Stylistic Traits

Superficially means of separating composers can be accomplished by labeling them as simply German, Spanish, Italian, or even American. While these distinctions are valid, they are valid for a much deeper reason than simply a given composer was born or lived a significant portion of his life in a given country.

For example, the music of Griffes is on a very superficial label American because Griffes was born and wrote much of his music in America. But because of how similar his music is to that of Debussy, could he not be labeled a French composer? Or could he be labeled a German Composer because of the five years he spent in Berlin studying composition at the conservatory.

The same can be true of Mozart even. What makes his music German as opposed to Italian, since Mozart actually made multiple trips to Italy, and even wrote Italian Operas? Would we not then be forced to look at Mozart as being merely of the German ethnicity while writing Italian music?

An emphatic no must be given to both Griffes and Mozart's scenarios. True, they adopted music that came from other sources. However, when one observes the definition of adoption, the scenario becomes much clearer to the reader. Adoption, in the case of children, is the state of taking children to be one's own, giving them the legal rights and privileges of now belonging to the adoptee.

The case of these two composers and other composers is no different. While the music is obviously of another culture, the composer has taken it, and put his stamp on it as being distinctly his.

In addition, the ethnicity aspect of this question becomes quite fascinating when one pursues the issue on a deeper level. Music has always been associated with the human voice, due to the aspect of singing songs of cultural and religious importance. In addition, the music has to fit the aural character of the language. German, for example, tends to be a heavier language due to the guttural nature of the vocal sounds required, whereas French tends to be lighter due to the delicate sounds of the vowels.

Now these linguistic distinctions translate into music quite nicely. French music tends to be lighter and not very ponderous, whereas German music tends to be heavy and very stately. Obviously, even without the presence of the vocal parts, no one would think that Debussy or any Frenchman had written the Ring Cycle, whereas no would ever mistake Bruckner or Mahler for having written La Mer.

Even with musical styles that are obviously borrowed as in the aforementioned cases with Mozart or Griffes the same would hold true, but one would need to descend to a deeper level in order to comprehend what is occurring. While much of the music would lead one to mistakenly believe Debussy or Ravel had written one of Griffes pieces, by listening very closely, one realizes that it is a highly skillful imitation of Debussy. Griffes music (as listened to in the last class period) has a somewhat stronger feeling of direction, both melodically and in a somewhat lesser case harmonically speaking, than music written by Debussy. In addition (as pointed out by Kyle last class period) the orchestration is thicker, something one would tend to expect from a German composer, not from a Frenchman. Obviously, the music of Griffes is a synthesis, written in the language of a composer from the United States.

The conclusion from this should lead to an exploration of the music of earlier composers of the USA. While they in fact did borrow heavily from other nationalities and (as discussed in my blog post last week) created different nationality schools within the USA, their music is very much music indigenous to the USA. The borrowed materials from other composers from other countries, when examined very closely, is nothing more than a synthesis held together by bonds distinctly that of a composer of the USA.