The
last few weeks we have been looking at how folk music has found its way into
the classical genre. This week, let’s look at two American composers who found
great success in using this approach.
Charles
Ives (1874–1954) was first exposed to music by his father, George E. Ives,
whose performance, teaching, direction of various musical ensembles, and
involvement with traveling shows left a lasting impression on the burgeoning
composer. From a young age, Ives was
surrounded by European classical music, Protestant church music, and American
vernacular music, saturating his musical world with a cultural vocabulary to
incorporate in his later American works.
How
does European classical music, Protestant church music, and American vernacular
music find their way into Ives’ compositions? Ives is known for his musical
borrowing and quotation. In his compositions, he often borrowed from the
European classical music with which he was quite familiar with while also
quoting from American vernacular songs and hymns. This approach essentially
synthesized a unique type of American classical music. One example of this is
his General William Booth Enters into
Heaven, a setting of a poem by Vachel Lindsay that depicts the founder of
the Salvation Army leading the impoverished into heaven.
General William Booth Enters into
Heaven is
written in the style of an art song however Ives pulls from American vernacular
and church music in his musical quotations. The vocal line is drawn from the
hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”. Ives also uses various other
tunes including the minstrel tune “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” in the piano line. Listen here:
Next
time we’ll look at the music of American composer Virgil Thomson!
