Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 20 views

    Awecawec

    Uploaded by

    awfefa
    The document discusses Theosophy and its influence on American artists and composers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It provides context that Theosophy was founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky and reached its peak in the 1920s, claiming thousands of members in the US. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago had substantial Theosophical societies, and Chicago in particular had become receptive to esoteric philosophies by the time Ruth Crawford lived there from 1921-1929. Theosophy attracted several European composers and also appealed to some American composers, though its influence on American music is less documented.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Awecawec

    Uploaded by

    awfefa
    20 views1 page
    The document discusses Theosophy and its influence on American artists and composers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It provides context that Theosophy was founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky and reached its peak in the 1920s, claiming thousands of members in the US. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago had substantial Theosophical societies, and Chicago in particular had become receptive to esoteric philosophies by the time Ruth Crawford lived there from 1921-1929. Theosophy attracted several European composers and also appealed to some American composers, though its influence on American music is less documented.

    Original Description:

    awecaewca

    Original Title

    awecawec

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses Theosophy and its influence on American artists and composers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It provides context that Theosophy was founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky and reached its peak in the 1920s, claiming thousands of members in the US. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago had substantial Theosophical societies, and Chicago in particular had become receptive to esoteric philosophies by the time Ruth Crawford lived there from 1921-1929. Theosophy attracted several European composers and also appealed to some American composers, though its influence on American music is less documented.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    20 views1 page

    Awecawec

    Uploaded by

    awfefa
    The document discusses Theosophy and its influence on American artists and composers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It provides context that Theosophy was founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky and reached its peak in the 1920s, claiming thousands of members in the US. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago had substantial Theosophical societies, and Chicago in particular had become receptive to esoteric philosophies by the time Ruth Crawford lived there from 1921-1929. Theosophy attracted several European composers and also appealed to some American composers, though its influence on American music is less documented.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    2 24 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

    shape what one writer in 1909 termed "the New Spiritual America
    Emerging."'"
    Theosophy, as is well known, attracted a number of European
    artists, writers, and composers in the late nineteenth and early
    twentieth centuries." It also appealed to American artists and
    composers, although its currency is less documented in American
    music history.'" Theosophy as an organized religion was in fact a
    Transatlantic phenomenon, founded in New York in I875 by the
    Russian-born 6migr6 Helena Blavatsky, its major theorist, and her
    colleague, Colonel William Olcott. The movement, led in the 920os
    by the magnetic Englishwoman Annie Besant, reached its high point
    around 1927-1928, claiming 45,000 members in the world and 7,000
    in the United States.' 3
    New York and Los Angeles had substantial branches of Theo-
    sophical societies, as did Chicago, where Ruth Crawford lived from
    1921 through i929. Chicago had become receptive to esoteric philos-

    Mysticism," Arts Magazine (November 1985): 16-21, for illustrations of paintings


    entitled "Cosmos" and "Oriental Symphony" as well a discussion of Hartley's
    readings of Emerson, Whitman and Blavatsky. In music Elliott Carter touches on
    many of these same sources in "Expressionismand American Music," The Writingsof
    Elliott Carter, ed. Else and Kurt Stone (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press,
    1977), 230-42; see also Peter Garland, Americas:Essayson AmericanMusicand Culture
    (Santa Fe: Soundings Press, 1982).
    ,o Michael Williams, "The New Spiritual America Emerging," in a review cited
    by Henderson, "Mysticism," 224: "Emerson was one of the prophets of the 'New
    America' and Walt Whitman wrote its psalms. . . . New America is nothing else than
    that mystical and spiritual America which centers predominantly about the recogni-
    tion of new and hitherto unrecognizedpowersof Mind. .... From the Orient too have
    come contributing influences-Madame Blavatsky with her Theosophy and Swami
    Vivekenanda with his Vedanta philosophy."
    " The
    importance of Theosophy to composers goes beyond those mentioned here
    as part of Crawford's circle and dates from before the War. In addition to Scriabin,
    both Schoenberg and even Stravinsky found some musical stimulus in mystical or
    cosmic imagery and texts. The literature is too diffuse to be cited here. For a general
    discussion see Kyle Gann, "Spirituality in Music: A Commentary and Discography,"
    The AmericanTheosophist 75 (November 1987): 378-87; Karl Heinrich Woerner, Die
    Musik in der Geistesgeschichte(Bonn: H. Bouvier, 197o); Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient
    WisdomRevived:A History of the Theosophical Movement(Berkeley and Los Angeles:
    University of California Press, 1980).
    ,2 Among American composers contemporaneous with Crawford, Theosophy
    touched the lives of Griffes, Cowell, and Rudhyar in varying degrees. The composer
    and kindred spirit Peter Garland discusses the ultra-moderns and spiritual aesthetics
    in Americas.Cowell met Rudhyar at Halycon, a famous Theosophical community in
    Northern California. See Rita Mead, HenryCowell'sNew Music1925-1936: TheSociety,
    the MusicEditionsand the Recordings (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, i981), 21.
    13 Campbell, Ancient Wisdom, 78. See also Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious
    Historyof theAmericanPeople(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972),
    1041.

    You might also like