American Music in the Twentieth Century

Kyle Gann is one of a vanishingly small group of people writing about and attempting to create a public for contemporary composition in the U.S. (He claims via e-mail to be the ONLY one!) This book is unique in covering developments over the past century exclusively in the States, and thus giving more coverage to lesser-known composers. For instance, I had never heard of Roger Reynolds before reading Gann's book, and he is now one of my favorites. (For books that place American developments in the context of developments in Europe, I recommend Morgan's "Twentieth-Century Music" and Griffiths' "Modern Music and After," which begins after WW2.) I used to read Gann's column in the Village Voice back in the late 80s, but the scene he described sounded too dry and formalistic to pursue. Now I am finally catching up with contemporary "classical" music and can better appreciate Gann's contribution. His last section is on post-minimalist developments he groups together and calls "totalism." Sad to say, this music seems to have a "minimal" audience outside of small districts in NYC and perhaps the Bay Area, despite its attempt at populism, incorporating rock and intersecting with jazz as well in the so-called Downtown scene (John Zorn, the Knitting Factory, Tzadik Records). Of course avant-garde music will probably always be marginal, and here's to Gann and all those who keep it alive!

I was so impressed by Kyle's book, after receiving my music degree, I moved from Colorado to Redhook, NY to study composition privately with him. As a music major, I was tired of hearing about the same old dead composers semester after semester. American Music in the Twentiuth Century, however, discusses what's really happening in the art music scene, up through the 1990's. Read this book, and learn about "totalism," to me, the final frontier of eclectic art music.

Scholarly research on 20th century music in the United States is ubiquitous. Unfortunately, a majority of these works simply focus on American composers inheritance of European technique. Kyle Gann's book, "American Music in the 20th Century," breaks this trend. Although Gann spends an obligatory amount of time on the forefathers of contemporary music in the U.S., the main portion of this book deals directly with music written in the past fifty years. Also refreshing, Gann provide readers with insightful information on women and minority composers. One chapter is dedicated solely to the development and current status of electronic music in the U.S. Kyle Gann's book provides the necessary tools for an individual who wishess to answer the question, "What is American Music?"