Concert life was already flourishing. Those organizations which, along with the New York orchestra, still dominate our music life, the Boston and the Philadelphia orchestras, were established, as was the Metropolitan Opera Company. They were, needless to say, initiated by groups of private individuals, of whom an appreciable number belonged to a public well provided with experience and curiosity, a public which loved music, possessed some knowledge of it, and demanded it in abundance. It is hardly necessary to point out that there were also those who cared less for music than for social esteem, prestige, and “glamor”—the reflected and artificial magic of something which they neither understood nor desired to understand, since it was the magic and not the substance that mattered; the more remote the substance, the more enticing the magic. Such contrasts always exist, and it was fashionable some years ago to throw this fact into high relief: in that way healthy and necessary self-criticism was evidenced.
Among the personalities we have reference to was Major Henry L. Higginson who founded, and then throughout his life underwrote, the Boston Symphony; he belonged to the personalities of authentic culture and real stature who demanded music in the true sense of the word, and who knew how and where to find it. It is unnecessary to discuss the artistic levels these organizations achieved; that is general knowledge. If today we are aware of certain disquieting symptoms pointing to a decline in quality by comparison with that period, they are the result of later developments to be considered in the following pages, in connection with concrete problems of today.
This necessarily brief and partial summary concerns the development of the American music public. From this public the first impulses toward actual musical production in America arose. A natural consequence of these developments, musical instruction kept pace with them. Among those who received such instruction there were a few ambitious individuals. The general topic of music education in the United States will be discussed later; we here note in passing that much of the best in music education of the earlier days was contributed by immigrants—like the already mentioned Manuel Garcia—from the music centers of Europe. It was inevitable that, until very recent years (mention of this was made previously), anyone who wished to accomplish something serious was obliged to go to Europe for his decisive studies; it is also inevitable that what they produced bore traces of derivation from the various milieus—generally German or Viennese—in which they studied. Nor is it surprising that this derivation generally bore a cautious and hesitant aspect, and that the American contemporaries of Mahler and Strauss are most frequently epigenes rather of Mendelssohn or Liszt. Some acquired a solid craft, if not a bold or resourceful one; in the eighteen-nineties they were following in the footsteps of the midcentury romanticists, just as, twenty years later, their successors cautiously began to retrace the footsteps of the early Debussy. There were, of course, other elements too, such as those derived from folklore and, even at that time and in a very cautious manner, from popular music.
One cannot speak of the composers of the turn of the century without expressing the deep respect due them. They were isolated, having been born into an environment unprepared for what they wanted to do, an environment which did not supply them with either the resources or the moral support necessary for accomplishment. If the limitations of what they achieved are clear to us today—we see it in perspective—they are limitations inevitably arising from the situation in which they found themselves, and it would be difficult to imagine that they could have accomplished more. If their influence on later developments at first glance seems slight, it must not be forgotten that these later developments would not have been conceivable had they not broken the ground. Surely many composers still active today remember with deep gratitude the loyal and generous encouragement and friendly advice and support received from them, as did this author from his former teachers, Edward B. Hill and Horatio Parker, and from older colleagues like Arthur Whiting, Arthur Foote, and Charles Martin Loeffler—men and musicians of considerable stature whose achievements were significant and who worked under conditions incomparably less favorable than those of recent date.
Let us again briefly summarize the situation at the beginning of this century: in several American cities there existed first-class orchestras, some of them led by conductors to be counted among the great of the period. Their repertory was comparable to that heard in any great European music center. There was an abundance of chamber music, as well as of solo instrumental and vocal concerts. There has been little change since that time. The change that has taken place lies in the fact that similar conditions now prevail in almost all major cities throughout our country, and, at least as important, that the concerts are presented to an overwhelmingly great extent by artists resident in America, that the majority of them are American citizens and an increasing number are natives of America. There are, to be sure, also complications and disturbing elements in the present situation; of this we shall speak later.
As far as opera is concerned, the situation is not parallel. In the early years of this century, there was in New York not only the Metropolitan, already known throughout the world, but for several seasons there was also the Manhattan Opera Company, more enterprising than the former, artistically speaking. There were independent companies also in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and the venerable and still existent company in New Orleans. At the time of this writing there is only the Metropolitan—which has become much less enterprising and less glamorous—in addition to the more modest but more progressive City Center Opera. Finally, there is the short autumn season of the San Francisco Opera. The operatic situation is, superficially at least, less favorable than concert life.
No doubt there are reasons why a whole generation of musicians, in the second and third decades of our century, should have become conscious of a determination to prevail as composers, performers, scholars, and teachers. However, these reasons never are entirely clear. World War I and the experiences which it brought to the United States undoubtedly played a major role, but these experiences do not afford the full explanation since the movement already had begun before the war in the minds of many who had made their decisions even as children. In this sense the war effected little change. We shall deal with this in the following pages, and shall attempt to arrive at an estimate of its scope and meaning.
III
Negative comment on the music life in the United States is as easy to make as it is frequently heard. Less easy, but at least revealing, is an honest appraisal of the factors which make the United States a stimulating place for serious musicians to live. Like so many subjects dealing with the cultural life here, this one is clouded with propaganda, and with the assumptions propaganda nourishes. Yet, as we have previously implied, after one has discounted not only the propaganda element, but also much that is problematical and immature, there remain facts which become profoundly interesting with increased knowledge.