Similarities and Differences in Russian and

American Nationalist Music

Methodologies

Books provided the most useful resource

The thesis was a comparison of the nationalism of two

countries, and while not many have written a comparison,
there are many books detailing nationalism in either country
separately

Found many similarities in that both nations have a habit of

borrowing folk songs for compositions, and creating
programmatic compositions that represent a certain
geographical feature of their country

For example, In the Steppes of Central Asia by Borodin and

Shenandoah by Frank Ticheli though separated by a large period of
time, both depicting a geographical feature of their home country

Difficulties in Research

Several idea changes, and how narrow the scope

should be
Cost

Enormous amount of information to cover

Specifically dissertations
Often, doing readings of these books would lead me to
needing to read more books, not less

Defining what nationalist means, and who is or is

not one

Charles Ives

Born in Danbury, Connecticut on October 20, 1874, Charles Ives

could be considered the first true American composer
His compositions were essentially free of the negative view of
Wagner and Liszt at the time, often composing bitonal pieces and
those not adhering to a concrete structure
His father, George Ives, would be the one to inspire this
experimental personality

George would often have his family sing songs in quarter tones, either
for personal enjoyment or as a form of punishment

Charles recalls examples where his father would make them sing Old
Folks at Home by Stephen Foster in the key of Eb major while he
accompanied them in C major

Charles Ives (cont.)

Pieces such as Variations on America present

Ives' nationalist compositions

The piece is a theme and variations on My Country

'tis of Thee and includes a bitonal canon and a
polonaise on the theme

The piece represents Ives well someone who was

not afraid to explore outside of traditional tonality
and often borrowed elements, such as folk tunes,
from American history

Difficulties in Research

Would it be fair to call Ives a nationalist?

The term nationalist is incredibly broad, and is
defined in both a normal way and in a
derogatory way:

excessive patriotism; chauvinism.

devotion and loyalty to one's own country;

patriotism.

How I could further my research