Reflections on the Music Life in the United States

by Roger Sessions

Let us consider certain facts which likewise tell us little of quality, but do reveal decisive changes in the conditions determining our music life. When the author of this volume decided, for instance, at the tender age of thirteen, to embark upon a career as a composer, there was no representative musician living in the United States. His parents sought the advice of two illustrious guests visiting New York to attend premières of their works at the Metropolitan Opera. Having received due encouragement, the author pursued his studies and received some instruction of value; but as he began to develop, one of his teachers frankly told him that in the United States he could not acquire all he needed, and strongly urged him to continue his studies in Europe, preferably in Paris under Maurice Ravel. For good or ill, the outbreak of World War I made this project impossible. The author continued as best he could under the circumstances. However, not until he came into contact with Ernest Bloch, the first of a series of distinguished European composers who had come to live permanently in this country, was he able to find the guidance he needed, or even a knowledge of the real demands of composition toward which he had been rather blindly groping with the help of whatever he could read on the subject. It was not so much a question of the content of the studies pursued with Bloch, as that of attitudes and conceptions which the latter helped him to evolve. After all, harmony, counterpoint, and all the rest were taught in music schools and college music departments, and some of the instruction was excellent. What was lacking, however, was an essential element: the conviction that such study could conceivably lead, in the United States, to achievement of real value, and, above all, in the realm of composition.

The general attitude was not far from that of a lady of the author’s acquaintance: having had associations with musicians in many parts of the world, she probably had heard the best music possible. That lady asked him, a young student, to call on her, and, waving his compositions aside without bothering even to glance at them, begged him for his own good not to dream of a career as a composer. No American, she explained, could hope to achieve anything as a composer since he was not born into an atmosphere of composition and—as an American—probably did not even have music in his blood. She urged him to aim rather at being a conductor, and, as a step toward that end, gave him the (somewhat picturesque) advice to take up an orchestral instrument—preferably the oboe or the trombone—in the hope of finding a position in one of the large orchestras, as a stepping stone toward a conductorial career.

Naturally, we do not mean to speak of ourselves primarily. A whole generation of American composers faced a similar situation, and each found his own way of resolving it. Some of our contemporaries, for instance—and most of those who have distinguished themselves—did go to Europe for their studies. Since the influence of French culture was at its height at the close of World War I, they often went to Paris to study with Vincent d’Indy or, more frequently and conspicuously, with Nadia Boulanger. Others sought their individual solutions elsewhere and in other ways. The striking fact is that those who aspired to genuine and serious achievement, no longer a handful of ambitious individuals who remained essentially isolated, were young Americans who had begun to learn what serious accomplishment involved. They were determined to find their way to it. Such seeking had not occurred before in the United States, but they did not find what they sought within the then existing framework of American music life.

The reason, not surprising, lies in the fact that the prevalent conception of “serious” music in this country was that of an imported product. Like the lady who so earnestly advised us to study the oboe or the trombone, most Americans, even those possessed of a knowledge of the music world, were, on the whole, inclined to discount the possibility that a composer of American origin could produce anything of importance. The young composers of that period had to look to their European elders not only for the means of learning their craft, but also for an awareness of what constitutes the craft of composition. That craft, above all, is a down-to-earth awareness that musical achievement, in the last analysis, is the result of human effort, dedication, and love; that “tradition” is the cumulative experience of many individuals doing their best in every sense of the word, and that “atmosphere” exists wherever such individuals, young or old, live in close contact with each other.

Thus, looking back at the conditions prevailing around 1910, our decision of that year to become a composer seems reckless almost to the point of madness. We cannot, of course, conceive of any other we could have made. Today, however, the young musician, including the composer, faces quite a different situation. If he wishes really to work and to produce even on the most artistic level, he can find much in his surroundings to encourage him. In the important centers he can find musicians capable of advising him; and in several of the large cities throughout the country he can acquire the instruction he needs. Today a composer has a fair possibility to gain at least a local hearing, and his music will be listened to with attention and interest by an appreciable number of listeners. With slight reservations it may be said that it is no longer necessary for a young American musician to leave his country in order to find adequate instruction and a more intense musical life. (The reservations concern such special fields as the opera, in which a degree of European experience is vital due to conditions prevalent in that field.) It is not necessary for him to go to Europe to find more severe criteria, more competent teachers or more sympathetic colleagues, or to find the opportunity to become acquainted with first-class musicians of an older generation. In the United States he finds a complex and developed music life. The contrast with conditions of forty or fifty years ago is indeed noteworthy.

