Photo by Peter Serling
American Anthology
A sampler from more than a century of composition in the United States
American classical music tore itself away from its European roots in the course of the 20th century. Asko|Schönberg provides you with a sampler from more than a century of composition in the United States.
Long awaited, we have the Dutch premier of Gordon's Dry, in which the ensemble performs like a precisely ticking mechanism. Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano also present a mechanical game of overlapping rhythms. In The Unanswered Question, Ives slowly interweaves strings, woodwinds and solo trumpet. Carter also divides up the ensemble into groups in his Asko Concerto, with philosophical contemplation making way here for the well-tempered drive of a contemporary concerto grosso. Cowell and Cage both had a keen ear for the myriad sounds available from percussion instruments, while the German-born Stefan Wolpe swapped his previous activist tone for a mélange of twelve tone music and jazz when he eventually emigrated to America.