CHAPTER 11 In Search of the “Real” America
European “Jazz”; Gershwin; Copland; The American “Symphonists”
Richard Taruskin
A new chapter in the history of American concert music—of musical “Americanism”—was opened by the generation of composers who, like Virgil Thomson, received their “finishing” in Paris in the 1920s, so often under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger that their cohort is often called the “Boulangerie,” French for bakery. They formed their musical tastes in the period of anti-Germanic backlash that followed World War I, which made them susceptible to the neoclassical and Dada/surrealist currents that dominated in the French capital. But the Parisian atmosphere in which they were coming of age was already seething with “Americanism,” and it was this Americanized Paris that brought the new generation of American composers their vision of America. It was one of the characteristic ironies of the time that it should have taken a Parisian apprenticeship to create a viable “American school.”
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 11 In Search of the “Real” America." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-011.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 11 In Search of the “Real” America. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-011.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 11 In Search of the “Real” America." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 12 Oct. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-chapter-011.xml
