I am a longtime reader and admirer of this forum. Oxford University Press has just published a new title that will hopefully be of interest to you: Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise. It is the first in-depth treatment of nineteenth-century American symphonists, their music, and the environment in which they lived and worked.
The well-known "unsung" American composers who appear prominently in the text include: Charles Hommann, Anthony Philip Heinrich, George Frederick Bristow, William Henry Fry, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, John Knowles Paine, George Whitefield Chadwick, George Templeton Strong, and Amy Beach. But you will find that the repertoire itself is much more extensive. Virtually unknown figures such as Ellsworth Phelps and Louis Maas also play key roles in the narrative.
Forum readers whose interests lie primarily with European music will also find much to appreciate in the book. American orchestras frequently programmed music by "unsung" figures like Joachim Raff (one of my personal favorites) and Carl Goldmark. I included a generous amount of reception history related to these composers in order to set the context. My perception of the nineteenth century is that classical music culture was much more "transatlantic" than we tend to think. ("Sung" composers like Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt, Brahms, and Dvorak also appear.)
The book is as jargon free as possible and includes little detailed technical analysis, though there are about 100 music examples. The publisher generously constructed a companion website that has recorded excerpts cued to the examples as they are printed on the page. We will add new clips to the website as works appear on new recordings (e.g., Bristow's Second Symphony). Frankly, as an unsung music lover myself, I wrote the book with sympathetic readers like you in mind.
The book is now available on Amazon in the US (and other online retailers), and it should be reaching the UK and the rest of Europe in a matter of weeks.
If you have any questions or comments, either before reading the book or after, I will be happy to follow up on this thread. And I hope you enjoy it!
The well-known "unsung" American composers who appear prominently in the text include: Charles Hommann, Anthony Philip Heinrich, George Frederick Bristow, William Henry Fry, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, John Knowles Paine, George Whitefield Chadwick, George Templeton Strong, and Amy Beach. But you will find that the repertoire itself is much more extensive. Virtually unknown figures such as Ellsworth Phelps and Louis Maas also play key roles in the narrative.
Forum readers whose interests lie primarily with European music will also find much to appreciate in the book. American orchestras frequently programmed music by "unsung" figures like Joachim Raff (one of my personal favorites) and Carl Goldmark. I included a generous amount of reception history related to these composers in order to set the context. My perception of the nineteenth century is that classical music culture was much more "transatlantic" than we tend to think. ("Sung" composers like Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt, Brahms, and Dvorak also appear.)
The book is as jargon free as possible and includes little detailed technical analysis, though there are about 100 music examples. The publisher generously constructed a companion website that has recorded excerpts cued to the examples as they are printed on the page. We will add new clips to the website as works appear on new recordings (e.g., Bristow's Second Symphony). Frankly, as an unsung music lover myself, I wrote the book with sympathetic readers like you in mind.
The book is now available on Amazon in the US (and other online retailers), and it should be reaching the UK and the rest of Europe in a matter of weeks.
If you have any questions or comments, either before reading the book or after, I will be happy to follow up on this thread. And I hope you enjoy it!