William Schuman's New England Triptych

Over the past month, Clef Notes has been looking at American music and composers. To kick off our final week, let’s talk about William Schuman (1910–1992) – not to be confused with Robert Schumann!

William Schuman was first introduced to music at a young age, however he was only acquainted with jazz and popular music. It wasn’t until he heard Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic that he realized his true passion was classical music and began to devote his time to composition. He studied at both Juilliard and Columbia, one of his teachers being the prominent American composer Roy Harris.

One of my favorite Schuman works happens to take inspiration from the 18^th-century American composer William Billings. The piece is called New England Triptych (1956) and certainly has an American flavor. 

Schuman is known for being the first to win a Pulitzer Prize in music in 1943 for his A Free Song. Besides composing, he also had many additional career accomplishments including serving as the director of publications at G. Schirmer, Inc., serving as the president of Juilliard where he created the famous Juilliard Quartet, and serving as the president of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He even received the National Medal of the Arts in 1987!

Next time, we’ll talk about a composer you’ve heard if you’re a fan of Spider Man! Check back!

The Music of Elmer Bernstein

Last time we looked at famous American composer, conductor, and educator Leonard Bernstein. Many believe he was related to composer Elmer Bernstein (1922–2004) but in fact, the two were good friends, but no relation. 

Elmer Bernstein was a child prodigy, first coming to music through the piano. He studied at Juilliard where he pursued both piano and composition studies. Though he hoped to develop a career as a concert pianist, his dreams were interrupted with the onset of WWII. During the war, he was able to keep himself in the music world by assisting in the arrangement of American songs for Glenn Miller and the Air Force Band. He also did work for the Armed Forces Radio programs, which developed his passion for composition.

Following the war, Bernstein received an invitation to go to Hollywood and write for film. Some of the films you may know him for are The Ten Commandments (1956), The Magnificent Seven (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and The Great Escape (1963). He even won an Oscar for his work as music director for Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967).

What’s your favorite Elmer Bernstein score?

Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) is perhaps one of the most beloved American composers, conductors, and educators of the twentieth century. He studied with Walter Piston as Harvard University. He is remembered most for his time as music director of the New York Philharmonic, for his televised Young People’s Concerts, and of course, for his musical theatre work, West Side Story. Let’s spend the rest of today looking at this famous and much-loved modern telling of Romeo and Juliet.

During the mid-20^th century, New York City existed in a state of unrest as Puerto Ricans migrated to the U.S. Juvenile delinquency became a popular topic in the press as street gangs formed and rivalries developed between Caucasians and Puerto Ricans. Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and the team that worked behind the making of West Side Story decided to use this contemporary and real problem in society as the basis for their new musical, a show based in the Upper West Side of New York City and involving two gangs, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Caucasian Jets.

When writing the music for West Side Story, Bernstein traveled to Puerto Rico for inspiration. The musical indeed draws on Hispanic elements in both music and dance. In her book West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Elizabeth A. Wells states “the adoption of a specific ethnic style in a serious and self-consciously ‘American’ work has ultimately, and perhaps unexpectedly, earned for the Hispanic style a level of recognition in American culture it had never before achieved.”

Two popular Latin American dance forms are found in the gymnasium dance scene: the mambo and the cha-cha. During the mambo, Bernstein chose to use bongos, cowbells, and trumpets in order to resemble a Latin jazz band. The performers yell “Mambo!” from the sidelines of the dance floor, directly referencing the flamenco tradition in which dancers are urged on by onlookers. The choreography during this scene is also based on conventions of Latin social dancing.

You can watch the “Mambo” clip from the 1961 film adaptation of West Side Story here.