The Currents of Euro American Musics
Though many of America’s leading composers have taken steps to break with European musical traditions, they cannot entirely escape their heritage.
Flo Rida and Usher’s recent Euro club-influenced sound is an excellent example. This genre blends European styles with uniquely American lyrics and vocal techniques.
19th Century
In the nineteenth century, Romanticism evolved as an emotional response to a fascination between all arts. First appearing in literature before spreading into music, Romanticism embraced love themes such as fantasy and adventure while also maintaining elements of realism and cultural nationalism.
The nineteenth century witnessed a boom in concert music attendance as more and more people attended orchestral and other performances by orchestras and groups. Orchestras increased in size while becoming more varied with regard to instrument composition, giving composers greater scope in exploring a range of dynamics and timbres.
Brass instruments as we know them today began their evolution during this era, when an explosion of invention saw brass instruments designed with keys and valves to play all chromatic notes that previously required woodwind instruments to reproduce. Furthermore, this era witnessed the rise of middle-class career musicians such as insurance executive Felix Mendelssohn and composer Charles Ives as middle-class career musicians.
20th Century
Over the course of the 1900s, composers experimented with new compositional techniques due to a surge in modernism.
This musical movement emerged as an antidote to both the music of the previous century as well as artistic movements like Impressionism and Post-romanticism. Composers such as Debussy and Ravel utilized different textures while exploring new forms, rejecting traditional melodic progressions while adhering to more classical notions of harmony.
Debussy was particularly inspired by Javanese gamelan music and integrated its scales, melodies, and rhythms into several of his piano works such as Pagodes and Estampes.
Alban Berg and Anton Webern took this concept one step further by completely abandoning tonality for twelve-tone composition.
21st Century
Euro-American musical currents remain strong. A review of orchestra premieres since 2000 reveals, alongside an overwhelming majority of American works, an increasing presence of European compositions (often through commissions from composers like Esa-Pekka Salonen or Christoph von Dohnanyi or Oliver Knussen).
This trend is attributable in part to an influx of composers from outside Europe (Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg), Easterners (Erkki-Sven Tuur, Arvo Part, Peteris Vasks and Krzysztof Penderecki), citizens of former Soviet republics (Gubaidulina), as well as increased cultural accessibility for classical music among Americans.
Modern technology and intercultural exchange have led to an ever-broadening musical landscape, as composers draw on traditional music traditions from across the globe to compose new crossover styles. Sometimes an emphasis on European roots may suffice to render a work untranslatable; but this is rarely the case.
Today
American music remains a potency force that spans borders in today’s globalized economy, whether due to America’s diverse culture or substantial economic strength; one thing is for certain – American music can be heard everywhere!
Teen Americans today are becoming fans of European-influenced music that feels fresh. Producer/singer duo Stargate (who wrote hits for Beyonce and Ne-Yo), have used cross-Atlantic formula to blend Euro music styles with pop music styles for an experience tailored specifically for youth listeners.
Charles Ives and other experimental composers began the classical modernist tradition in the early 20th century by breaking away from Romantic-era conventions to compose works using dissonance, atonality, complex rhythms and nonlinear structures that defied Romanticism. Bang on a Can – founded in 1987 as a pioneering ensemble – has made it its mission to bring this revolutionary style of music to the masses, receiving enthusiastic reception across Europe for their performances.
