Heritage; 125; Walter Piston. Part 3: American Music

is in this series of heritage programs we are privileged to meet walter piston distinguished american composer a lot of this is in the roses and whether that doesn't want to make him any different from an italian composer a german composer the chinese composer the matter of some unrest seems to me clinton still has been such an important part of our american musical scene for so many years that his comments on that would be of interest to your chat with mr pearson about

american music is a fellow composer from england mr wilford millers was to mars is andrew mellon professor of music at the university of pittsburgh and in addition to being a distinguished composer he's a writer about music one of the very areas of his interest was this one american music comes with some mom please i'm privileged to be here because i'm interested in that at the music hall or some kind of music in particular perhaps i could start us off by saying something that they want the general picture of americans it looks like into an outsider to have begun basic different as a symbol of all of this one caught it is that the european composer is unavoidably aware of sanctions of the cost behind him eisen english composer in particular have been preoccupied with

sixteenth seventeenth century and i and elements from that music in the sixteenth century citizen scientists helping my own music and i and naturally imagine what i'm doing as a twentieth century composer about the composer course has virtually no cost control and we have to see and as an artist whose therefore concerned with stuart and trying to create chaos as a portion of civilization was created out of wilson's identity would agree that it's closing to me that charles ives as they go into isolation i think he's probably the closest a great composer come up for this reason because he accepted the americas society and try to create something at which was

now you have this desire to experiment and desire to make a new analyst i think wouldn't have occurred except for a kind of radical innocence and naivete but it was an audience obviously complex and sophisticated mind and not well i suppose one has to first of all it meant the desirability of the nationalist was close for the sake of argument that we do as a country than we are may have a composite question how and when you we don't know and true and

the conclusion of background that they're in the stones frontman you should give us the right to conclude those ones close to stick and a student and not only that i myself or one fourth of that well another thing is that the market is many different commons i come from the land that's not an industrial area and i spent my summers and the long lectures to lay and so the supporting one demolished to read an american music intimate ritual of

expression and i guess we kind of play the us wants to be talking about how blogs and an industrial canal and his big cities and for as my own i would say that the opening match mountain is there are simply stated that submitting music written by composers who i once had a little from the pope on louis' innovative hustle of his song that people just back from mexico and on the same program was a porsche in

the world symphony in minnesota earned his newest lovely those eleven as a check and mexican and american wilson center i shouldn't say this because i don't think i don't think the poor shacks below simpler can and then a sense because american heroes chemical mexicans and barack obama who is an american soil i guess i don't really think i was probably in that acc this nationalistic in that sense i think what i meant was that burden because of early voting and this mass of this society the vast mythology you get a little later when the judges said cosmopolitan examining this that things are going to make it out of the american composer is at least living in world which fastened deeply

established routes through strong in in one direction and setting their basic fundamental human experiences love that this experience of isolation and which i find an american i find it in ice himself who know he can this amorphous an eclectic awareness of the texture of life and it was sort of the immediate environment and they're saying things like a whole movement all the concord sonata feeds into this kind of nirvana's fit this into a contemplation of what's financing copeland took particular lawson for the piano sonata for instance well i don't think that too many businesses the significant thing about the significant thing about it is the cost emptiness with that hollow forth and it creates and also perhaps they earn a feeling of timelessness but levey rigor that into a pulse that creates think that is another representative american thing it does seem to be something wrong when different from european music at an american music since the missiles at least four

nominated by the consciousness of time i do feel that in a lot of american music and information mr vargas a thoughtful and alice this tendency to create a music that in some ways that's more turning towards least as much of the west and which didn't fail this nominating times and and this might have something to do with that very vastness of the american saying i mean aaron copeland again telling me about his music for radio which was sometimes wallace was off the competition the sort of the press and when he said that he actually wrote that piece in a new york apartment overlooking this and i think that that's on the phone and it is something that is related oh wow maybe true

that at the point that that's the person that opened the us are just as a religious his own personal new album go out of another i would have to say something that will have to think that the music has gone since the open them racially the time a kind of american music i know this is the moon the music of a generation martin clinic at the people well of course i've been forced to do those around composers are not interested in america that they're interested in but the much beloved

tunnel want to do this is that that encouraged them to go through all the moments that come out i remember being quite interesting that the russians wanted to know about that i don't find them consciously wanting to be american but i do find them unconscious and being there and this is what i think will eventually if we're going to have in a typical american music sinking feeling them they were on the knowledge all over the world so nothing

is true because anywhere in the world is becoming and i think the important thing is your composing now to find out what a post know i want to say how do you think that this is a the more difficult problem fully time to think that it's a bit before i mean it's a custom made of that composer eight percent of this problem with law because with only one so it is with a lot of the lake with the panel which they expressed certain common denominator of experience but everybody can tilt of course if there's a talent for kagan's will do something within you think that there is nothing comparable with this dilemma says that one of the basic problems for them that in america and

europe well warren is another basic problem that i'm thinking about and that is the question of the only thing which has grown up on us from on background of music than before the match of instruments that the us and it has a man and then there's a musical meaning quiet which always think about that so that any new music is going to be faced with the possibility that we heard against that background of meaning and i think that's right an obstacle watching a live call progress i think it is the basic difference they were asked some sounds a relationship between the public does not know what

