Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 07:59:51 +0200 (EET) From: Hannu Juhani Salmi <hansalmi@utu.fi> To: h-verkko@sara.cc.utu.fi Subject: Dissertation Abstracts in Music - 4
> Key, Susan
>
> "Sweet Melody Over Silent Wave": Depression-Era Radio and the
> American Composer
>
> University of Maryland at College Park
> (skey@wam.umd.edu)
>
> By 1930 the American musical community was enthusiastic about
> radio's potential both to increase music appreciation and to provide
> American composers an audience of unprecedented proportions. The
> ensuing decade saw extensive discussion of and experimentation with
> music on radio, including a number of initiatives supporting new
> American composition. Although the NBC Symphony under Toscanini
> became a bastion of nineteenth-century Germany repertoire, the CBS
> and Mutual networks were more adventuresome, featuring works by
> American composers ranging from the now-classic Aaron Copland to the
> now-obscure Sylvia Smith. More broadly, the commentary and
> controversy over music programming illuminate the ideological
> dynamics of the Depression era: shifting attitudes toward high and
> low culture, the aims and methods of mass cultural uplift, the
> proper character of American cultural identity, and the optimum
> relationship between government and media. "Sweet Melody Over Silent
> Wave" will reconstruct as complete a record as possible of new
> American composition on network radio, analyze the stylistic
> features of music composed for broadcast, and examine the
> interaction of music, technology, and ideology.