of a distinctly American sensibility in music written by Americans in the so-called classical tradition. 

All the works on today’s program mirror these elements. Julia Perry studied with the Italian Luigi Dallapiccola and the great French pedagogue, Nadia Boulanger. Her music is a synthesis of her distinct heritage as a black woman in America and her encounter with European models. Ulysses Kay studied with Hindemith as did Norman Dello Joio.  Crucial to Dello Loio’s aesthetic was his heritage as a descendent of Italian musicians who had come to the United States.  His father served as the director of music of St. Patrick’s Cathedral here in New York City for 15 years. Henry Cowell trained at home in America but had a decisive encounter with European audiences as a young radical modernist and experimentalist. Among all the composers on today’s program, Cowell was the most daring, iconoclastic, eclectic and, as Byron Adams, in his superb notes to this concert points out, profoundly steeped in uniquely American musical sources (as well as many from around the world)—including what we usually term folk music.

The music on today’s program also reflects the influence of the national landscape. Norman Dello Joio’s work was inspired by distinct places in New York City, from the Cloisters to Little Italy. And the most famous piece on today’s program, Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite, is a direct response to a rural and regional landscape and includes dance rhythms and folk tunes including the famous “Simple Gifts.” Henry Cowell’s work goes further back to the legacy of the music that derived from England in the 18th century and was transplanted by the English settlement in New England in a special way that did not exist in England but became part of the American Protestant religious experience.  Ulysses Kay’s work is drawn from music written for a film about the challenges facing a young black man struggling against poverty and discrimination in the environment of Harlem. 

Whether the inspiration of the composers on today’s program led to compositions that seem abstract and without a narrative such as Julia Perry’s, or are compositions constructed along a story line or in response to the visual dimensions of the environment, all the music from today’s program speaks to that elusive spiritual aspect of what might make a piece of music sound distinctly American. The key spiritual commitment and conviction evident in all of these works and indeed the vocation of all of these composers is a commitment to democracy, freedom, and equality, and to an America that is not defined by one group, one religion, one cultural tradition, or one ideology. 

In this sense, as Byron Adams notes, Henry Cowell was perhaps most determinedly committed to the freedom of the individual in the sense of Emerson’s notion of self-reliance. Aaron Copland was profoundly an advocate of the link between democracy and social justice that was forged by Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The celebration of pluralism was key to Norman Dello Joio’s career as a composer. And Julia Perry and Ulysses Kay were resolute in their pride in the contributions to what defines American music made by the victims of involuntary immigration in slavery and by their descendants. 

Today’s program reminds us that music can play a unique function in promoting a politics of freedom, democracy, and empathy without demonizing groups, diversity or the continuous stream of immigration that has made America distinctive and great. A great Czech scholar of music, who died recently in his nineties, Jaroslav Mihule, arranged for the following inscription to be carved into his tombstone: “For every community music is a vital necessity and at the same time an island of freedom.” The composers and their music on today’s program make that point with an uncommon and perhaps uniquely American eloquence.