Generally speaking, music criticism in the United States remained amateurish for a long time; but if such a state of affairs adequately served conditions in the years before World War I, it was insufficient in the twenties, when young composers were beginning to take both themselves and their musical aims seriously. The influence of the critics was as powerful in those days as it remains to this day, up to a certain point; but the criteria which criticism furnished had little or nothing to give young composers. There was little understanding for either the needs or the demands of these young creators or for that which they wished to accomplish.
We think of a well-known and extremely important personality of that period: Paul Rosenfeld. He was very friendly to young creative musicians, and a sympathetic promoter of everything they wished to accomplish. He was a passionate amateur, especially of music that was new, and above all of the music of the young Americans he knew. In this respect he stood virtually alone; he dared to write with great passion and enthusiasm of everything in the “new” music that interested him—of Schönberg, Stravinsky, Bártòk, Scriabine, and Sibelius—and he conducted a bold propaganda for new music in a period when the attitude of other critics, and certainly of the public, was at best cautious and hesitant. He was also a personal friend of Ernest Bloch, from the moment the composer, a completely unknown figure in the United States, arrived here in 1916; Rosenfeld worked tirelessly for the recognition of Bloch’s music and personality. It is impossible to overestimate Rosenfeld’s contributions as a writer and as an enthusiastic propagandist for the contemporary music of his period, and for the development of music in this country. It is not surprising that this contribution is still remembered.
True, Rosenfeld had little understanding for the real and characteristic tendencies of the period between the two wars, and his ideas remained au fond those of postromanticism, with a strong admixture of American nationalism. There is no doubt, however, that he played a significant role in the formation of the musical generation of the twenties. The present author belongs to that generation; Rosenfeld was not in complete sympathy with him, but Rosenfeld’s interest and his willingness to discuss issues were of the greatest possible value to all who came in contact with him. One found in him, as in few others of that time, a genuine awareness of the issues, and a desire to understand the motivating forces behind them.
The foregoing notwithstanding, Rosenfeld was in no sense of the word a music critic. It may seem paradoxical to say that he possessed neither authentic musical knowledge nor, very probably, strong musical instinct. Not only did he shy away from acquiring technical knowledge which he considered an obstacle to feeling and intuition; he even refused to speak of music in concrete terms. If he made casual reference to facts, as occasionally happened, he often was in error; in speaking of the instrumentation of the Sinfonia Domestica of Strauss, for example, he referred to the use of the viola d’amore instead of the oboe—likewise d’amore, but hardly to be confused with the viola! His relation to music remained that of a litterateur to whom music furnished a stimulus for ideas, sentiments, and attitudes, and, in consequence, for words.
In spite of his association with mature musicians such as Bloch, Rosenfeld never learned to regard music as something other than a means of evocation, an art completely self-sufficient as a mode of expression, completely developed, an art which demands of its devotees all their resources of craft and personality. He was therefore not in a position to help young composers as a connoisseur, to give them a sense of the demands of their craft or of the essence of musical expression. He did succeed, to be sure, in giving them something much needed at that time: a lively sense of belonging to the whole cultural movement of the period. Other critics gave them not even that feeling. Confined to the limits of their profession and the premises discussed, they reported, more or less competently, events and the faits divers of the daily music life. They concerned themselves little, and only incidentally, with contemporary music. The composers were growing and developing independently; and when, as toward the end of the decade, they found performers like Koussevitzky who took an interest in their music, the critics were neither conspicuously hostile nor conspicuously friendly, but remained indifferent to the prospects of a development of music in the United States. They were also reluctant seriously to consider either the issues involved or the influences which would have favored such a development. The critics contented themselves by “going along,” at least tentatively, with Koussevitzky and others of established reputation showing interest in this music.
We state these facts without malicious intent. We can understand why in such a situation the critics, confronted with something new, failed. The appearance on the music scene of an entire group of young American composers who, so to speak, thought for themselves and were searching for their individual attitudes and modes of musical speech, forced the critics of the time to face a series of unaccustomed challenges. It demanded, for the first time in the United States, that they come to terms, repeatedly, with music of serious intent, music which had arrived fresh and free of previous critical judgments. At the same time, the development of a number of these native composers may well have been a threat to the status quo and vested interests, which included the supremacy of the critic in all that concerned the formation of public taste. There is no evidence, as far as we know, that any critic actually thought in such terms, and it is not a question of accusation. Such considerations seem natural at least as subconscious forces and would adequately explain the reserve which the music journalists of twenty-five years ago displayed, not toward this or that young composer, but toward American composers as such; their reluctance to admit American music to the category of things to be discussed seriously, either for its own sake or for its significance in relation to the music culture of the country as a whole, was apparent. Certainly they were aware of the names of some of these creators and had thought about them, possibly in a stereotyped concept of their musical physiognomies, and certainly they did not ignore them when their music appeared on important programs, yet clearly they made no effort to study such music closely, to seek out and discover young or unknown personalities, or to interest themselves in events which took place off the beaten path. In short, what they lacked was genuine sympathy for what was happening.
Such sympathy, actually, was reserved for another generation of critics, which arose toward the end of the thirties. No doubt, the most influential of recent years have been Virgil Thomson, who retired two years ago from the New York Herald-Tribune, and Alfred Frankenstein, still of the San Francisco Chronicle. Both served modest apprenticeships before arriving at positions of power. Above all, both are notable for their close relationship to contemporary, and especially American music, as well as for their experience and knowledge of the life and the repertory of concert and opera. Thomson is known also as a composer; as a critic, he is a lively and often brilliant observer of the contemporary music scene. He makes his readers constantly aware of his own predilections (he has every right to do so as a composer) and his predilections are for the French music of the twenties. One must give him credit also for the efforts made to understand music of other types. Above all, one must admire his consistent and tireless emphasis on the work of younger composers, and the energy with which he reported on interesting and vital events, however distant they might have been from Fifty-seventh Street or Times Square.
Frankenstein, for at least twenty-five years, has battled for the cause of music in the United States. He gave careful attention to the state of music here, and there is probably no one more qualified to speak of it authoritatively. He became personally acquainted with the principal composers who live in our country, but, better still, he familiarized himself with their music. Possessing an unusual degree of knowledge of music history, he combines it with an equally rich knowledge of, and carefully considered judgment on, the problems of contemporary music. Like Thomson, he brings to his task a deep sense of responsibility for everything in our music life. One need not always agree with Thomson and Frankenstein, but it is difficult not to recognize their sincerity.
It is evident that our discussion of music criticism in the United States has dealt primarily with its relation to the general subject of our musical development. The music itself and the composers and their ideas remain to be discussed.