We humans like to organize, categorize, and label things. This is usually a good thing. Organizing food into specific groups (meat, vegetables, grains, etc.) helps to prepare our tongues for what we are about to eat. Labelling a piece as “French Baroque” helps us know what sort of sounds we will be hearing. On the other hand, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see how social categorization of human beings can cause huge damage.

So, what about the word “modern“? Does it mean turn-of-the-20th-century, or just current/contemporary? When exactly was (or is) “modern music” written? Is it an intellectual concept rather than a time period? Or perhaps it’s just coded talk for “ugly”? I offer no answers here – the best I can do is point out that the context of the conversation changes how we use the word.

I’m imagining your average high school or college level music appreciation class. The time comes for the 20th century – “modern music”! Without a doubt, the Rite of Spring is played, and enthusiastic discussion ensues. If it’s a high school class, the performance is probably accompanied by the dancing dinos of Fantasia, while college students get to hear stories of riots, orgies, human sacrifice. What ends up happening is that the Rite ends up becoming the piece that defines what modern music is supposed to sound like. Later, when these students hear Stravinsky‘s later works (labelled “neoclassical” and “serial“), they are shocked that it sounds so completely different.

There might have been a riot at the premiere of the Rite, but not because of the ground-breaking modern sound. Five years before, Arnold Schoenberg (who, as a Jew, was labelled by the Nazis as “degenerate”) wrote his Five Pieces for Orchestra. Knowing this piece came first, the Rite almost seems like a step backwards toward romanticism. Fifty years later, Pierre Boulez would label Schoenberg as not modern enough.

Be careful with labels.

This is just the first movement. Listen to the full 5 pieces here.

Let’s rewind to the 1930’s. There was a group of American composers who were working to create a “truly American” sound in Art Music composition. This group included Aaron Copland (he was the unofficial leader), Samuel Barber, William Grant Still, Walter Piston, and many others. They were nearly all taught by the greatest 20th century teacher of composition, Nadia Boulanger. They were continuing the work of Charles Ives, Amy Beach, and even William Billings, in the search for an American musical identity.

This non-exhaustive group includes women, men, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, gays, straights, and the disabled. What could be more American as Chester, Appalachian Spring, or the Afro-American Symphony?

The Un-American Activities Committee was formed in 1938, and ultimately led to the Red Scare of the 50’s. Copland and Bernstein were among those who were under investigation for Communist activities. So … Make America Great Again? If we had eliminated Copland and Bernstein for their leftist leaning, would we have been great? If we suppressed Beach for being a woman, Still for being black, or Barber for being gay, would we have been great? If we deported Schoenberg, Hindemith, Yi, or so many others for being refugees, would we have been great?

So today I present American composer Roy Harris‘ Third Symphony, his most famous work and considered the most “American” (whatever that means). His story is the quintessential “rags to riches” American tale – an Oklahoma farmboy rises to the top of the music world. He wrote a piece for the American bicentennial, which was panned because it mentioned slavery (how Un-American, to mention a major part of American history!)

So, the unsure future we’re facing isn’t new; even so, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stand up against it.

We humans naturally compare our lives to the world around us – the start of life at spring, the fruits of summer, the autumnal decline, the dead winter. We find these cycles in many different aspects of our lives, not to mention our own existence. November, therefore, might be a time when we prepare for death, Thanksgiving, like a joyous last meal. Some people find this morbid, but, I find it comforting. Why else would we devote so much time and energy surrounding the end of our lives if not to bring some peace? We have religious practices to prepare us, social rituals to go through to help us through the loss of a loved one, and of course, art!

Johannes Brahms was utterly heartbroken when his mother died; he nursed his spirit back to health by writing what has become one of his best-loved works, his German Requiem.

Brahms’ mother died in February 1865; by the end of the year, he had written most of the Requiem. It is not a liturgical work – it is better described as a sacred concert work. It is a collection of Bible verses, sung in German, that gently take the listener through the stages of grief. Eighteen months later, Brahms completed a movement for soprano solo – some say it is his mother’s voice, singing from heaven:

And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice …
as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.

Perhaps Brahms had finally come to terms with his mother’s passing.

It is necessary to note that Brahms was an agnostic; still, he chose to set religious texts. I don’t think this is that bizarre, really. Plenty of people with no religious beliefs will arrange for a religious funeral for themselves or a loved one. Even if the belief isn’t there, comfort can be found in moving through the rituals. You don’t need to understand German or be a Christian for this music to move you to tears. It is simply a human work – which I believe is exactly what Brahms intended.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.