The American Five is a collective name applied by some writers to the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

American composers Charles Ives (1874–1954), John J. Becker (1886–1961),

Wallingford Riegger Wallingford Constantine Riegger ( ; April 29, 1885 – April 2, 1961) was an American modernist composer and pianist, best known for his orchestral and modern dance music. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but spent most of his career in New York Ci ...

(1885–1961), Henry Cowell (1897–1965), and

Carl Ruggles Carl Ruggles (born Charles Sprague Ruggles; March 11, 1876 – October 24, 1971) was an American composer, painter and teacher. His pieces employed "dissonant counterpoint", a term coined by fellow composer and musicologist Charles Seeger ...

(1876–1971). They were noted for their modernist and often

dissonant In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness ...

compositions which broke away from European compositional styles to create a distinctly American style. The name was coined in imitation of the group of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n composers called The Five. The origin of the term "The American Five" is unclear. The five composers, although many of them were known to each other, did not work, or publicise themselves, as a group. According to Don C. Gillespie, "the first use of the phrase n 'American Five'seems to have been made by the composer John Downey in 1962, the year following Becker's death." However, Stuart Feder credits Gillespie, saying that, "Gillespie has called them 'the American Five.'" Gilbert Chase says that Gillespie, "the leading authority on Becker," credits Becker as "'the first person to promulgate the theory of the "Ives group," or "The American Five," as it is often called today.'" Stephen Budiansky credits Becker, saying that he, "began insisting that he was one of the 'American Five' great modern composers." Peter Garland has written that

Dennis Russell Davies Dennis Russell Davies (born April 16, 1944 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American conductor and pianist, He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic. Biography Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard Sch ...

organized "the 1980

Cabrillo Music Festival The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is an annual Festival dedicated to contemporary symphonic music by living composers. The music director since 2017 has been Cristian Măcelaru. According to Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League of American Orc ...

around my .e. Garland'sthesis-idea of 'The American Five'", and found a supporter in

Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his for ...

. The music historian

Richard Taruskin Richard Filler Taruskin (April 2, 1945 – July 1, 2022) was an American musicologist and music critic who was among the leading and most prominent music historians of his generation. The breadth of his scrutiny into source material as well as ...

notes that a group of composers including Becker, Riegger and Ruggles, and also

Dane Rudhyar Dane Rudhyar (March 23, 1895 – September 13, 1985), born Daniel Chennevière, was a American author, modernist composer and humanistic astrologer. He was a pioneer of modern transpersonal astrology. Biography Dane Rudhyar was born in Paris on ...

and

Ruth Crawford Seeger Ruth Crawford Seeger (born Ruth Porter Crawford; July 3, 1901 – November 18, 1953) was an American composer and folk music specialist. Her music was a prominent exponent of the emerging modernist aesthetic and she became a central member of a g ...

, became associated with Cowell during the period when he published the magazine ''The New Music Quarterly'' (1927–1936). The magazine was financed by Ives. Taruskin (who does not use the term 'American Five' in his survey) comments that "the members f this groupshared both a technical orientation and an expressive purpose which, like Ives's own may be jointly summed up as transcendental

maximalism In the arts, maximalism, a reaction against minimalism, is an aesthetic of excess. The philosophy can be summarized as "more is more", contrasting with the minimalist motto "less is more". Literature The term ''maximalism'' is sometimes associ ...

."Richard Taruskin, ''Music in the Early Twentieth Century'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

(2010), , p. 295.

References

{{Charles Ives 20th-century American composers 20th-century classical composers American classical composers American male classical composers Composition schools Modernist composers 20th-century American male musicians

See also

References