So this is it, ladies and gents, the episode where we discuss the piece for which this podcast was named and the composer that wrote it: William Schuman and his Symphony No. 10 ‘American Muse’! The man literally got letters in the mail telling him either how awful his music was, OR how it had changed someone’s life. Were he still alive today, I would absolutely send him a physical letter thanking him for so dramatically effecting my life. Ironically, I did in fact send his two children, Andrea and Anthony, physical letters to ask for their permission to use the music you just heard at the beginning of this podcast! Anyway, let’s talk about this man and his fantastic compositions.
###Background
- I first heard music by William Schuman when I was an eager young musician in middle school. I listened to his Symphony No. 5, performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic string section, recorded on a vinyl record (I kid you not). The opening bars explode with energy and melodic creativity unlike I had ever heard. It was forceful, bold, full of life. It drew me in and to this day has not let go. From that moment I knew I had to know more about this man and his music. He and his music are a large part of the reason I began this podcast, my blog, and my book to be released next year, _Secrets of American Orchestral Music_.
####Bio
- One of the first things one learns about Schuman is the story of how he came to be a composer in the first place. He did play bass in a dance band, but never considered it very serious. Then he went to a concert at Carnegie Hall and heard the New York Philharmonic, conducted by the great Arturo Toscanini. He was so blown away by the performance he said "I was overwhelmed. I had never heard anything like it. The very next day, I decided to become a composer." So, he dropped out of New York University, quit his job, enrolled at the Malkin Conservatory of music to study composition, and a short 5 years later he graduated from Columbia University. Who knew it could be so easy? While this anecdotal story is humorous, it accurately shows a key characteristic of Schuman's personality. He is an optimist, endlessly curious, and has a child-like approach to new endeavors. He is also steadfast and resolute in his values, many times refusing to compromise his artistic work or arts administration efforts.
- Though not all of William Schuman's biographical history is pertinent here, some key positions and career events as well as insight into his composition process help to contextualize the unique nature of the man and his music. One fortuitous happenstance came at the beginning of his journey to become a composer. In 1930, primed by having just attended his first orchestral concert, Schuman saw a sign for the Malkin Conservatory, walked in, and according to him “registered for a course in harmony because he had heard somewhere that composers begin by studying harmony.” This placed him with Max Persin, a teacher more interested in discovering the intricacies of each individual piece rather than regurgitating from quote “a textbook of dull orthodoxy.” Not long after earning a teaching degree from the Columbia University Teachers College, Schuman carved out a teaching and administrative position at Sarah Lawrence College. The way in which this came about is characteristic of Schuman's free-form thinking and commitment to the highest quality in any endeavor he undertook. Schuman convinced the president and Faculty Advisory Committee on Appointments at Sarah Lawrence to make him the quote "one man... coordinator, working from a single focal point" on a new set of freshman focused courses. Schuman connected with the faculty and administration at Sarah Lawrence on a philosophical level, influenced by the progressive education movement of John Dewey and the concept that "making knowledge one's own was the central goal of education…” This desire for individuality and freedom from convention carried over into Schuman's composing. Keenly aware of contemporary trends, Schuman casts the "emergence of a contemporary tonal language" in the twentieth century as "a musical revolution." Referring to contemporary composers (presumably including himself), Schuman posits “\[t]he process of seeking a way of creating fresh sounds is a natural one for a truly creative musician. It may be conscious or subconscious, or both. But whatever the process, the result is innovation in musical speech." Even Copland recognized the boldness of Schuman's work, describing it as "music of tension and power," and expounding on his rhythmic writing as "so skittish and personal, so utterly free and inventive."
- Schuman's commitment to his own musical and educational standards resulted in his being tapped as president of Juilliard in 1945. Schuman was reluctant to even consider the post because, as Steve Swayne puts it in his biographic work _Orpheus in Manhattan_, “\[h]e could see no possible marriage between Juilliard’s hidebound, rote education and the progressive, student-oriented approach that he enjoyed at Sarah Lawrence." Partly due to this honesty expressed to Juilliard's board of directors, Schuman was offered and eventually accepted the position. As a sign of the school's desire for change, Schuman immediately made drastic alterations to the Juilliard curriculum and faculty. One program he spearheaded is particularly of note here. Showing his independent thinking and will to move forward, Schuman explains his educational philosophy:
> The first requisite for a musician in any branch of the art is that he be a virtuoso listener. It has been a student who is adept at the writing of melodic dictation may be incapable of listening to a symphonic composition with an understanding of its design. In other words, an ability to hear the component parts of the language of music… does not ipso facto mean integrated understanding--an understanding that can only be achieved when the whole work is clearly viewed as the sum of these parts... In an effort to replace conventional theory with more meaningful studies, the Juilliard School has discontinued its Theory Department and added to its curriculum a new department--Literature and Materials of Music.
- This is the kind of ideology Schuman applied to his composition and administrative roles. In a 1986 interview, Schuman illustrates the interconnected nature of all his endeavors: "composition has been the continuum of my life's work, but it's been by no matter of means my sole pursuit. I would never be happy just being a composer. I've always wanted and needed to do other things of a general societal nature."
####Culture
- Even through his compositional process, Schuman shows his independent thinking. Intending not to be bound by the limitations of both his piano skill and of the instrument itself, according to a biography written by Vincent Persichetti, Schuman "writes for the instruments of the orchestra directly... sings the parts at the top of his lungs... because his music is essentially melodic... He does, however, use the piano for new vocabulary departures; that is, for experimentation.”
