"Beth Levy has written an elegant work of depth and breadth that gives generous space to the idea of the American West. Her discussions of more than a dozen composers and their works—some usual suspects, others rather unexpected—reveal the 'varied musical ecosystems of the west.' Levy takes us with her on the trail in prose that is by turns pithy and poetic, but always spot on."—Denise Von Glahn, author of The Sounds of Place: Music and the American Cultural Landscape

“Big and bold as the terrain it covers, Beth Levy’s Frontier Figures takes us on a gratifying road trip, traversing American ‘classical’ compositions that conjure up landscapes from the Middle West to the shores of the Pacific. En route, we encounter many now-famous composers, such as Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson, along with others who have faded from view. Throughout, Levy treats the ‘West’ as both geographic location and mythologized ideal, demonstrating its power on the American musical imagination.”—Carol Oja, author of Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s.

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

Frontier Figures

American Music and the Mythology of the American West

By Beth E. Levy

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 2012 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-26778-7

Contents

List of Illustrations, ix,
Acknowledgments, xi,
Abbreviations, xv,
Introduction: The Course of Empire, 1,
PART ONE. ARTHUR FARWELL'S WEST,
1. The Wa-Wan and the West, 23,
2. Western Democracy, Western Landscapes, Western Music, 56,
PART TWO. WESTERN ENCOUNTERS: CHARLES WAKEFIELD CADMAN AND OTHERS,
3. Encountering Indians, 87,
4. Staging the West, 124,
PART THREE. AMERICAN PASTORALS,
5. West of Eden, 155,
6. Power in the Land, 179,
7. Harvest Home, 204,
PART FOUR. ROY HARRIS: PROVINCIAL COWBOY, WHITE HOPE,
8. How Roy Harris Became Western, 227,
9. Manifest Destiny, 246,
10. The Composer as Folk Singer, 268,
PART FIVE. AARON COPLAND: FROM ORIENT TO OCCIDENT,
11. The Saga of the Prairies, 293,
12. Communal Song, Cosmopolitan Song, 317,
13. Copland and the Cinematic West, 351,
Conclusion: On the Trail, 369,
Notes, 375,
Selected Bibliography, 421,
Index, 437,

CHAPTER 1

The Wa-Wan and the West

THE RAGGED EDGE OF HISTORY

If on the afternoon of 27 April 1919, you found yourself seated at the Greek Theatre on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, you would have witnessed and most likely been asked to participate in California: A Masque of Music. With musical numbers and libretto crafted by Arthur Farwell and personnel recruited from the ranks of the Berkeley Music Department, the masque places a toga-clad personification of California in the company of the muses: "California! 'tis a name Worthy of Apollo's nine; 'tis music's self/Soft syllabled upon the silent air." Only six of the nine muses grace the stage, but California seems destined to join their number if she can pass the musical "tests" set forth by Apollo and the Spirit of Ancient Greece. Having produced the requisite instrumentalists from isolated corners of the outdoor amphitheater, California musters her forces for the final test: choral song. "From hill, from canyon, shore and fragrant grove,/From city, vineyard, white Sierras' snows,/With summons far I call you to this shrine/ ... O noble children of our Western world."

Springing as it does from the mouth of California, "our Western world" is a deliberately ambiguous phrase, and this ambiguity lies at the heart of Farwell's West. If early twentieth-century California represented the endpoint of westward expansion in the United States, the golden reward of America's Manifest Destiny, it also occupied a special spot on the continuum of "Western civilization." Though mythological, the masque is set explicitly in "the present," and it privileges symbolic meanings over strict adherence to chronology. In the first scene, for example, three groups are conjured up in turn to sing Farwell's own arrangements. Each chorus features a tune transcribed by an ethnologist, and each setting reflects the tension that would forever mark Farwell's approach to the West: on the one hand, a scientific emphasis on anthropological fact; on the other, a subjective identification bordering on rapture:

"First let the [inserted: red] race speak, whose plaintive strain/Charms the divinities of wood and plain." (The division of the chorus on one side, accompanied by the orchestra, sings the "Bird Dance of the Cahuillas")

"The black race now, redeemed from slavery's smart,/Pathetic-humorous in its artless art." (The division of the chorus on the other side sings the "Moanin' Dove")

"Last the bold race who bore across the main/To California's shores, romantic Spain."

(Both divisions of the chorus together sing "Chata cara de bule.")

This gradual introduction of ethnic groups reflects something other than actual demographic data. While it might make historical sense to give Indians pride of place, the Spanish settled California long before there was a substantial black population—let alone an English-speaking, spiritual-singing black population. Instead, it is tempting to see in this ethnic procession Farwell's implicit judgment about the relative usefulness of each group's music to the task at hand: ensuring that the western United States could take up the artistic mantle of ancient Greece.

For Farwell, Indian song represented a uniquely valuable resource and a necessary starting point in the creation of "a new art-life" for America—a project in which black music occupied an explicit but historically uncomfortable middle ground. While Farwell recognized the spiritual as a resource for the community singing movement, he preferred to speak of "Spanish folksongs" whose value was in his eyes "beyond all power to estimate or predict." Therefore, in the masque, it is "romantic Spain" who eventually ascends to stand beside California and the muses.

But this is not where Farwell's California masque ends. After the choral groups unite and ascend the stage, they perform music that emphasizes the union of diverse populations and draws the largely Anglo audience into Farwell's vision: a medley of university fight songs, followed by "Hail California." The Spirit of Ancient Greece reminds California that song holds the key to national cohesion. The chorus responds with Farwell's wartime anthem "Our Country's Prayer," sparking an on-stage discussion of religion. The Spirit of Ancient Greece invokes Almighty Zeus, but her plea goes unanswered. Instead, the audience is invited to join California's chorus, singing praise, in Farwell's words, to "the God that IS." All present rise and sing an amply foreshadowed "Battle Hymn of the Republic." By the end, the regional has been subsumed into the national and even the supranational through the invocation of a larger, vaguely Christian world. The western vantage point seems all but forgotten. Yet its human and natural resources were crucial at every step of the way.

The same might be said for Farwell's career. His early and most influential years were almost wholly identified with Indian-inspired material and the Wa-Wan Press (1901–11). At midcareer, his involvement with the community chorus movement, initiated during World War I and reaching its height during his years in California (1918–27), placed him on the front lines of a national campaign. By the 1940s, Farwell was inclined to express himself in polytonal experiments and ruminations about creative intuition that bear no regional references. While the composer's later projects seem to leave the West behind, their outlook remained consistent with his Indianist aesthetic and his community chorus work. Indeed, I aim to show how deeply and purposefully intertwined these visions were.

A "NEW ART LIFE" FOR AMERICA

Although his attitudes toward Indians would never completely slough off their skin of exoticism, Farwell found in Indian ritual a valuable example of the power of music to unify and sanctify a community. He chose to name his signature achievement, the Wa-Wan Press, after an Omaha ceremony of unity and coming-of-age; under its banner he wished to bring together American composers and to celebrate their new artistic maturity. Farwell founded the press in Newton Center, Massachusetts, two years after returning from his European studies and finding no ready publisher for his scores. As he remarked in his "Letter to American Composers,"...