The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: NPR’s “Deceptive Cadence” blog about The Great American Symphony generates a lot of responses from readers and musicians. They say there are many candidates. But how many have you know of, or have actually heard? Why don’t we hear more American classical music performed? Is the “industry” too Euro-centric?

By Jacob Stockinger

A while ago, around American Independence Day on the Fourth of July, NPR’s outstanding classical music blog “Deceptive Cadence” asked if The Great American Symphony – like The Great American Novel – already exists, or has yet to be written.

It also asked both readers and professional performers to name some of the greatest American music, symphonies or other genres, that deserve a wider hearing and more performances.

The posting got well-deserved responses from readers and professional musicians. And the answers are still pouring in.

Here is what The Ear wants to know: Why don’t we hear more about these candidates for The Great American Symphony? In fact, we don’t we get to hear them in performance.

Is it because they are inferior? Or overlooked?

Or is classical music subject to a bias that favors Europe over American, the Old World over the New World?

We hear Samuel Barber’s Violin concerto often enough. So, why not his symphonies? (You can hear part of Barber’s Symphony No. 1, performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Leonard Slatkin in YouTube video at the bottom.)  And the same applies to many other composers.

Here is a link to my original post, with stories featuring links to NPR blogger Tom Huizenga and to “All Things Considered” host Robert Siegel’s interview with American conductor JoAnn Falletta (below) about this:

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/classical-music-does-the-great-american-symphony-exist-or-even-its-equivalent-in-a-different-form-or-genre-american-conductor-joann-falletta-takes-up-the-challenging-question-on-n/

Here are some other important links to follow-up, with audio samples, to other candidates for The Great American Symphony. Be sure to read the enlightening reader COMMENTS in all of them:

Here is one that includes offerings by that American-born and American-trained champion of American music conductor Marin Alsop (below):

And the masterful cultural historian Joseph Horowitz  (below), who spoke so engagingly in Madison two seasons ago during the centennial of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet offered these thoughts:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/07/11/201231850/tracing-the-spirit-of-the-early-american-symphony

And here are three of the more recent ones:

Here is one that features the opinions of Robert Spano (below), the conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the music director of the Aspen Music Festival:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/07/26/205806474/americas-unsung-symphonies

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/07/22/204586780/3-NEW-AMERICAN-SYMPHONIC-ALBUMS

http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/07/29/206704925/using-an-american-medium-to-tell-distinctly-american-stories

Do you have candidates for The Great American Symphony that the others haven’t mentioned? What is it?

And is classical music in the U.S. the victim of a Euro-centric bias?

The Ear wants to hear.