George Whitefield Chadwick is my favorite composer of that group commonly classified as “The Second New England School,” prominent American musicians, who largely modeled themselves on the European Romantics and were destined to be eclipsed by the later, more overtly “American” followers of Aaron Copland and George Gershwin. The school included John Knowles Paine (America’s first music professor), Horatio Parker (teacher of Charles Ives), Amy Beach (a virtuoso pianist who curtailed her compositional activity during the years of her marriage), Arthur Foote (my second favorite of the group), and Edward MacDowell (“the American Grieg”).
These composers studied abroad (there were few options then), learned their lessons well, and largely emulated the German masters in their own works. Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn loomed large, with Beethoven often lurking in the background. There were exceptions, of course. Amy Beach countered Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony with her own “Gaelic Symphony.” MacDowell corresponded with Grieg, not only in his letters, but in his collections of piano miniatures.
All of them wrote worthwhile music, if you can be bothered to root around musty steamer trunks in the far corners of the attic, but for me Chadwick has the most vibrant personality. He was the most successful of the group at conveying a kind of exuberance and optimism that reflect the zeitgeist of a country ripe with possibility that was still very much on the way up. As a person, he was described as independent and self-reliant, and his students remarked on his fairmindedness and wit.
Is his music identifiably “American,” as in stereotypically Coplandesque? Not really. But he was often inspired by American subjects and he really did take Dvorak’s “American” experiments to heart. You can hear it in his string quartets, and you can hear it in his “Symphonic Sketches,” especially “Jubilee.” But his vivacious symphonies are also hard to resist. Are they world-beaters? Certainly not. Are they enjoyable? Certainly!
Chadwick had a long and varied career. While his baseline is always rooted in a fairly conservative, 19th century musical idiom, he remained curious, and he was always growing. Every once in a while, he could toss out a genuine surprise. It’s interesting to hear him flirt with contemporary musical developments of the day (Dvořákian folk-inflections, Straussian tone poem, French Impressionism). Clearly, he was no isolationist. His spirit of exploration and his artistic growth make him a standout from the stodgier American classical music milieu of the Gilded Age.
A tip of the hat to Chadwick, by George, on the 170th anniversary of his birth!
“Symphonic Sketches” (1895-1904)
String Quartet No. 4 (1896)
“Rip Van Winkle Overture” (1879)
“Cleopatra” (1904)
“Tam O’Shanter” (1914-15)
Symphony No. 2 (1883-85)
