Book Browsing
Abstract
BOOK BROWSING An American Music. Barbara L. Tischler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 225 pp. Hardcover, $24.95. This book is appropriately subtitled “The Search for an American Musical Identity.” For much of our history, Americans have felt musically and artistically inferior to Europe, and many people believed that a complete break from European influence was necessary in order for the United States to develop a distinct American music. Barbara Tischler tells how our music evolved into the major cultural force it is today. World War I saw a hostility toward many standard works by German composers, and the void left by this absence left Americans more open to the newly created works of the 1920s. Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, and others trained in modernism and using such American sources as folk music and jazz finally created an “indigenous American music.” They did so by using the inspiration of musical ideas found both at home and abroad. An international influence greatly enriched the American idiom. Extensive notes, bibliography, and an index round out this look at our musical heritage. Rhythm in Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. Edited by James R. Evans and Manfred Clynes. Springfield, Illinois: