Art song

 Peter Dickinson,
 H. Wiley Hitchcock
 and Keith E. Clifton
 https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2240068
 Published in print: 26 November 2013
 Published online: 25 July 2013


A short vocal piece of serious artistic purpose. During the 18th century “art
song” came to have its predominant modern meaning of secular solo song with
an independent keyboard accompaniment; for a discussion of songs for more
than one voice (or partsongs) see Choral music. The subject of this article is the
development of the art song tradition in the United States. Other types of song
(discussed elsewhere in this dictionary) include theater songs, popular songs,
ragtime and jazz songs, folksongs, and work songs.

1. c1750–c1850.
The earliest extant American art songs, signed “F. H.,” are contained (along with
some 100 mid-18th-century English songs) in a manuscript copied out by
Francis Hopkinson, an amateur musician from Philadelphia. The first of these
to appear in the manuscript is “My days have been so wondrous free,”
dated 1759 and long regarded as the first American secular song; the others
initialed by Hopkinson – “The Garland, Oh come to Mason Borough’s grave,”
and “With pleasure I have past my days” – may be contemporaneous. Like the
songs in Hopkinson’s later published collection, Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or
Forte Piano (1788), dedicated to George Washington and in fact containing eight
songs, the pieces in the manuscript are in the style of English songs written by
such composers as Thomas Arne, Stephen Storace, William Shield, and James
Hook for performance in pleasure gardens or to be inserted in light operas.
English songs provided the models for American songs throughout the colonial
and federal periods; indeed, Hopkinson’s most notable successors were British
immigrants. Benjamin Carr, also of Philadelphia, published many of his 61
songs in two serial anthologies, Musical Journal for the Piano Forte (1800–04)
and Carr’s Musical Miscellany in Occasional Numbers (1812–25). Also among Carr’s
songs are several sets of ballads, including Six Ballads … from The Lady of the
Lake op.7, published in the same year (1810) as the poem by Sir Walter Scott on
which they are based; the set contains the Hymn to the Virgin (“Ave Maria”), which
is especially notable for its harp-like arpeggiated accompaniment. Carr’s most
popular song was “The Little Sailor Boy” (1798). James Hewitt, who immigrated
in 1792, was second only to Carr in his success as a composer of songs: “The
Wounded Hussar” (c1880) went through 12 printings, as did “Primroses” (or
“The Primrose Girl,” c1793). Oliver Shaw, the first native American to make a
mark as a composer of songs, was best known for his settings of texts by
Thomas Moore, such as “Mary’s Tears” (1812) and “There’s nothing true but
heav’n” (1816), both on poems from Moore’s Sacred Melodies.
In the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War American art song
moved away from the English style and began to reflect the influence of various
musical genres and styles in a way that became typical of American artistic
expression. John Hill Hewitt, the son of James Hewitt, composed more than 300
songs, beginning with the successful “The Minstrel’s Return’d from the War”
(?1828), which was written in the manner of his father’s songs; later he
incorporated elements of Italian opera arias, Alpine yodeling songs (which were
performed in the United States by visiting singers from Switzerland and
Austria), and minstrel songs. Anthony Philip Heinrich, an immigrant from
Bohemia who became known as “the Beethoven of America,” began to compose
after his arrival in the United States. Heinrich’s songs, many of which are
occasional pieces (such as the Visit to Philadelphia, 1820), are less audacious than
his keyboard works; nevertheless, the vocal lines often combine a mellifluous
Viennese charm with surprising outbursts of coloratura and are supported by
elaborate accompaniments. The cadenza of the Prologue Song which opens The
Dawning of Music in Kentucky op.1 (1820), an extensive collection of songs and
instrumental pieces, extends over more than two octaves; his setting of Robert
Burns’s “From thee Eliza I must go,” has a similar range and exploits abrupt
harmonic contrasts between tonic major and minor keys.
The most gifted song composer of the era was Stephen Foster. Foster was well
acquainted with the various song styles of his day, and this knowledge is
evident in his own songs, of which there are approximately 200. “Open thy
lattice, love” (1844), his first published song, is in the English tradition. But
echoes of Italian opera arias by Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti can be heard in
“The Voice of By Gone Days” and “Ah! may the red rose live always” (both 1850)
and “Beautiful dreamer” (1864), among others. And Foster, of Irish ancestry
himself, readily absorbed the style of Thomas Moore’s popular A Selection of Irish
Melodies (1808–34), as is demonstrated in such songs as “Jeanie with the Light
Brown Hair” (1854) and “Gentle Annie” (1856). Some of his songs for minstrel
shows—perhaps especially “Nelly was a lady” (1849), “Old Folks at Home”
(1851), “My old Kentucky home, good night” (1853), and “Old Black Joe”
(1860)—transcend that genre in sensitivity of expression. In the period
immediately before, during, and after the Civil War, the songs of George
Frederick Root and Henry Clay Work addressed popular causes, and rivaled
Foster’s songs in public acceptance.

