Текст Лекции (изначальный) (1157952), страница 34
Текст из файла (страница 34)
Music
Music in the USA is extremely varied. The ensuing generations of European immigrants brought with them the classical music and their German, Scottish and Irish folk ballads. Later America produced her own music. Railroad workers, cowboys and miners composed their songs about work, life and love. Black slaves’ songs, preserving the rhythms and intonations of African tribes, acquired new features under the influence of Puritan hymns, resulting in Black hymns “spirituals” which are considered by many musicians as the highest achievement of American folk art. Black spirituals such as “Nobody Knows the Trouble”, “When the Saints set off Machining” or “Go Down, Mosses” are remembered, sung and played even now. The list of folksong types in the USA includes Afro-American narrative songs or ballads, the Spanish narrative corride dance, Negro blues, spirituals, work songs, hymns, primitive Indian chants and prayers and the various European marches and ballads. In addition, there are superstitions, sayings, proverbs, and jokes that go with every national and racial group.
Jazz is a mixture of West African folklore with the work songs the slaves sang and religious gospel music originated in church. Jazz, initially a musical talk from downcast people to other downcast people, by the 1920-40s had become popular among all people irrespective of their class or job distinctions or political views. The first jazz bands were formed in the late 1800s.They played in bars and clubs in the South, especially in New Orleans.
The first American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) enlivened his “serious” music with plantation melodies and Caribbean rhythms from his New Orleans jazz bands.. He was the first American pianist to achieve international recognition, but his early death contributed to his relative obscurity.
George Gershwin (1898-1937) was also one of the first to use Afro-American melodies in his music. Together with his brother he created world famous opera “Porgy and Bess” and two musical comedies “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris” which included jazz rhythms and blues.
Aaron Copland(1900-90) indulged his interest in jazz as well. Besides writing symphonies, concertos, and an opera, he composed the scores for several films. He is best known, however, for his ballet scores, which draw on American folk songs; among them are “Billy the Kid”, “Rodeo”. Copland chose a traditional Quaker religious song as one of the main themes for “Appalachian Spring”, which celebrated life in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern region of the United States.
The orchestras of Duke Ellington, Count William Basie, Frank Sinatra and Glemm Miller became the universal musical culture, which all Americans are proud of. Among the outstanding jazz musicians there are the names of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald.
Composers Arthur Schwartz and Richard Rodgers should also be mentioned. The songs “Yellow River”, “Night and Day”, “Tea for Two” crossed national boundaries and became popular in Europe. Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was born in freed slave musical family and managed to mix African beat with classical European music. His wonderful style became known to both black and white musicians as Ragtime in the early 1900s.
Thirty years after jazz another kind of popular music appeared – big beat (big rhythm). In 1954 the disc jockey Alan Freed started to broadcast the Black rhythm-and-blues records. He called this music Rock-and-roll after an old blues “My Baby Rocks Me in a Steady Roll”. The 50s were also marked in the USA by the enormous success of the most famous rock “n” roll superstar singer and guitar player Elvis Presley (1935-77). What was new in his performance was aggression, sexuality together with Black blues and white romantic crooning and sentiment. Having broken all the standards, he became particularly admired by the young people. His songs “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Hound Dog”, “Blue Suede Shoes” and many others were recorded in multimillion copies. To rock and roll enthusiasts Presley got to symbolize not only a rock and roll singer but also a new youth culture. Among other things, this culture developed its own vocabulary, ways of dressing, even hairstyle. It even began to reject socially approved ideas and ways of behaving.
Later rock-and-roll blended with the protest songs of the 1960s to become rock, the music that was harder and less escapist. Rock became both an American and international phenomenon. Millions of young people worldwide saw it as their natural cultural language, a symbol of opposition to officially approved ideas and standards. Rock composers have always tried to represent the authentic sound of spoken English, and have therefore written what they have heard, rather then used standard spellings. Hard rock became bigger and louder than any beat before it, simply because it was amplified and very noisy.
There are lots of superstars these days; among fifteen number one hits there are the ones of Madonna, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Cindy Birdsong. In the 1970-80s Michael Jackson made his fantastic career. In addition to live performances he produced a lot of records, CDs and video clips. His particular ability to combine extraordinary gracious movements with singing brought him fame all the world round.
Some young musicians combined their vocal and composer masteries with their dramatic skills (so-called “performance”). The talented singer Diamond Galas (1955) using a very gloomy vampire stage image and lots of technical and light effects created unsurpassed emotional performances full of energy and expressions. Joan La Barbara (1947) possessing a wonderful vocal technique brilliantly experiments with modern compositions written by her husband Morton Subotnic and chamber music easily passing from charming whispering and thrilling moans to anxious beast cries. Black composer Anthony Davis (1951) improvises with l modernism, ,jazz and Indian rhythms.
Besides folk and pop music so-called “serious” music is also very famous. The greatesr opera house “Metropolitan Opera” is located in New York, but there plenty of other ones. Now live performances of classical music are held in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other cities, many of which are famous for their orchestras and conductors. There are over 1500 orchestras throughout the country, many of which can be termed “major” or world-class. The symphony “The Last Alice” (1976) by David Del-Tredichy written on Luis Carol’s “Alice in Wonderland” is successfully played by Chicago symphonic orchestra.
School and university ensembles and orchestras play a very important role throughout the country to bring up the level of the culture of young people.. There are hundreds of city, state and nationwide music competitions. In addition, the universities provide cultural offerings in many areas of the nation, especially in smaller places, which would otherwise find it difficult to support a major symphony or concert.
In the 20PthP century besides George Gershwin and Aaron Copland there appeared the number of very talented composers: Leonard Bernstein (1919-80) who wrote two ballets, an opera and the music for “West Side Story”, Philip Glass and Stiven Polus whose operas were staged in New York and Minneapolis (state Minnesota). Some modern composer experimented with moderns forms. ' composition “Keys to the City” devoted to the Centenary of the Brooklyn Bridge is a very complex weave of romantic concert traditions with the city noises and folklore elements and jazz.
One of the very popular genre in the USA “musicals” have truly American origin. The first popular musical was “Oklahoma», performed in the 1940s. Since “Oklahoma” many musical plays have appeared on the American stage. Among the most noteworthy musicals there were “On your Toes”(1966) with original George Balanchire choreography, “Funny Face”, “My One and Only” based on Gershwins shows. Very successful musicals were also “ My Fair Lady”, the musical version of B. Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and “West Side Story”, portraying tense and hostile relationships between the Puertoricans and native New Yorkers. The musicals”Cats”, “A Chorus Line» and “Hair” are ones of the longest-running shows on Broadway.
Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20PthP century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form - modern dance. American choreographers searched for new methods of expression. Merce Cunningham (1919) introduced improvisation and raqndom movement into performances. Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) incorporated African dance elements and black music into his works. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), who stressed pure, unstructured movement in classical ballet.
The first American ballet troupes were founded in the 1930s, when dancers and choreographers teamed up with visionary lovers of ballet such as Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) who invited Russian choreographer George Balanchine (1904-1983) to the United States in 1933. The two established the School of American Ballet, which became the New York City Ballet in 1948. Ballet manager and publicity agent Richard Pleasant (1909-1961) founded America’s second leading ballet organization, American Ballet Theatre, with dancer and patron Lucia Chase (1907-1986) in 1940.
While Pleasant included Russian classics in his repertoires, G. Balanchine announced that his American company would mix classical idioms with the new forms. Since then, the American ballet scene has been a mixture of classical revivals and very original works, choreographed by such talented former dancers as Jerome Robbins, Robert Joffrey , Eliot Feld, Arthur Mitchell, and Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov..
New World, New Architecture
American architects of the later 19PthP – 20PthP centuries found themselves in a world being reshaped by science, industry, and speed. The needs of a new American society pressed them, while steel, reinforced concrete, cast iron and electricity were among the many new technical means at their disposal. The 20PthP-century architecture often approached engineering, expanding and incorporating modern stylistic elements, and works such as the Brooklyn Bridge by John and Washington Roebling (1869-83) number among the most impressive of all American achievements. The 20PthP-century architecture often approached engineering, expanding and incorporating modern stylistic elements.
For many people the symbol of America. is New York Manhattan skyline. The origin of skyscrapers can be traced back more than a hundred years to the American Midwest and has become the result of a need for more working and living space in places where the cost of land was very high. During the end of the 19PthP century and beginning of the 20PthP the great number of high, narrow buildings began to rise not only in New York, but also in the center of Chicago and some other American cities. Each skyscraper was built around a framework of steel beams, which carried the weight of the building. The walls of the early skyscrapers were often made of stone, but later of glass and metal. They give the images not only of modernity and technical progress but also of visual expression to the impact of the United States on the world. Among the world’s tallest buildings there are the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931).Still today, despite the loss of the World Trade Center towers, no city in the world has more completed individual free-standing buildings over 500 ft.(152 m.) than New York City with its 184 so-called skyscrapers.
From the 1930s onwards, skyscrapers also began to appear in Latin America and Asia .Now Hong Kong comes in with the most in the world (186). From the late 1950s and the early 1960s skyscrapers began to appear in Africa, the Middle East and Australia.
Immediately after World War 11, the Soviet Union planned eight massive skyscrapers dubbed “Stalin Towers” for Moscow, seven of which were built. The rest of Europe also slowly began to permit skyscrapers, starting with Madrid in Spain during the 1950-60s.
The Americanization of popular taste and habits was not restricted to music, movies and architecture.From supermarkets to hot dogs, from Coca-Cola, Chewing Gum to nylon fiber and blue jeans – all these things which are so common to people of very many countries were born in the USA .In many areas of life American popular tastes and attitudes have conquered the world
The first supermarkets appeared in the USA in the 1950s. With their huge variety of foods and other consumer goods supermarkets gave the American shoppers a visible proof of the superiority of the American way of organizing a nation’ economic life. When supermarkets proved a commercial success in the USA, they quickly spread to other countries, first in Europe and then in other parts of the world.
![](https://s.studizba.com/z.php?f=/templates/si/i/noavatar.png&w=100&h=100&t=1"){kind=avatar}