we're waiting for a guinness to come on and show how all these movements go to techniques in common follow things that weren't in the movie has ambitions at work to an agreement that does seem to be a growing divisions still between me and literally the public's views and the composer's music i'm thinking of things like obesity because they were the ones that iran the amount of land in new equipment on demand in america foundation that way you have this time the entire world what a life or this call on an east and oriental conception of the pension the nature of the music that which seemed to isolate people stronger amid cotton be the popular music which the mass of the people consumed

i can say that the many reasons why he's turning towards different philosophical outlook has been that certainly i mean we've all been living in the consciousness of the european awareness and it's even we made ourselves up but i feel myself living in this about thinking that one can throw the rest of the western world and the way it's taught it seems to me that they also have something which may be but nonetheless this set reassessment about basic values has got somehow can be absorbed into the conventions the actions that we asked people the western world have a few empty genius i'm hoping for no it hasn't and i think the i think the

taste of new sounds from pro houston is not only a job this is our white is unusual because i'm a man in nineteenth century music the basic concept behind it was from in the idea of harmonic progression vastly the revolution that has occurred in the post with the idea of congressional seats to be relevant at least six instrument anything that's ever been so yes the ceo mark mentioned public i think the problem here is what is attractive to new and strange sounds and they don't understand them oppose the

depth is vestiges of political meaning where's the composer focused today about the gunman which requires most familiar things i don't know whether that's an illegitimate movement has said that they are how and becomes an alliance and i think most composers haven't been interested and a texture of sound regardless of whether it's a this position in relationship to your public mass compared with the twenty or thirty years ago well impose on them which shows in twenty sixteen and in those days and roll independent

voters said they had no chance and now it comes out being a extremely well please go through the instruments in the midst of one of the wards the center of it all right from being a radical that you have been commenting consciously for the republican right from the kind of music that comes out that's what happened to me and man i work and work and work well and ideologue and injured and to be reckoned with the communication

yes and i would go to undo five vincent suddenly the most amazing thing is actually to be writing a peaceful a particular occasion and in particular performance no well i have spent my faith to do things like that so how i do i have to force of composers most of them have been on you only one curious experience for me into our show website called up to those critics was male classical and splurge i got a question the festival unknown unknown composers and serves on the road and they want something to be perhaps a new england and

then herself in full and so narrow three known ones get this one was called sea sew one that whole summer evening once called mountains and all my colleagues that what happened explanation and often describe this i'm really living on these were the things with him on new made peace with it and so it's not that there's no difference between that you're not really it's just that the musical in ages is prompted by road i know does that play

with the english lunch with a quote i don't even want to let me the regime a lot of the communication has the right to contribute things out of his experience and sometimes the navy the move as we've been talking about today and raced through the public and do you think there's any possibility of further liaison between the world of composers like us and then in the world of call us i was thinking for instance about how history of american music in the nineteenth century and now liane east over four years and some things were written by the kickoff and composers of forgotten where as we remember that stephen foster attorney in gospel and sousa and of course today that is the case of gershwin who also was

trained in tin pan alley but i think has greater survival value of the many soda and more sophisticated american composers i myself i'm interested in the kind of intense storm i want to have gotten the unconscious and that's something that's having fun of the damage has been so there is an incentive to produce something which they consider this and these incentives you mentioned fitbit when i found that myself i was in a kind of battle cry caucus which has been a great deal of jazz and is like someone walking into but this didn't happen because i consciously said to myself i would like the peace will appeal to a popular audience but because it was an opera about young people and what we weren't a lot of this was the kind of saying yes well speaking of joe

at the time the french government's taken with a portion of the and there were the actions of that and they feel that he does know well neil nino with some knowledge of what war is and because costco of the top jazz and chanted they're plenty i think time is running out i wanna think perhaps introducing all the different notes now we've been talking about composer and relationship to his

public and that of course doesn't know how composer and it is now i wonder if you think there are any notable differences between economic position in the competitive states you know i for instance and composer who's lived by university teaching or my career and i believe most of michael well i think they are most efficient is as good as a position from life still hopeful do you find that sometimes you wonder given the worry about that some of this or that a red stick in the atmosphere for a conclusion and that i would say that the economic situation again for the young composer this

is tragic because we're a big orchestras afford to put on a new live without these unknown young composer because they can't afford them and besides that they are their plan to audiences of millions in the cast of that huge mass of people called port talbot six or so that the album poses i want to say this some position was worse than when you laugh and coming as well are getting worse than it was i'm steve inskeep the

sorenson accident when the fact because of its one child mentions roadster when their identity the movie was there was a lot of composers in america arriving every day so another hearing the details of the past month that adds another you know i think that actually convicted of a felony like i think i can play the materials being

parliament voted to go to i can't recommend it doesn't last that it's a right it was a masterpiece until say oh i know that low and it's a shrine look for chances to have problems and i have to tell them a good place to be but i can say that the young composers that are there i

just know it distinguished american cities facing years in the twenties it's b this is an eighty national educational television