2. c1850 to World War II.

Before the Civil War the aim of both popular and art songs was usually to
express common emotions, but thereafter some American composers became
artistically more ambitious, and the distinction between the popular song and
the “serious” art song became greater. An increasing number of American
composers chose to study in Europe, where they found in the German lied and
the French mélodie new ways of enhancing the relationship between lyric poetry
and music. As early as 1846, in “Thine eye hath seen the spot,” George F.
Bristow extended the range of modulation, anticipating the sophistication of
such composers as Amy Beach, George W. Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, and
Ethelbert Nevin, who were a generation younger. Beach passionately embraced
the chromatic styles of Chopin and Liszt in songs such as “Ah, love, but a day”
(1900). The same skill is evident in A Flower Cycle (1892) and Lyrics from Told in the
Gate (1897), two sets of songs by Chadwick, although the texts of these songs,
by Arlo Bates, are less impressive than the music. The 42 songs by MacDowell
are equally well crafted, but they too are limited by their texts, which for the
most part are MacDowell’s own. Many other composers wrote songs in this
period, but few are as polished as the early ones by Nevin, and none had the
success of his “The Rosary” (1898).
The growing interest of American composers in French songs is apparent in
many songs of the first two decades of the 20th century, including several
cycles by John Alden Carpenter, such as Water-colors (1916) and the widely
performed Gitanjali (1913). Carpenter’s “Serenade” (1920) imitates Debussy in
its use of Spanish elements. Early in his career Charles T. Griffes composed
settings of both German and French texts; later he reconciled the two strands of
influence in such strikingly original works as Three Poems of Fiona MacLeod (1918),
the orchestral version of which reflects his knowledge of the music of Richard
Strauss, and “Sorrow of Mydath” (1917), the second of two settings of poems by
John Masefield.
The indigenous influences parodied in minstrel shows early in the century
entered the recital hall in the form of folk music arranged for voice and piano.
Arthur Farwell was one of many composers who used American Indian
melodies. (Farwell also set many texts by Emily Dickinson, the first as early
as 1907.) Charles Wakefield Cadman wrote over 300 songs; his adaptations of
tribal melodies, especially “From the Land of the Sky-blue Water” (1909) and “At
Dawning” (1906), became favorite recital pieces and were extensively recorded.
Other composers turned to arrangements of black spirituals for voice and
piano. Those by H.T. Burleigh are especially noteworthy; the composer himself
sang them for Dvořák, and they have been performed internationally by many
singers.
Charles Ives, the first American composer of international stature, made
particularly important contributions to the song repertory. His heterogeneous
output of about 150 songs includes a wide range of styles and subjects and
forms a kind of musical diary of his composing career. Like some of his piano
studies and parodies, the songs adumbrate many distinctive Ivesian techniques
and effects: interval control in “The Cage” (1906) and “Soliloquy” (1907);
Victorian potpourri in “He is There!,” “The Things our Father Loved,” and “In
Flanders Fields” (all 1917); rhythmic and harmonic disruption of pre-existing
music in the hymns “Watchman” (1913) and “At the River” (?1916), and in “The
Side-show” (1921), based on a popular song by Pat Rooney; microtonal sliding
in “Like a Sick Eagle” (?1913); rhythmic speech in Charlie Rutlage (1920/21);
and the capturing of popular culture in “The Circus Band” and “Waltz” (both
?1894).
Some of Ives’s songs are reductions of works for larger forces, while others are
sketches intended to be incorporated into larger works. Ives wrote no song
cycles, though he suggested some groupings of songs for performance without
voice as instrumental pieces. He wrote early songs to German and French texts,
trivial comedies for the salon, and such intensely dissonant works as “Majority”
(1921), the first piece in the collection 114 Songs which he printed privately
in 1922. The tone-clusters of “Majority” are characteristic, as is the use of
quotation (from the “Dead March” in Handel’s Saul) in “Slow March” (?1887) for
the funeral of a family pet. Generations of singers have used the ungainly but
powerful “General William Booth Enters into Heaven” (1914), on a poem by
Vachel Lindsay, almost as a campaign song to gain recognition for the
uncompromising—and uncompromisingly American—Ives.
It is difficult to generalize about the nature of American art song between the
world wars. The major composers of the period were occupied with work in
other genres, and the few songs they wrote exemplify their personal styles
rather than any general aesthetic trends. Early and concentrated atonality, for
example, appears in “Toys” (1919) by Carl Ruggles. A mellow neoclassicism
informs two songs of 1943 by Elliott Carter: “Voyage” (to a text by Hart Crane)
and “Warble for Lilac-time” (Walt Whitman). Roger Sessions produced only one
song with piano accompaniment, “On the Beach at Fontana” (1930; James
Joyce). The prolific Henry Cowell wrote but a handful of songs and no song
cycles.
Of the generation of song composers born around 1900, John Duke was the
most prolific, composing more than 250 examples, including a well-known
setting of A.E. Housman’s Loveliest of Trees. Although Aaron Copland came to
song writing somewhat late, his Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1949–50) may be
considered the first truly distinguished American cycle. Another important
Copland group is the Old American Songs (1950, 1952), arrangements that
transcend their origins as folk and minstrel tunes. The songs of Samuel Barber
are of uniformly high quality, featuring sensitive vocal writing and challenging,
evocative accompaniments. Barber was steeped in the vocal idiom, being a
singer himself and the nephew of the opera singer Louise Homer.
Barber’s Hermit Songs (1952–3), set to anonymous and at times ribald late
medieval Irish texts, were written for and first performed by soprano Leontyne
Price. His Three Songs to texts by Joyce (1936) are among the most
atmospherically effective settings of the poems concerned.

