War Music and the American Composer during the Vietnam Era

Abstract

American wars have always been fought to musical accompaniments: Yankee Doodle and many songs set to popular reels and dances in the Revolutionary War, Battle Hymn of the Republic and Abraham Lincoln's favorite, Dixie, in the Civil War, and so forth. Patriotic marches, victory odes, and even keyboard battaglia pieces in the old European tradition were composed in the New World as well-at least until World War II. The tradition of portraying war as a noble, heroic pursuit was first challenged in the early twentieth century. Only after World War I did composers turn to vocal and instrumental works expressing a desire for peace, lamenting those who had lost their lives, or, perhaps, depicting war and peace as social phenomena. As composers reevaluated their role in society and their feelings about war during and immediately after that war, themes of elegy and in memorium began to dominate war-related compositions. At least six requiems and numerous laments appeared between 1916 and 1922. The old type of patriotic composition as well as the lament tradition that was firmly established during World War I continued during World War II along with a new compositional type that illustrated the horrors and devastation of war through music and text. During World War II, several American composers cooperated closely with the American government and other organizations. Gail Kubik, serving as director of music for the Office of War Information, composed music for several films, including World at War. The Army Air Corps commissioned large-scale compositions from Samuel Barber and Marc Blitzstein, who were both serving as enlisted men. Also, the League of Composers commissioned eighteen short compositions based on a war-associated theme, which the New York Philharmonic premiered between 1943 and 1945. Eugene Goosens and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra invited twenty composers to compose short