What is the most "American" music you can think of? Why do you think it is the "most American"?
What is the purpose of a national anthem? Do all national anthems have text? How do countries choose their national anthems?
Choose another country you have some familiarity with (have visited, have family from, know something about). What does its music sound like, if you had to summarize it in one sentence?
Read pages 307 to 323
Performed by Whitney Houston (1991)
Performed by Namika (2017)
Performed by the Ndlovu Youth Choir (2019)
Performed by inmates at Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp during their liberation (1945)
Read pages 323 to 339
Carlos Chávez: Sinfonía Indía (1935-36)
Mexican nationalism
Chávez was a close friend of Copland
Mexican indigenous instruments (e.g. jicara de agua, tenabari, grijutian)
Astor Piazzolla: Bandoneon Concerto (1979)
Argentine nationalism
Bandoneon = relative of accordion
Bringing the bandoneon to the concert hall
John Mayer: "Ragamala II" for Cello and Tanpura (1982)
Raga = Indian relative of a scale or mode
Combining Western and South Asian instruments
Ayo Bankole: Egun Variations in G Major (c. 1960s)
Variations for solo piano on a Nigerian sacred song
Leoš Janáček: Lidová nokturna, I (1906)
Emphasis on Czech language rhythms
Early example of interest in authentically representing Eastern European folk music
Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances (1915)
Bartok and Kodaly were crucial in the spread of authentic Eastern European folk music
Based in part on recordings of real folk singers
Hungarian Minor Mode
Sergei Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil (1915)
A setting of the All-Night Vigil
Uses znamenny unaccompanied chant style
The end of an era of sacred music in Russia