The Land That Shapes Us

It’s hard to decide if William Schuman made a greater impact upon American musical life as a composer or as a music administrator, for he enjoyed a most distinguished career as both.  Born in the Bronx, his early musical life revolved around popular music; he composed a tango as his first effort and formed his own dance band. As a very young man he collaborated with the great Frank Loesser and Edward B. Marks.  But his career in publishing popular songs gradually was brought to an end when he went to his first symphony concert at the age of twenty, hearing Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic.   He thereupon dropped out of business school and started music studies at the Juilliard School and the Salzburg Mozarteum, and ultimately earned bachelors and masters degrees from Columbia.  His early mentor was Roy Harris, and the latter remained an important musical influence upon him.  His compositions—especially his second symphony—came to the notice of such luminaries as Copland and Koussevitzky, and by the early nineteen forties, the commissions and honors came rolling in. 

In 1945, after teaching at Sarah Lawrence for ten years, he became president of the Juilliard School.  During his tenure there he made a profound impact upon the organization of the school, initiating too many changes to list.  In 1962 he became president of Lincoln Center in New York City, locating the Juilliard School as part of the complex, and founding such programs as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Film Society.  After he retired from Lincoln Center he went on to other distinguished positions in musical leadership.  No wonder that in 1962 he was the first guest on the CBS game show, “What’s My Line?”! 

While he composed in many genres, his nine symphonies, other orchestral works, and his vocal music are his most significant.  New England Triptych is a setting of three hymns by the important New England composer of the time of the American Revolution, William Billings (1846-1800).  Schuman wrote: “His works capture the spirit of sinewy ruggedness, deep religiosity, and patriotic fervor that we associate with the Revolutionary period in American history.”  The first movement skillfully weaves together different parts of Billings’ hymn, showing Schuman’s preference for clear separation of orchestral colors.   The second movement features solo bassoon, and then accompanying oboe, in a kind of round, following Billings’ original.  The last movement is a spirited evocation of the hymn that became the Colonial Army’s marching song: 

 Let tyrants shake their iron rod, 

And slavery clank her galling chains, 

We fear them not, we trust in God, 

New England’s God forever reigns.  

–Wm. E. Runyan 

Notes on The Colorado, from the composer

I. Closer to God / No Idle Engine

In the 1965 booklet Lake Powell: Jewel of the Colorado, Floyd Dominy (Commissioner, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, champion of the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell) wrote, “There is a natural order in our universe. God created both Man and Nature. And Man serves God. But nature serves Man. Man cannot improve upon Nature. But— as he has since before dawn of history— man must continue to adapt Nature to his needs…To have a deep blue lake where no lake was before seems to bring Man a little closer to God.” Emerging American water policy in the 20th century was ostensibly guided by that same principle: a natural resource not harnessed to its full economic potential was an engine of power, wealth and growth left idle. The question and problem of whether that engine was sustainable were left for a future generation. 

II. Canyon Dam

What happens when a canyon— its living ecosystem, echoey rock formations, and personal, cultural and archeological significance— is submerged? 

III. Short of the Pacific  

For generations, the Colorado flowed about 1450 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, where it met an arm of the Pacific. Now, it rarely reaches the Colorado River Delta, dispersed throughout the American West and the seven basin states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) that depend on it for everyday life. About 10 percent of all the water that flows from ice melt into the Colorado finally reaches Mexico, where it slows and trickles out in the desert about 100 miles short of the sea.  

After Respighi moved permanently to Rome in 1913–at the time, a center of orchestral concerts in Italy–he turned more attention to the composition of instrumental music.  His first big success was the symphonic poem, Fountains of Rome, from 1916, although it did not garner accolades immediately.  But, by the early 1920s it was fast becoming an international hit, and he was on his way to world-wide recognition—not to speak of a much more secure financial future.  He followed up on this success with two more symphonic poems evocative of his home:  Pines of Rome (1924) and Roman Festivals (1926).  Collectively, they are often known as his “Roman trilogy.”  They all are showpieces for orchestra, spectacular evidence of his mastery of orchestration, vivid musical imagination, and flamboyant penchant for instrumental color.  He had listened well to his predecessors who were successful in this vein. 

Pines of Rome is cast into four movements, all using the conceit of pine trees that happen to be growing by various evocative Roman locations to tie everything together.   Respighi scored the work for a large orchestra:  the usual and familiar full complement, with additions of piano, organ, celesta, off-stage brass band, and (for the first time in musical history), a sound recording of a bird.  All of these resources receive a full workout.  What else would one expect from a composer who, in a later composition (Brazilian Impressions) adroitly depicted snakes and spiders in a Jungle research institute! Pines of Rome was an immediate hit; Toscanini was so enamored with it that he included it in the first concert—and nineteen years later, the last—that he conducted with the New York Philharmonic. 

The first movement,  “Pines of the Villa Borghese,” is a sparkling, lilting evocation of children playing on a Sunday morning, madly dashing about, full of youthful delight.  The Villa Borghese is one of the largest public gardens in Rome, built in the informal English garden style, containing spectacular plantings, lakes, pathways, and buildings.  It has long been a favorite with tourists and natives alike, and Respighi conjures up a bright musical context that depicts the cheerful setting. A filigree of attractive rhythmic figures and simple tunes clearly evoking childhood mirth sustains the fun-filled, light-hearted atmosphere.   Woodwind trills, cheeky dissonances, glissandi in the harps and keyboards, high register brass, and the complete absence of “gloomy” low instruments sustain the joy. 

It abruptly ends, though, as we enter the dark world of a catacomb.  The second movement (“Pines Near a Catacomb”) is set in the malarial region of the Roman campagna, abandoned in ancient times, but with extraordinary stark beauty.  The ominous, dark atmosphere of the burial caverns is aptly portrayed by most of the instruments that we did not hear in the first movement.  Trombones, with the deepest of organ notes beneath them, don the garb of priests as they solemnly chant the melodies of the dead. The gloom is then broken by a shimmering solo trumpet, offstage in a lonely elegy.  The chanting soon returns, building to a huge climax, more affirmatively, perhaps alluding to triumph over death.  All soon dies down (no pun intended), as the brass returns to a crespular chant. 

The “Pines of the Janiculum” is a tranquil visit at night to the prominent hill west of Rome where St. Peter is popularly thought to have been crucified, and which is now the site of a number of universities, colleges, and academies.  It offers a spectacular view of Rome, and is named after the Roman god, Janus, who famously looked simultaneously in two opposite directions: the past and the future.  This movement is a nocturne, opened by the gong and piano, introducing various woodwind solos that quietly evoke the moon on the pines.  Apparently, a nightingale is perched in one of them, for as the music gradually fades away in trills, his song is faintly heard. 

The nightingale is chased away, and the mood is ominously broken by the distant tread of the Roman Legions on the Appian Way (“Pines of the Appian Way”), beginning far off, perhaps in the morning mist, as they grow inexorably closer.  A sinuous solo in the English horn adds a bit of mystery.  Fanfares are heard, both in the orchestra and in the off-stage band that portrays the ancient Roman buccine—the large circular horns familiar from Roman mosaics.  Everyone in the orchestra gradually joins in as the Legions march closer, and the music grows inevitably to a paroxysm of aural grandeur.  It’s one of the most impressive moments in orchestral sound, and never fails to please.