- One more quote by Schuman from 1977, helps summarize his philosophy on the balance of artistic honesty and the ambition needed for such a high profile career he had to that point:
> I would like to be loved through my music, as anybody would be. But I recognized that this was not necessarily to be the case, and it would be much better to be despised and write what you want than to be loved and write what you didn’t want.… I was asked that question just the other day \[in February 1977] … “Why—when you write these difficult symphonies that hardly anybody ever plays, and you can write the New England Triptych or orchestrate Ives’ Variations on America—why don’t you write a holiday overture that would make you a lot of money and would be played a lot?”
- Hopefully the continued reverence of Schuman’s music will suffice as an answer to that question.
- Schuman's symphonic output is quite varied, ranging from symphonies and concertos to ballet and opera. Schuman got the most mileage out of his symphonies, and he admittedly put most of his focus on their creation. Schuman’s symphonies are most representative of all his compositional work, even by his own statements in an interview with Overtones:
> “It never occurred to me not to write symphonies... I like every medium in music when I’m working on it… \[but] I believe that as long as writers write long and complicated novels, composers are going to write in the symphonic forms, because they give an opportunity that nothing else gives.”
- Schuman wrote 10 numbered symphonies, though he “withdrew” the first two.
###Analysis of piece
####Overall scope
- Now to Symphony No. 10, the ‘American Muse’ itself.
- The recorded excerpts you will hear today are from a 2005 NAXOS recording of the Seattle Symphony conducted by Maestro Gerard Schwarz, a dear friend of this podcast.
- Written and premiered in 1976, this symphony was commissioned for the American Bicentennial by the National Symphony Orchestra, and conducted by Antal Dorati.
- The work is in 3 movements: Con Fuoco, Larghissimo, and the third movement goes through many different speeds, but does begin and end with a Presto.
- The orchestration is outrageously large: 4 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, Eb clarinet, 3 Bb clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, percussion that calls for 4 players, timpani, piano, harp, celesta, and strings. Whew! None of this would have been surprising coming from Schuman at that point, but even today that is quite a task to take on.
####Excerpts
- The opening fanfare sets a tone of muscularity, optimism as Schuman might put it...
- And then gives way to a mostly brass chorale, punctuated by moments of woodwind interaction.
- Not long after, we have a section of what we call homorhythm. This is when all or large portions of the orchestra are playing the same active rhythms, but not the same notes, in fact they are usually quite dissonantly contrasting notes. It is a powerful effect as Schuman builds a great deal of tension. In this excerpt there is a short unison of homorhythm followed by 2 independent layers.
- After spending this entire movement in tonic disarray, giving a bit of tonal center, but then taking it away with swaths of dissonance, Schuman suddenly takes an about face at the end and we get, at first, blips of tonal, recognizable chords, before a final Eb major chord grabs hold and blares to the end as if we had been in that bright, happy key all along!
- I LOVE that moment!
- The second movement, Larghissimo, is a work of beauty, but you have to stick with it. Schuman lets his slow movements develop as organically as possible from the simplest of musical aspects. Here, he begins basically with a chord cluster, again moving only in homorhythmic motion, and very slowly at first. While the violas and then cellos take the lyrical line, which again does not change very much at all, but makes big glissando jumps when it does.
- Then what follows is an iconic Schuman sound if there ever was one, I swear I could pick this writing out from any other composer on the planet. The violins slowly expand a high, and still higher reaching, melodic line over chromatically moving chordal movement in the violas and cellos, and just as the line starts to peak, he opens up the sound more, then again as another peak comes, he adds horns... and on and on, one layer after another. It is a long section, but here is a fairly representative moment. 『
- And again, just like in the first movement, though this movement isn’t quite so tonally wandering, he lets out all the tension, leaves off with a question mark... and gives us a big, fat, juicy Eb major chord!
- The final movement, beginning Presto, starts a series of homorhythmic sections, first strings alone, then trading off with the woodwinds. The activity begins with much space, but quickly becomes lively, almost furious! 『
- One element we had yet to come across was Schuman’s craftiness with a fugue. Finally, in the last symphonic movement he ever wrote, in order to build up as much energy and tension as possible, Schuman writes a complex double fugue. This is not a tightly formed, rule-following Bach-like fugue you would expect, but most of the elements you would expect are there. It gives him the chance to push forward and pull back at will. One theme is very active, harmonically and rhythmically, while the other is long held out notes with little movement.
- Now you must be wondering if and when we get that Eb major chord we’ve gotten at the end of every other movement. We do! And in similar fashion, Schuman prefaces it with heavy dissonance and confusion. This time, though, the final brilliant chord arrives and finishes in full fanfare. Instant standing ovation!
###Closing
- Beyond composition, Schuman taught at Sarah Lawrence College, served as president of the Juilliard School, facilitated it’s move into the newly built Lincoln Center, founded the Juilliard String Quartet, served as president of Lincoln Center itself, and won 2 Pulitzer Prizes and the National Medal of Arts. Many people desire to change or effect the world in some way. William Schuman did that and more during his time. As long as we perform or hear his music, he still does.
Music:
Symphony No. 10
By: William Schuman
Performed by: Gerard Schwarz; Seattle Symphony Orchestra
Courtesy of Naxos of America, Inc.
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