Chapter 77: American Traditions: The Music of Charles Ives and William Grant Still
Study Plan
Key Points
- Music publications in early America were largely devotional; some were written in a shape-note system designed for easy reading.
- The parlor and minstrel songs of nineteenth-century composer Stephen Foster were very popular during his lifetime and remain so today.
- The great bandmaster and composer John Philip Sousa fostered the American wind band tradition, an outgrowth of the British military band.
- Although Charles Ives was one of the most innovative and original composers of his time, his music was not recognized until very late in his life.
- Ives drew on the music of his New England childhood—hymns, patriotic songs, brass band marches, and dance tunes—which he set in a very modern style, using polytonality and polyrhythms.
- African-American composer William Grant Still broke numerous racial barriers, earning a number of firsts for blacks in classical music.
- Still's Afro-American Symphony was the first work by an African-American to be performed by a major symphony orchestra.
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