The Music of William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, and Peter Mennin: Voices of Stone and Steel (review)

The challenges of writing about composers who stand on the edge of the canon are many, including charting a path that will lead toward further research, while having to acknowledge polemics before they sprout. This exhaustively researched tome is the second work by Simmons that unearths histories of underrecognized American composers who, according to the author, have suffered the "Modernist interpretation of musical history, along with many of the assumptions on which it is predicated" (p. 5). His previous volume (Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers, [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004]), defends composers such as Samuel Barber, Paul Creston, and Vittorio Giannini against the same interpretations. While passionate about his subjects, Simmons falls victim to the pitfalls of historical apologetics. His introduction to the present volume, for example, is only a modestly revamped version of the introduction for the prior volume, which is undoubtedly relevant to both books, but allows Simmons' bias to pervade with a certain sense of defensiveness. He identifies the featured triumvirate (William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, and Peter Mennin) of the more recent book as "Modern Traditionalists," a category he establishes as distinct from neoromanticism, neoclassicism and "National Populism" (p. 9). The author responds to anticipated criticisms regarding the lack of in-depth musical analysis, classifying the book as a "useful reference tool" (p. 20). This is certainly an apt description, but the author's transparent advocacy wants to push the book toward a subjective dialogue to counter conventional narratives.

Simmons' formulaic approach to each of the chapters is appropriate for a reference book, and the narrative does not read well otherwise, as he is quick to acknowledge (p. 20). Instead, the author has thoughtfully provided useful subheadings and excellent indexing to facilitate easy navigation. He includes helpful discographies at the end of each chapter, as well as an accompanying compact disc with "representative examples" (p. 20) of each composer's works: Schuman's Judith, Persi chetti's Concerto for Piano, Four Hands, Persichetti's Sere nade no. 10 (with two movements omitted), and Mennin's Sym phony no. 6. The disc is not mentioned in the musical discussions, so its analytical usefulness is somewhat limited. It does, however, feature some very fine performances—most notably the one of Mennin's symphony, by the Albany Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Alan Miller. In addition to allowing the compact disc to speak for itself, Simmons does not include any music examples, a decision with which he clearly grappled, according to the introduction (p. 20). The end result is not too damaging, but sometimes elicits cumbersome descriptions which would no doubt be better served by a score citation, for example: "a gestural motif is introduced that proves to be the central unifying idea of the entire [Schuman's String Quartet no. 3]: a note repeated several times, then, falling on an accented downbeat, resolves down a major-second, in a "scotch-snap" rhythm, as an augmented-fourth resolving to a major third, within a triadic harmonization" (p. 62).

The three subjects of the book are interconnected not just by stylistic category (Modern Traditionalism), but by professional association with Juilliard. Simmons does not highlight this connection, however, giving only brief mention to the political ill will between Schuman and Mennin, for example. The text focuses on the composers' music, as well as the reception at the time of the works' premieres and thereafter. Simmons draws upon an immense volume of secondary material, but is caught, at least in the cases of Schuman and Persichetti, by heavy reliance upon preexisting works about these composers. Myriad references to Persichetti's work and commentary about Schuman burden the chapter on the latter composer. The chapter devoted to Persichetti likewise depends upon Dorothea Persichetti's unpublished monograph about her husband. The final chapter on Peter Mennin features much less...