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Forgetting and Remembering: The Case of Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun

Forgetting and Remembering: The Case of Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun JOSEPH SARGENT Forgetting and Remembering : The Case of Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun In 1951 Howard Hanson delivered a lecture at the University of Nebraska in which he invoked his good friend Leo Sowerby as an emblem of the difficulties faced by American composers. His remarks included the fol - lowing prognostication: The history of the performance of Sowerby’s works over the past thirty years is an outstanding example of the capriciousness of pub - lic taste. In the third decade of the century there was no American symphonic composer more widely and consistently performed. With the advent of the fourth decade, however, critical taste seemed to turn toward music which was more objective in character and the introspective, almost ascetic cast of much of Sowerby’s music was temporarily out of favor. This, I believe, is a passing phase and the best of Sowerby’s music will, in my opinion, remain as an important part of American literature. In 2020 it can be safely asserted that Hanson’s prediction missed the mark. Indeed, both Sowerby and Hanson now form part of what Carol Oja has termed the “forgotten vanguard” of American composers—fig - ures who rose to prominence http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Music University of Illinois Press

Forgetting and Remembering: The Case of Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun

Sargent, Joseph
American Music , Volume 38 (4) – Mar 2, 2021
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Publisher
University of Illinois Press
ISSN
1945-2349

Abstract

JOSEPH SARGENT Forgetting and Remembering : The Case of Leo Sowerby’s The Canticle of the Sun In 1951 Howard Hanson delivered a lecture at the University of Nebraska in which he invoked his good friend Leo Sowerby as an emblem of the difficulties faced by American composers. His remarks included the fol - lowing prognostication: The history of the performance of Sowerby’s works over the past thirty years is an outstanding example of the capriciousness of pub - lic taste. In the third decade of the century there was no American symphonic composer more widely and consistently performed. With the advent of the fourth decade, however, critical taste seemed to turn toward music which was more objective in character and the introspective, almost ascetic cast of much of Sowerby’s music was temporarily out of favor. This, I believe, is a passing phase and the best of Sowerby’s music will, in my opinion, remain as an important part of American literature. In 2020 it can be safely asserted that Hanson’s prediction missed the mark. Indeed, both Sowerby and Hanson now form part of what Carol Oja has termed the “forgotten vanguard” of American composers—fig - ures who rose to prominence

Journal

American Music – University of Illinois Press

Published: Mar 2, 2021

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