Frontier Figures - American Music and the Mythology of the American West

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-520-26776-3
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 14, 470 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 764 g

Reihe: California Studies in 20th-Century Music

Frontier Figures is a tour-de-force exploration of how the American West, both as physical space and inspiration, animated American music. Examining the work of such composers as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Charles Wakefield Cadman, and Arthur Farwell, Beth E. Levy addresses questions of regionalism, race, and representation as well as changing relationships to the natural world to highlight the intersections between classical music and the diverse worlds of Indians, pioneers, and cowboys. Levy draws from an array of genres to show how different brands of western Americana were absorbed into American culture by way of sheet music, radio, lecture recitals, the concert hall, and film. Frontier Figures is a comprehensive illumination of what the West meant and still means to composers living and writing long after the close of the frontier.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Levy, Beth E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Ethnopsychologie, Kulturpsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Kunst, Musik, Tanz
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Sitten, Traditionen, Mythen, Legenden
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kunstethnologie, Musikethnologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: The Course of Empire

Chapter 1. The Wa-Wan and the West
Chapter 2. Western Democracy, Western Landscapes, Western Music

Part Two. Western Encounters: Charles Wakefield Cadman and Others
Chapter 3. Encountering Indians
Chapter 4. Staging the West

Part Three. American Pastorals
Chapter 5. West of Eden
Chapter 6. Power in the Land
Chapter 7. Harvest Home

Part Four. Roy Harris: Provincial Cowboy, White Hope
Chapter 8. How Roy Harris Became Western
Chapter 9. Manifest Destiny
Chapter 10. The Composer as Folk Singer

Part Five. Aaron Copland: From Orient to Occident
Chapter 11. The Saga of the Prairies
Chapter 12. Communal Song, Cosmopolitan Song
Chapter 13. Copland and the Cinematic West

Conclusion: On the Trail

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Beth E. Levy is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis.