American Music's Place at Home and in the World

Despite major nineteenth-century achievement in the other arts, American musical life, for decades dependent on Europe, lagged behind. Matters improved from the 1920s on, as major native composers achieved recognition. Our musical independence was helped by World War II and the arrival of European refugees to live and work here. But by the early 1950s, control of American musical life moved back to Europe, and with it went much of our self-confidence. Today, as for many years past, American musical life—especially on the level of our top orchestras—is determined by European artistic personalities and by commercial decisions taken abroad. Our problem is not to reject foreign figures when they are beneficial and willing to work here on a permanent basis, but to create an American classical music, in the tradition of great Western classical music, that we can call our own.