This book deals with that development, with the questions it raises and the problems it involves. Above all, this development is interesting from the point of view of the subject itself—American music within the total picture of music today. It is fascinating also from another point of view: various forces have contributed to this development—historical, social, and economic forces—and action and effect raise, in one more guise, questions vital to the understanding of the world today and the state of contemporary culture both in the United States and elsewhere. In a summary discussion such as the present, many such questions—regarding the future of art and of culture itself, the nature and prospects of art in a democratic society, the fate of the individual today—will of necessity remain virtually untouched. They are, nevertheless, present by implication. For the individual artist whose one earnest preoccupation is his own production, the answers to these questions, as far as he is at all concerned with them, lie in the realm of faith and premise rather than in theoretical discussion. Whatever he accomplishes will in its own measure be a witness and justification of that faith, whether or not he is aware of it. A cultural movement of any kind is not to be judged in theoretical terms, but in those of authentic achievement.

These remarks seem relevant because certain basic characteristics of our intellectual life affect our attitudes toward a cultural movement such as the development of music here during the past forty years. These characteristics have strongly influenced, and continue to influence, the movement itself, and to some extent they still determine its character. It may therefore be worth while to consider briefly certain of these features, freely acknowledging that such summary reference does not give, nor could it give, a well-rounded picture; nor will it be necessarily relevant to, say, the situation in literature or in the graphic arts.

American life, American society, and American culture are characterized by a fluidity which, up to this time, has always been a part of the nature of the United States, and not the product of a specific historical moment. It derives, in fact, from all that is most deeply rooted in our national consciousness; it is a premise with which each one of us is born, and which is carried into every thought and activity. It not only corresponds to all the realities of the life Americans live, but stems from all that is most intimate and most constant in their ideas. However oversimplified we may have come to regard the popular phrases which have always characterized the United States in our own eyes and in those of our friends—“land of promise,” “land of opportunity,” “land of unlimited possibilities”—the concept underlying them for the most conservative as well as for the most liberal retains the force of an ideal or even an obligation; a premise to which reference is made even at most unexpected moments and sometimes in bizarre contexts. The fluidity of our culture is both one of the basic assumptions behind these ideas and, in effect, a partial result of them. It is a result also of American geography and history—the vastness of the continent, the colorful experiences of the pioneers who tamed it, and the sense of space which we gain from the fact that it is relatively easy to move in either direction in the social scale. These are facts which every American can observe any day.

If, as we hear in recent years, these underlying factors are gradually disappearing, such a change is as yet scarcely visible in the everyday happenings which constitute the immediate stuff of American life. It is still far from affecting our basic psychological premises. Fluidity, in the sense used, is one of the most essential and decisive factors of our tradition. It is likely to remain so for a long time to come. It is relevant in the present context because contemporary music life frequently takes on the aspect of a constantly shifting struggle between a number of contrasting forces. This is more true in the United States than elsewhere; and the characteristic fluidity of our cultural life is one of its features most difficult to understand, particularly for those who do not know the United States well. At the same time, in this set of facts, conditions, and premises one finds elements which have caused Americans to misunderstand other western cultures.

Another important element in our tradition may be derived from the fact, evident and admitted, that in our origins we are a nation of émigrés. A dear friend of ours, of Italian origin but a fervid American convert, G. A. Borgese, once half jestingly remarked, “An American is one who was dissatisfied at home.” If one takes this idea of “dissatisfaction” in not too emotional a sense, he can take note of the variety of its causes and see that its results have proved to be many and varied. The United States has been created by nonconformists in flight from Anglicanism or Roman Catholicism, as well as by Roman Catholics in flight from Protestantism; by Irishmen in flight from famine and by German revolutionaries in flight after defeat in 1848; by venturesome tradesmen and by others who, either in the spirit of adventure or for other motives, wanted to escape from the toils of civilization; by thousands who sought better economic conditions, more space, and the opportunity to prosper socially, and by others with as many other motives of dissatisfaction. Even such a sketchy summary hints at the variety and even the conflicting character of the interests which found common ground solely in the element of “dissatisfaction at home.” It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that this tradition of filial dissatisfaction and the variety of its original forms is the basis of many of the most characteristic and deeply rooted American attitudes and problems.