An Introduction to America’s Music

110 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR

it to listeners? The answers to these questions refl ected the existence of different

kinds of musical works, which came to be grouped under such labels as “classi-

cal” and “popular.”

Composers’ music constitutes the classical sphere, built around an ideal

that may be called transcendence: the belief that musical works can achieve

enduring artistic stature; that such works form the basis for a worthwhile musi-

cal life; and that performers have a duty to sing and play them by following

the composer’s notation closely. Performers’ music, in contrast, constitutes the

popular sphere, whose chief premise is accessibility, g iv ing authority most of all

to the audience.

While the classical and popular spheres both depend on notation, a great deal

of music in U.S. history has relied on oral transmission. This unwritten music—

so-called folk music—makes up a separate domain: the traditional sphere.

Music making in the traditional sphere tends to be connected with particular

customs and ways of life. In its drive to preserve linguistic, cultural, and musical

practices, the traditional sphere is ruled by a commitment to continuity.

Many musicians have pursued transcendence, accessibility, or continuity

separately and for their own sake. Yet it is striking how often these goals have

collided, intersected, coexisted, or blended. What kind of cultural transaction is

taking place when a composer in the classical sphere “borrows” from the popular

or the traditional sphere? Or when a popular song sustains itself until it enters

the realm of folk music? Or when a recording makes a performance a candidate

for transcendence? Circumstances like these have been commonplace in Ameri-

can music history. In fact, much of the music thought to be most fully American

plays on the boundaries of the spheres—evidence that for musicians who make

the music, the boundaries have practical consequences and really do exist.

ITALIAN OPERA IN THE UNITED STATES

On the night of November 29, 1825, a performance of Rossini’s Barber of Seville

at New York’s Park Theatre marked the debut of a newly arrived opera troupe

headed by the tenor Manuel García. The audience that had gathered to hear

Count Almaviva serenade his beloved—“In the smiling sky / The lovely dawn was

breaking”—actually heard “Ecco ridente in cielo / Spunta la bell’aurora.” Garcia’s

troupe was singing Rossini’s opera in the original Italian instead of the expected

English translation. The implications of this fact reverberate through the later

history of music in the United States.

A consideration of the new things the García troupe brought to New York

makes clear why their visit was a landmark event. The Park Theatre was the fi rst

in the United States to offer opera sung by European-trained singers in the orig-

inal Italian. In mezzo-soprano Maria García, the troupe also introduced New

York ’s fi rst star female singer. Though only seventeen, “the Signorina,” as she

came to be called, was already a commanding performer; since that day, star

performers have loomed large on the American scene. A lively discussion in

the press followed the García troupe’s arrival. More than a new musical form,

foreign-language opera was received as a social phenomenon that raised ques-

tions about economics, manners, and social class.

the three spheres

the García troupe

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