American Muse: The Life and Times of William Schuman by Joseph W. Polisi, and: Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America’s Musical Life by Stephen Swayne, and: The Music of William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, and Peter Mennin: Voices of Stone and Steel by Walter Simmons (review)

For William Schuman to acquire two well-researched biographies and a major portion of a further book within three years is a considerable step forward in the documentation of both him and his work. His position can be compared to that of Samuel Barber. In some respects it puts him ahead of his friend and exact contemporary, who has a biography by Barbara Heyman (Samuel Barber: The Composer and his Music (Oxford, 1992); a new edition is in progress)—although for Schuman there’s nothing like the exhaustive Samuel Barber: A Thematic Catalogue of the Complete Works, also by Heyman (Oxford, 2012). And on the international scene Schuman has not had the same recognition as Barber, who has a substantial biography in French (Samuel Barber: Un nostalgique entre deux mondes (Paris, 2011)) by Pierre Brévignon, who also established Capricorn: Association des amis de Samuel Barber in 2009. However, in an age of blockbuster biographies—consider Howard Pollack’s magisterial studies of Copland, Gershwin, and Marc Blitzstein—Schuman entered the lists in time for his centenary.

Joseph Polisi came first, and he writes as a friend and professional colleague. Schuman was the influential President of the Juilliard School from 1945 to 1962. He was followed by Peter Mennin, who died in post, and Polisi was appointed in 1984—to Schuman’s approval after his difficult relationship with Mennin. Polisi traces the Schuman saga. The family came from German-Jewish ancestry but were committed Americans; young William started playing the violin but was obsessed with baseball, which gave rise to his opera Casey at the Bat; even more surprising is that Schuman met Frank Loesser at school and they wrote some forty popular songs together without much success. Loesser confirmed much later that Schuman was an inadequate pianist and violinist who would have to consider composing or conducting instead (p. 18). Schuman’s father told him: ‘The problem is in music you are up against genius . . . like Irving Berlin . . . in business . . . you don’t have to be very smart to make a living’ (p. 25). Schuman understood that challenge, acted on it, and his parents supported him.

1930 was a decisive year: Schuman accepted his sister’s invitation to attend a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Toscanini—he usually thought such events were too high-brow for him (for more detail see Swayne, pp. 43–4, 52). As a result, he dropped his business courses and went to the Malkin Conservatory in Manhattan. Then in 1933 he enrolled at Teachers College, Columbia, and his music was getting performed. It was here that he began to develop his ideas about music education that he would soon put into practice at Sarah Lawrence College and then Juilliard: ‘I became increasingly convinced that courses in “how to teach” were useless, and that what really counted was a full and passionate understanding of the subject to be taught in itself’(p. 31).

Schuman met Roy Harris and Copland: ‘I got to know them both very well over the years. I witnessed the emergence of Aaron as the pre-eminent American composer of his time, and the decline in the position of Harris’ (p. 43). Harris’s work had a strong impact on early Schuman, and Copland’s...