{"id":866,"date":"2017-10-23T00:12:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T04:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=866"},"modified":"2017-10-23T00:12:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T04:12:48","slug":"the-most-under-rated-20th-century-american-composer-take-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2017\/10\/the-most-under-rated-20th-century-american-composer-take-two.html","title":{"rendered":"The Most Under-Rated 20th Century American Composer — Take Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Back in the thirties and forties, there were no American music historians to tell the story of American classical music. So the task fell to a couple of composers: Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson. According to the official Copland\/Thomson narrative, noting much of consequence was composed by Americans before World War I. Their focus was on themselves and kindred composers, many of them tutored \u2013 like Copland and Thomson \u2013 by Nadia Boulanger in France.<\/p>\n

This Oedipal view, appointing modernists the inventors of a distinctly American classical music, remains potent today. How I wish it could be retired. Copland and Thomson viewed the two most consequential concert composers ever produced in the US \u2013 Charles Ives and George Gershwin \u2013 as dilettantes. They were ignorant of the American Dvorak<\/a>. And even though they both composed for the cinema, they paid no attention to Bernard Herrmann, whom I have previously anointed<\/a> in this space \u201cthe most under-rated 20th<\/sup> century American composer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is about time that the magnitude of Herrmann\u2019s contribution be acknowledged. Working with Orson Welles, Norman Corwin, and Alfred Hitchcock, he was a peerless composer for radio and film. As a radio conductor on CBS, he was a vital advocate of new and unfamiliar works and composers \u2013 the antipode to NBC\u2019s Arturo Toscanini. And, notwithstanding advocacy in New York by John Barbirolli and Leopold Stokowski, his measure as a concert composer remains a well-kept secret.<\/p>\n

Two years ago PostClassical Ensemble produced the first festival exploring Herrmann \u201cin the round.\u201d We\u2019ve now turned it into a two-hour \u201cPostClassical\u201d WWFM radio feature, archived here <\/a>at http:\/\/wwfm.org\/post\/postclassical-celebrates-music-bernard-herrmann<\/p>\n

Composing for radio dramas (a forgotten genre of high consequence), Herrmann mastered \u201cmelodrama\u201d — the art of composing for music and the spoken voice. Our radio show samples \u201cWhitman\u201d (1944), a Corwin\/Herrmann radio drama so potent it deserves to be revived by orchestras and actors. It originated as a patriotic wartime vehicle for Charles Laughton. Thanks to a reconstruction by Christopher Husted, PostClassical Ensemble gave the concert premiere as part of our 2015 festival.<\/p>\n

Of Herrmann the film composer, PCE presented the DC premiere of his Psycho<\/em> \u201csymphonic narrative\u201d \u2013 an integrated concert work lovingly reconstructed by John Mauceri, and far preferable to the Psycho<\/em> Suite orchestras still perform by mistake.<\/p>\n

Of Herrmann the concert composer, PCE presented the American premiere of the original version of the non-tonal 1936 Sinfonietta for Strings that Herrmann cannibalized for Psycho.<\/em><\/p>\n

And we performed Herrmann\u2019s chamber music masterpiece: the intoxicating 1967 clarinet quintet Souvenirs de voyage<\/em> \u2013 on our radio show, preceded by pertinent excerpts from his two most intoxicatingly Romantic film scores: Vertigo<\/em> and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, our \u201cPostClassical\u201d show closes with the sailor\u2019s chorus from Herrmann\u2019s Moby Dick<\/em> \u2013 a spellbinding excerpt that also allows us to sample Herrmann the conductor. Why this 1938 cantata is not performed is an unanswerable question. It would be a stirring vehicle for any Wagnerian bass-baritone interested in adding the towering role of Ahab to Wotan and Amfortas. It would be easy to market. It would ignite a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

As ever, our broadcast features unrehearsed needling and jostling between Bill McGlaughlin, Angel Gil-Ordonez, and myself. We listen to the music in real time. We respond spontaneously. It is a fresh adventure every time.<\/p>\n

I append a summary with time-code<\/p>\n

PART ONE:<\/p>\n

5:08: Bernard Herrmann speaks — irascibly<\/p>\n

6:33: His daughter Dorothy describes accompanying\u00a0\u201cDaddy\u201d to\u00a0Psycho<\/em><\/p>\n

12:02: Herrmann\u2019s\u00a0Psycho<\/em>\u00a0Symphonic Narrative performed by PCE conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez (DC premiere)<\/p>\n

28:30: An influence on\u00a0Psycho<\/em>? Bartok\u2019s Divertimento, movement 2<\/p>\n

41:10: Herrmann\u2019s Sinfonietta for Strings performed by PCE conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez (American premiere of the original version)<\/p>\n

PART TWO:<\/p>\n

4:14: Herrmann and radio: the Norman Corwin radio drama\u00a0\u201cWhitman” (1944) \u2013 an excerpt from the original broadcast, with Charles Laughton<\/p>\n

14:09: Herrmann and Hollywood: the Love Scene from\u00a0Vertigo<\/em><\/p>\n

21:11: The \u201cLiebestod\u201d from\u00a0The Ghost and Mrs. Muir<\/em><\/p>\n

26:10: Herrmann\u2019s Clarinet Quintet (Souvenirs de voyage<\/em>) performed by PCE members<\/p>\n

54:33: The Sailors\u2019 Chorus from Herrmann\u2019s cantata\u00a0Moby Dick<\/em>, conducted by the composer<\/p>\n

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Back in the thirties and forties, there were no American music historians to tell the story of American classical music. So the task fell to a couple of composers: Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson. According to the official Copland\/Thomson narrative, noting much of consequence was composed by Americans before World War I. Their focus was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-dY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}