The 1880s and 1890s

New York grew dramatically in population and musical activity in the 1880s and 1890s. Bristow was still respected and admired but now as a venerable musician who was out-of-step with current developments (he was never a Wagnerian). His performing activity diminished; he resigned from the Philharmonic Society in 1882. He joined the New York Manuscript Society, suggesting continued support for American musicians. He resumed writing songs and character pieces for piano (including “Plantation Melodies,” perhaps in response to Antonin Dvořák). He revised Rip Van Winkle and wrote the overture Jibbenainosay (1886) as well as the Mass in C (1885) and his choral symphony, Niagara (1893).

Vocal and Choral Symphonies and Considerations on Text Representation in Music

The article examines the genres of the vocal and the choral symphony in connection with the author’s vocal symphony Finland for soprano, tenor and orchestra set to Evgeny Baratynsky’s poem with the same title. It also discusses the issue of expression of the literary text in vocal music, as viewed by a number of influential 19th and 20th century composers, music theorists and artists. Among the greatest examples of the vocal symphony are Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Symphonie. These works combine in an organic way the features of the symphony and the song cycle. The genre of the choral symphony started with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and includes such works as Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony, Scriabin’s First Symphony and Mahler’s Second, Third and Eighth Symphonies. Both genres exemplify composers’ attempts to combine the most substantial genre of instrumental music embodying the composers’ philosophical worldviews with that of vocal music, which expresses the emotional content of the literary texts set to music. The issue of expressivity in music is further elaborated in examinations of various composers’ approaches to it. Wagner claimed that the purpose of music was to express the composers’ emotional experience and especially the literary texts set to music. Stravinsky expressed the view that music in its very essence is not meant to express emotions. He called for an emotionally detached approach to music and especially to text settings in vocal music. Schoenberg pointed towards a more introversive and abstract approach to musical expression and text setting in vocal music, renouncing outward depiction for the sake of inner expression. Similar attitudes to this position were held by painter Wassily Kandinsky and music theorist Theodor Adorno. The author views Schoenberg’s approach to be the most viable for 20th and early 21st century music.

Triumphs and Tribulations

This chapter focuses on Kernis's music in the years 1995–2001. In 1995, the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored Kernis with a $7,500 prize to facilitate a recording. During the following five years, Kernis would continue down the “road of excess,” churning out new works at a prodigious rate. In the summer of 1995, Kernis appeared for the first time as one of the featured composers at the Cabrillo Music Festival in Santa Cruz, California—a two-week contemporary music extravaganza held annually since 1963. Commissions also added to Kernis's increasing renown—he received one in August 1995 from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for an arrangement of piano music, another in September from the Birmingham Bach Choir for a short choral work, and a third in October from the Chicago Symphony for a choral symphony. Meanwhile, Kernis was frantically working on the Double Concerto for Violin and Guitar, which continued to give him trouble.