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Good news for rootless Americans: The world is our birthright
The search for an 'American culture' (a reply)
How can an American composer make music without a unified tradition? Kile Smith raised that question recently in BSR. (See "A composer's search for his cultural home.")
In Smith's case, the best answer this particular reviewer can provide is: "Very well." But Smith asks a question that has bedeviled many American artists as well as their audiences.
Smith concludes that he should stop worrying about where his music comes from and just get on with it. I've reached a similar conclusion. But my own thoughts go a bit further: I think American artists should view our fragmented, hybrid culture as one of the advantages of American birth.
For me, Americans are heirs of a global culture. The United States is a mammoth sea, fed by all the world's rivers. We can take whatever suits us without worrying if "Made in America" is stamped on it.
Crumb, Ives and Cage
Composers born abroad may feel required to build on their local traditions. American composers can reach out to China or any other part of the world that catches their fancy, as Andrea Clearfield and others have done.
Yes, we have an American tradition— but it's a tradition of eclecticism and individualism. In music, it's given us work as unpredictable and idiosyncratic as the creations of George Crumb, Charles Ives, John Cage, Jennifer Higdon and, yes, Kile Smith.
The mongrelized nature of American culture may cause American artists and audience to envy countries with more unified traditions. But our situation isn't as unique as it looks.
We're living with an advanced version of a worldwide development that's been accelerating ever since Europeans started building ocean-going sailing ships. Western civilization has always borrowed from other cultures, and the traffic has always moved in both directions.
Turning to Confucius
During the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, philosophers in France, England and Germany turned to Confucianism for proof that a moral, well-ordered society could function without a supernatural religion. Ravel and Debussy derived some of their aesthetic ideals from the Japanese art they encountered in Paris. After World War II, despite years of anti-Japanese propaganda, Americans leaped on samurai movies, Zen Buddhism and the martial arts.
Did Gandhi reject nonviolent resistance because he got the idea from Thoreau? Did Nehru reject parliamentary democracy because it originated in England?
Many Asian nations have enthusiastically adopted Western classical music. Today they're enriching it with the composers and performers they have added to the world's concert stages, from Lang Lang to Yo-Yo Ma to Yuja Wang.
All these regional cultures that we Americans have inherited are now churning into a global human culture. Take what you like. It's the richest inheritance any generation has ever received.♦
To read a response, click here.
In Smith's case, the best answer this particular reviewer can provide is: "Very well." But Smith asks a question that has bedeviled many American artists as well as their audiences.
Smith concludes that he should stop worrying about where his music comes from and just get on with it. I've reached a similar conclusion. But my own thoughts go a bit further: I think American artists should view our fragmented, hybrid culture as one of the advantages of American birth.
For me, Americans are heirs of a global culture. The United States is a mammoth sea, fed by all the world's rivers. We can take whatever suits us without worrying if "Made in America" is stamped on it.
Crumb, Ives and Cage
Composers born abroad may feel required to build on their local traditions. American composers can reach out to China or any other part of the world that catches their fancy, as Andrea Clearfield and others have done.
Yes, we have an American tradition— but it's a tradition of eclecticism and individualism. In music, it's given us work as unpredictable and idiosyncratic as the creations of George Crumb, Charles Ives, John Cage, Jennifer Higdon and, yes, Kile Smith.
The mongrelized nature of American culture may cause American artists and audience to envy countries with more unified traditions. But our situation isn't as unique as it looks.
We're living with an advanced version of a worldwide development that's been accelerating ever since Europeans started building ocean-going sailing ships. Western civilization has always borrowed from other cultures, and the traffic has always moved in both directions.
Turning to Confucius
During the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, philosophers in France, England and Germany turned to Confucianism for proof that a moral, well-ordered society could function without a supernatural religion. Ravel and Debussy derived some of their aesthetic ideals from the Japanese art they encountered in Paris. After World War II, despite years of anti-Japanese propaganda, Americans leaped on samurai movies, Zen Buddhism and the martial arts.
Did Gandhi reject nonviolent resistance because he got the idea from Thoreau? Did Nehru reject parliamentary democracy because it originated in England?
Many Asian nations have enthusiastically adopted Western classical music. Today they're enriching it with the composers and performers they have added to the world's concert stages, from Lang Lang to Yo-Yo Ma to Yuja Wang.
All these regional cultures that we Americans have inherited are now churning into a global human culture. Take what you like. It's the richest inheritance any generation has ever received.♦
To read a response, click here.
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