3. After World War II.

Four factors had an important impact on the composition of art songs
after 1945: the development of modern American poetry, which provided
composers with a new kind of text; the influence of the expressionistic, serial
music of Schoenberg and Webern, a style that came to dominate progressive
American music after 1950; a growing interest in the expressive and structural
possibilities of sonority, which led composers to seek alternatives to the
traditional piano accompaniment; and the growing acceptance of popular music
and jazz as source material for classical song.
By the mid-20th century American composers could benefit from the rich
maturity of their country’s literature. The personality of the poet, now treated
as an equal partner in the creative process, emerges clearly in songs of differing
musical styles. Two poets, Gertrude Stein and e. e. cummings, have been
especially influential. It was in response to Stein’s poetry that Virgil Thomson
developed his distinctive approach in the 1930s, characterized by simplicity
and a concern for natural text setting. His large output includes several cycles,
including Five Songs to Poems of William Blake (1951) and Praises and Prayers (1963).
The influence of Stein is also evident in the works of John Cage, who set her
poems in the early Three Songs (1932), and in Gunther Schuller’s Meditations(1960)
and William Brooks’s Medley (1978), an anthology which makes use of various
American song styles. Texts by cummings have been set by Cage and Copland,
as well as Morton Feldman, Salvatore Martirano, Marc Blitzstein, David
Diamond, William Bergsma, Celius Dougherty, and John Duke, among many
others.
After 1945 there emerged a distinction between composers specializing in
songs of a traditional sort and those with wider interests. Eminent among the
former is Ned Rorem, whose more than 500 songs cover a range of subjects
almost as wide as Ives’s. His cycle Poems of Love and the Rain (1963) is especially
notable for its ingenious form: each poem is set twice, and the cycle is ordered
palindromically. War Scenes (1969), composed in the midst of the Vietnam War,
features evocative settings of texts by Walt Whitman. Rorem’s Evidence of Things
Not Seen (1997) is the largest song cycle yet written by an American, spanning
nearly 40 songs by 24 different authors. Theodore Chanler and Paul Bowles are
two of the many composers of songs who have adopted conservative, tonal
styles; Chanler’s cycle The Children (1945) approaches the diatonic insouciance of
Poulenc, and Bowles is fearlessly nostalgic in setting such texts as his own Once
a Lady was Here (1946). Dominick Argento, also one of America’s most important
opera composers, has made major contributions to song. His cycle From the Diary
of Virginia Woolf, first performed by mezzo-soprano Janet Baker, won
the 1975Pulitzer Prize in music.
A large group of postwar composers has written in a more dissonant idiom,
using the serial techniques developed by Schoenberg and Webern. This group
includes Milton Babbitt, Ruth Crawford, Wallingford Riegger, Ernst Krenek,
George Rochberg, and George Perle, whose 13 Dickinson Songs (1979) were written
for the soprano Bethany Beardslee. The most adventurous composers have
experimented with new treatments of both text and accompaniments. The
piano parts for Cage’s early Five Songs (1938) are fully notated, but carry no
dynamic markings; the piano is closed in the accompaniment to The Wonderful
Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942); and in later works such as Aria (1958) and
the Song Books (1970) the voice is unaccompanied. Babbitt’s Sounds and
Words (1960) has an abstract phonetic text, influenced perhaps by the verbal
experiments of cummings. And Babbitt is one of many composers who have
combined voice and electronic tape, notably in works such as Vision and
