Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life by Steve Swayne (review)

Steve Swayne's book, Orpheus in Manhattan: William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life, brings into sharp focus a man who, in addition to contributing significantly to American concert repertoires, was also one of the most important powerbrokers in New York's music scene at mid-century, serving as president of both Juilliard (1945-61) and Lincoln Center (1962-68). Swayne does not seek to upend the general understanding of Schuman as a composer first and foremost; he even considers it "noteworthy" that Schuman described himself as both a "composer and administrator" near the end of his life (553). Instead, Swayne's most pressing concern is tracing the stories behind Schuman's compositions. That said, the chapters within each of the five sections of the book are divided more or less thematically. Given that Schuman engaged in an array of activities, this is an eminently sensible organizational scheme, although it can make the chronology a bit hard to follow from time to time, as Swayne often has to roll back the clock at the start of a chapter in order to pick up a narrative thread hinted at previously.

Given the centrality of Schuman's compositional practice to the story, it is surprising that Swayne is equivocal about the overall significance of Schuman's compositional output. "Schuman's music," he writes, "isn't everyone's dish. . . . The long melodic statements, the polytonal harmonies, the nonrepeating rhythms, and the autogenetic forms make his music less memorable than the music of many of his peers" (552). Swayne's own reservations echo the fact that Schuman suffered the slings and arrows of critics throughout his career. John Rockwell found Schuman's later music tired and conservative, and Harold Schonberg put his scruples about The Mighty Casey bluntly: "Mr. Schuman . . . tries too hard" (267). If Schonberg felt Schuman's opera was too eager, the composer also faced criticism for not trying hard enough. Karl Kroeger wrote of the Seventh Symphony: "one wishes that a composer of Mr. Schuman's distinguished reputation would recognize the fact that it is not sufficient simply to rewrite, over and over, the same piece" (320). Despite this antipathy on the parts of critics, commissions marched across Schuman's desk in a steady stream for most of his adult life.

Schuman almost never wrote without a commission and managed to secure for himself several extraordinarily large sums for his services. Indeed, one background theme of Swayne's biography is the degree to which Schuman's economic ambitions conditioned his decisions. A $35,000 contract, spread over five years, to be a "consultant" to BMI in the early 1950s stands out in this regard (273). Yet for all this upward mobility, he seemed to have found direct patronage demeaning. Schuman sneered at the idea of having to "go to society women for support" (394), and although later in life he was chastened by the necessities of working as a full-time composer, he still insisted on his autonomy: "I've always been my own patron, and therefore, I can write anything I want, and every piece of music is because I wanted to write it" (430).

Schuman's approach to financing his own work was one thing. But his efforts to remain above the fray on matters of institutional development contributed to the spectacular implosion of his tenure at Lincoln Center, where he came to espouse what might be considered an "aristocratic" attitude toward patronage. In a speech delivered in 1966 at Princeton, he stated categorically: "Basic to our problem is not that our deficits are too large, but that they are too small" (386). Schuman saw it as his job at Lincoln Center to expand programming (and therefore cost), and the job of donors to make up the difference between income and expenses. This is hardly a unique approach...