Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXV, no. 2 (Summer 1999)
Reviews of Books
Edited by Sherrill V. Martin, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
WE'LL SHOUT AND SING HOSANNA: ESSAYS ON CHURCH MUSIC IN HONOR OF WILLIAM J. REYNOLDS. Edited
by David W. Music. Fort Worth, TX: Faculty of the School of Church Music, Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, 1998. pp. vi, 283.
Before reading J. Stanley Moore's seven-page biography of the honoree, readers unacquainted with
the scholarship of William J. Reynolds (b. 1920), Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Church Music
at Southwestern Baptist Theologifcal Seminary, should approach this Festschrift from the final
section. There, a substantial bibliography ("representative, not comprehensive," 267) chronicles
his influential career as composer, scholar, pedagogue, and taste-maker for recent generations of
Southern Baptist musicians. Twnety original hymn tunes, seventy-eight articles, and twelve books
written, edited, or compiled by Reynolds highlight the fifteen-category works list. Cornerstones
of his work to date are the companions to the 1956 and 1975 Baptist Hymnals (Hymns of Our
Faith, 1964, and Companion to Baptist Hymnal, 1976 respectively). With these accessible
books in particular, Reynolds became the authority on hymn scholarship for a large segment of the
nation's Protestant population.
The Festschrift divides into two parts. The first, comprising about one-third of the book and four
articles, addresses church music and worship as contemporary activities. Beneath an occasionally
specialized vocabulary and evangelistic context lie several fascinating insights. Paul Westermeyer's
evaluation of justice themes in congregational song and trends toward inclusive language (e.g., non-gender-specific
terms for the Diety) in current hymnal-making relate the church to its external environment. Equally
perceptive are Randall Bradley's suggestions of learning theory and brain hemisphericity as
considerations in worship design. Articles by Bruce H. Leafblad and Milburn
Price round out this section with authority.
The book's remaining eight articles are aimed at a more general scholarly audience. Chapters by Marilyn
Kay Stulken on eighteenth-century English "hospital" hymnody, Paul A. Richardson on Anglican chant
in nineteenth-century Baptist hymnody, and Mel R. Wilhoit on Ira D. Sankey's "The Ninety and Nine"
are especially astute and richly supported. Other well-known hymn scholars, Mary Louise Van Dyke,
Donald C. Brown, Paul Hammond, Carlton R. Young, and Harry Eskew, also make expert historical
contributions.
The insightful work of editor David W. Music minimizes the transition between this Festschrift's
two diverse, but equally legitimate, approaches to hymn scholarship. The publication would be
a noteworthy addition to any library or office where American music is studies.
--Kay Norton
Arizona State University
THE AMERICAN POPULAR BALLAD OF THE GOLDEN ERA, 1924-1950. By Allen Forte. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-691-04399-X. Pp. 366.
Allen Forte has accomplished the nearly impossible. He has written a thoroughly readable book that
uses Schenker graphs as a critical structural component. Forte has succeeded in demonstrating that it
is possible to extended the insights of Schenker's theoretical principles to repertories once thought
to run counter to Schenkerian analysis (i.e., anything outside the German classic-momantic tradition).
The book focuses on love songs of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, which Forte describes as 'American 'Lieder'
of a particularly rich period in popular music." Forte did not attempt to include every important ballad
by these major songwriters. But all the songs are "standards," in the authors words, "songs that have
been preserved in jazz repertories, in recordings by famous singers, and in the hearts and ears
of generations of Americans and other people as well." Forte's insights into the harmonic structure
of these songs are profound. But his comments, as we shall see, are not limited to melodic and harmonic
analysis but often reflect deeply on interpretation of the songs. His observation, for example, on
the failure of most singers even to approximate Cole Porter's rhythms in an important line in "I Get
a Kick out of You" (23) reveals his close textual, rhythmic, and emotional connection to this music.
Part of the book's success lies in its organization. The first six chapters are dedicated to a study of
the principal harmonic, rhythmic, melodic, textual, and formal aspects of the American popular
ballad. Chapter seven then neatly draws these studies of separate components into the "large-scale view"
in approaching a complete ballad. Also, for those who have little or no experience with Schenkerian
theory (and who even here have not already turned the page!), this chapter offers on of the
clearest and simplest explanations of this method of analysis. The next six chapters are each dedicated
to a major composer who specialized in writing American ballads, and the six are organized chronologically
by composers' date of birth: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard
Rodgers, and Harold Arlen. Each study reflects a remarkable consistency of style, an approach that
makes the book eminently useful on many levels. Forte concentrates on six or seven songs
chosen from different periods in the composer's life. The presentation of each song follows a
similar format: historical background, analysis of the melody, harmonic analysis based on Schenkerian-style
harmonic reduction, and then an investigation of the meaning that takes into account the composer's
setting of the lyrics. Following these six major composer chapters, Forte then devotes three or
more chapters each to groups of composers (clearing in an attempt to incorporate such important
figures as Duke Ellington, Harry Warren, and Kurt Weil, and also successful female ballad composers such
as Kay Swift and Ruth Lowe). Forte brings the structure full circle with a final chapter
that reflects on some key features of harmony, melody, style, etc. relative to the
composers in this study. The organization allows for some flexibility, as Forte points out. The reader
may decide to bypass the first seven chapters and jump ahead to what s/he finds most useful or
interesting.
The 335 pages of text are rich in musical examples (many including lyrics) and the graphs (most
of which also include lyrics) are limited to two-line middleground analyses. The book includes
extensive notes, a selective but significant bibliography, and a useful index that incorporates
many subject headings.
The clearest way to get a sense of this book is to examine the approach that Forte takes with one
song. His discussion of Irving Berlin's "How Deep is the Ocean" (1932; 91-95), begins with a brief
survey of songs from that year and a recognition of the importance of 1932 in establishing a
depression-era style of popular song that would last through the thirties. He then goes on to
note the binary form of the song. (Specifically, it consists of two double contrasting periods -- two
choruses -- the bridge actually being the second period of the first chorus). Example 86 provides
the E-flat major melody and text for the first two 8-measure periods.
How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie,
[Period 1]
How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?
How many times a day do I think of you?
[Period 2]
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
Forte analyzes the melodic structure of these first two periods, noting that the first period,
ascending through an apreggio of E-flat major, reaches its goal an octave higher in the first
note of the second period ("How many times"). In its ascent, the melody had completed a full
arpeggiation of the E-flat chord of the added sixth (E-flat on "how much," G on "love you," B-flat
on "how deep," and DC on "ocean"). The added-sixth arpeggio in this repertoire, Forte notes,
Nearly always "enjoys distinctly pentatonic affiliations especially when it occurs in melodic
form, asserting a nonclassical orientation." After readhing its zenith, the melody descends
in period 2 through an E-flat minor arpeggiation, emphasizing the flat-3 to 2 relationship at the
half cadence on "sprinkled with dew" (the "blues third" in E-flat major). Forte then presents an
analytical sketch for the harmonic outline of measures 1-16. He includes the text, as elsewhere
throughout the book, a feature which makes these graphs eminently readable, even away from a piano.
The graph reveals that though the melody alone seems to scan in E-flat major, Berlin's harmonization
for the first period is actually c minor (the submediant), even including its own g minor (dominant)
satellite tonality on "How deep is the ocean . . . ." As in many popular ballads, Forte notes,
the opposition of major and minor relates to the sentiment expresed in the lyrics. In this
instance, "one senses a contrast between the short tentative interrogatory rhetoric of the lyric of
the first period (C minor) and the more assertive and longer interrogatives of the second period
(E-flat major)." The singer as lover has the advantage of harmony to emotionalize his or her point.
Forte continues this procedure with the analysis of the second half of the song, beginning
first with the melodic analysis of measures 17-32 and then providing a graph for measures 25-32.
How much do I love you? I'll tell you no lie,
[Period 3]
How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?
And if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?
[Period 4]
How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?
Forte's graph makes clear a relationship between the opening of periods 1 and 3 in c minor and its accompanying
descending chromatic line in the bass (a haunting allusion to "How deep is the ocean"). But moving from c minor
back to reaffirm E-flat major, Berlin uses a C-flat in the bass as an embellishing motion to B-flat,
the dominant, on the word "cry." Berlin harmonizes "cry" with a half-diminished Tristan sonority on
c-flat, perhaps making another allusion. "Did Irving listen to Richard?" Forte wonders. "How deep is
tradition?" he asks.
Forte's reading of this and the other sixty-some songs in this book illustrate that a Schenkerian
approach, in the hands of a sensitive and musical analyst, can lead to new insights into familiar
much and can gracefully and elegantly assist in fresh readings and multi-leveled interpretations.
--Michael Pisani
Vassar College
GEORGE GERSHWIN. By Rodney Greenberg. 20th-Century Composers Series. London: Phaidon Press
Limited, 1998. ISBN 0-7148-3504-8. Pp. 240. $19.95 (pbk.)
This volume adds to the list of more than seventy life and works books about Gershwin that have been
published worldwide. According to a publisher's flyer supplied with this book, its author, Rodney
Greenberg, has produced and directed over three music television programs in Europe and American,
including three Gershwin documentaries.
After the front matter, the book is organized by chapter as follows: (1) "Brooklyn to Tin Pan Alley";
(2) "Broadway and Aeolian Hall"; (3) "Rhapsody in Blue"; (4) "Master of the Broadway Musical"; (5) "Concert
Music"; (6) "Porgy and Bess"; and (7) "Hollywood and Final Curtain." Greenberg eschews the typical
year-by-year chronological approach to Gershwin's life, stating: "I hae writen about Broadway
musicals and his concert scores in separate chapters, to try to give the clearest focus to two
parallel but distincet activities."
The author (publisher?) has the annoying habit of not using footnotes to identify soures, so that the reader
does not know from whence certain statements came. To nitpick: in the Epilogue (217), Greenberg leads
into a direct quote from Gershwin: "He said in 1935 that when he wrote Rhapsody in Blue
he had taken the 'blues' and put them into a larger and more serious form. [Gershwin]: "That was twelve
years ago [eleven, in fact] and the Rhapsody in Blue is still very much alive, whereas
if I had taken the same themes and put them into songs they would have been gone years ago." Where
did this quote come from? Greenberg also failed to acknowledge the source of the phrase
"Freeze-dried Pagliacci" (42) when discussing the mini-opera Blue Monday, the source
being the inimitable Wayne Shirley of the Library of Congress.
On page 55 in a photograph of Canal Street in New Orleans, the author's caption calls it "the main
thoroughfare through the Storyville district." This is false: The largest cluster of bordellos
prior to 1917 in the district known as Storyville faced Basin Street, with the remainder
scattered about an area bounded by Iberville, Robertson, and St. Louis Streets.
Regarding idiomatic interpretations of Gershwin's songs on record, the author considers Ella
Fitzgerald's versions "definitive" (94). Despite the musical excellence of Fitzgerald's work, I
believe that some purist might disagree with this oint of view. Perhaps Greenberg has not heard
the authentic albums by Frankie Gerswhin Godovsky, Michael Feinstein, and others.
When comparing this book to Edward Jablonski's Gershwin: A Biography (New York: Doubleday,
1987), reprinted in paperback (Da Capo, 1998), Jablonski's retains its supremacy as the definitive
biography. There is little new information in Greenberg, but because of its more recent publication
date, the author was able to supply some welcome up-to-date information, such as brief mention
of the 1992 Gershwin-inspired musica Crazy for You (218).
This book concludes with an Epilogue, a Classified List of Works, Further Reading (Bibliography),
and a Selective Discography. For the reader needing the basic facts of the Gershwin saga, this
attractively produced book with its generally factual information and eighty illustrations
would suffice. If more in-depth treatment is required, the following books (in addition to
Jablonski's) should be consulted: Philip Furia's Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Steven E. Gilbert's The Music of Gershwin (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1995); Robert Kimball's The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993); Deena Rosenberg's Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration
of George and Ira Gershwin (New York: Dutton, 1991), and Wayne J. Schneider's The
Gershwin Style: New Looks at the Music of George Gershwin (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999).
--Norbert Carnovale
University of Southern Mississippi
CHAMBER MUSIC FOR STRINGS. By Charles Hommann. Edited by John Graziano and Joanne Swenson-Eldridge.
Recent Researches in American music, vol. 30. Madison, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., 1998. ISBN
0-89859-411-X. Pp. xx, 161. $59.95. Parts, $69.95 (per set).
SELECTED KEYBOARD AND CHAMBER MUSIC, 1937-1994. By Lou Harrison. Edited by Leta E. Miller.
Music of the United States of America, vol. 8. Recent Researches in American Music, vol. 31.
Madison, SI: A-R Editions, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89759-414-4. Pp. lv, 162. $96.00. Parts,
$20.00 (per set).
Charles Hommann (1803-?1872) and Lou Harrison (b. 1917) have very little in common other than that
they are native American composers. Hommann was a prominent violinist in Philadelphia and Brooklyn
whose chamber music (three string quartets and a string quintet) consists of interesting but
conservative works for the time (1830s to 1850s). Harrison, on the other hand, though a student of
recorder, harpsichord, clarinet and French horn, has specialized in gamelan music and has
composed chamber music that challenges all traditional types. The two men do have one additional
thing in common, however: they have written chamber music which is wrongly neglected, and through
these two volumes hopefully this music will no longer be ignored. Both composers are representative
of different aspects of American classical music, and for all students of ourmusic these excellent,
scholarly yet practical editions of their music are a must.
Veteran Americanist John Graziano and the recently arrived Joanne Swenson-Eldridge (her Ph.D. is
on Hommann) give us a thorough a biography of Hommann as can now be ascertained. While their
theoretical analysis of the four compositions perhaps makes more out of the pieces than is
necessary, their careful, fully annotated bibliography of Hommann's entire oeuvre and their
report of the works published are exemplary. The music itself is attractive and should
be looked at seriously by both professional and good amateur quartets; there are no technical
difficulties except possibly for the first violin in the quintet.
Harrison has written chamber music throughout his life, and there are published scores and
recordings of it. However, some works have escaped attention until this volume. Covering a vast
array of musical styles and scorings and a fifty-year time span, they include France 1917-Spain
1937 (1937; for string quartet and two percussionists); Tributes to Charon (1939-1982;
for percussion trio); Praises for Michael the Archangel (1946-1947; for organ solo); Vestiunt
Silve (1951; for soprano, flute/piccolo, two violas and harp); Incidental Music for Corneille's
'Cinna' (1955-1957; for upright piano with tacks inserted into the felts); Varied Trio
(1987; for violin, piano and percussion); and Grand Duo (1987-1988; for violin and piano).
Leta E. Miller is in an extraordinary position to comment on Harrison's chamber music since she has
worked closely with the composer as performer and musicologist. Her descriptions of Harrison and the
genesis of his chamber music are fascinating, and anyone playing these unusual pieces will enjoy
the luxury of knowing the context in which they should be played. The critical apparatus is thorough.
A-R Editions has produced another valuable pair of anthologies with clear, easy-to-read notation on
sturdy paper.
--John H. Baron
Tulane University
Updated 8/31/99