Prayer (1961) and Philomel(1964).
While the popularity of the art song in its traditional guise declined in the later
20th century among more progressive circles, several composers have turned to
an eclectic, neo-tonal approach. One of the most important is David Del Tredici,
whose cycle Chana’s Story (2000) weds contemporary poetry to complex yet
accessible music. Lee Hoiby’s songs include the Broadway-tinged “Where the
Music Comes From” (1974/rev. 1986) and the bluesy “Three Ages of Woman”
(1990). Richard Hundley favors a lyrical idiom in works such as “Come Ready
and See Me” (1971) and “Waterbird” (1988), both to poems by James Purdy.
William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs (1978, 1983) to texts by Arnold Weinstein, reflect
a contemporary reaction to earlier cabaret collections by Schoenberg and
Britten. The broad musical styles range from atonality (“Thius King of Orf”) to
torch song (“George”).
Women composers—including Libby Larsen, Ruth Schonthal, Elizabeth Vercoe,
Joelle Wallach, and Judith Lang Zaimont—have made significant contributions
to a genre previously dominated by men. Larsen’s Love After 1950 (2000) uses
elements of Latin dance (including the tango) to comment on the status of
modern relationships. Lori Laitman’s prolific song output features the
Sondheimesque Metropolitan Tower (1997) and the witty, childlike Men with Small
Heads (2002). Influenced by pioneers such as Burleigh, African American
composers have also made their mark, as in H. Leslie Adams’s numerous
examples and T.J. Anderson’s Songs of Illumination (1989), which features a
conflation of styles drawn from classical, jazz, and hip hop.
A milestone in American song history took place in 1992 with the premiere of
the AIDS Quilt Songbook at New York’s Alice Tully Hall. Organized by baritone
William Parker—who openly stated that classical singers has been largely silent
about AIDS when compared to artists in other fields—the work features intense
musical responses to the disease by eighteen different composers. Daron Aric
Hagen’s Muldoon Songs (1989) and Figments (2002), with texts by Alice Wirth Gray,
reflect thoughtful settings of the texts. Jake Heggie’s introspective approach
and gentle dissonances suits the evocative poetry of Gavin Geoffrey Dillon and
Gini Savage in the three-volume collection titled The Faces of Love (1995–2000).
The songs of Ricky Ian Gordon highlight the intimacy of Emily Dickinson’s Will
There Really be a Morning? (1983)—also set by Laitman, Ernst Bacon, Vincent
Persichetti, and André Previn—and the campy insouciance of Frank
O’Hara’s Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!) (1985). O’Hara has proven a strong
influence on the song output of several recent composers, especially
Christopher Berg, whose musical theater style mirrors aspects of gay urban
experience in Autobiographia Literaria (1991).
Since about 2000, composers have often evoked or cited earlier music,
including Ben Moore, whose “Sexy Lady” (2002), written for mezzo-soprano
Susan Graham, references Mozart and Richard Strauss. Tom Cipullo quotes
classical masterpieces, popular music, and film scores in several of his nearly
200 songs; the poignant cycle Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun in the
House (2000), featuring poetry by Billy Collins, quotes music by Beethoven.
 Contemporary American art song is undergoing a welcome renaissance. Poetic
topics previously ignored or considered off-limits for musical setting (for
example, certain aspects of gender, sexuality, and race) are now more frequent.
At the same time, composers are responding to texts with diverse musical
styles that transcend earlier boundaries. The genre as a whole is more vibrant
today than it has been in at least a generation, which bodes well for its future.

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