Please forgive the cross post, the one or two of us also on Orchestra-L:
I just finished a very fine, very interesting book:
_The History Of American Classical Music (MacDowell Through Minimalism)_
by John Warthen Struble. NY: 1995. 444p.ISBN 081602927X
The book, which actually starts earlier than McDowell with the earliest
colonialists, turns an amazing quantity of information and analysis into
a quick read, and sorts clearly through several strands of American
music in a way I had not seen presented before.
I particularly enjoyed learning about some of the lesser-known Americans
we have recorded over the years in the Louisville Orchestra (Ornstein,
Paine, Chadwick, and my fellow native-born Kentuckian John J. Becker),
but the chapters detailing Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Harris, Thomson, Cage
and others and placing them into competing strands are the most valuable
in a valuable book.
The book has a concluding chapter on the author's views concerning the
future of music that is quite profound.
I found the book at a "Half-Price Books" store, and I see used copies
very cheap on Amazon. Personally, I think it should be on the reading
list for every college twentieth-century music or American music course.
Raymond Horton
Bass Trombonist
Louisville Orchestra
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