Collective Difference: The Pan-American Association of Composers

enough novelty to be modern (especially in rhythm, form, and timbre) and to offer a
break from neo-classical European modernism, since it was ostensibly “unhampered by
ecclesiastical rules.” 9
Several different approaches to the percussion ensemble are evident in the titles in
Figure 1. Certain works, such as John J. Becker’s The Abongo: A Primitive Dance,
clearly invoke a neo-primitivist aesthetic. These works incorporate Afro-Cuban, Haitian,
and African-American rhythms. In doing so, they locate themselves in the Western
Hemisphere while indicating the composer’s desire to participate in a cosmopolitan
modernism based in neo-primitivist materials. The first part of this chapter examines this
culture-specific neo-primitivism as found in percussion ensemble works.
Building on the neo-primitivist strain, another style of percussion ensemble music
evident in the pieces listed above involves a different approach to folk materials. Works
such as Varèse’s Ionisation and Cowell’s Ostinato Pianissimo contain “primitive”
characteristics such as sliding pitch, polyrhythms, and percussion but de-familiarize these
elements by placing them within an ultramodern idiom. These pieces achieve a more
generic, universalized exotic sound that does not locate itself in a specific place or time.
Still others among the titles in Figure 1 appear suspiciously European-derived in
form or style: Prelude, Fugue, Toccata, Waltz, Suite, and March. In the ultimate
expression of the sentiment “Nuts to Europe!” some Americans turned these common-
practice forms or styles on their heads. Even the most staid of European forms, the fugue,
received such treatment. In a percussion ensemble fugue, rhythmic subjects replace
melodic ones and combinations of timbres usurp the role of harmony. Another way of
contextualizing this practice is to say that these composers mitigated the jarring effect of
radically new materials with an established form that an audience might identify, such as
a fugue. The latter part of this chapter examines two such percussion ensemble fugues.
Ultramodernism, Neo-Primitivism, and New Uses of Percussion in Europe
Percussion instruments, with their enormous variety of materials and sound
production methods, seemed to many modern composers a vast uncharted territory of
new timbral and rhythmic possibilities. As such, these possibilities fell into the category
9 Ibid., 153.
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