American Experimental Music: Amy C. Beal’s New Music, New Allies

Amy C. Beal, Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, belongs to a generation of scholars whose works shed a necessary light on the history of cultural diplomacy. Her book, New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in West Germany from the Zero Hour to Reunification, is a welcomed addition to a growing literature dedicated to exploring the sites where Cold War politics and music intersect. Most importantly, the book offers refreshing insights into the making and dissemination of the American experimental tradition.

New Music, New Allies focuses on the proliferation of American experimental music throughout Germany during a period that extends from the end of WWII to Reunification (1945-90).  Beal shows how Cold War imperatives and postwar reconstruction/re-education efforts provided a place for new music in Germany. She convincingly argues that the longevity of the American experimental tradition rests in parts on the zealous work of German intellectuals and artists who were committed to building a radically inclusive and forward-looking postwar cultural infrastructure.

Beal writes: “Over a historically unique period of forty-five years, new music culture in West Germany constructed a canon of American music and actively promoted, produced, and distributed its most provocative representatives. In so doing, Germany created a context of prolific exile for American experimental music.”

New Music New Allies focuses on noted composers John Cage, David Tudor, Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, and Pauline Oliveros to name but a few. But the book is also about the individuals who created unprecedented opportunities for the above artists. Beal pays tribute to the contributions made by Walter Zimmermann, Wolfgang Steinecke, Herbert Eimert and many other German new music enthusiasts. She provides extensive details on the multitude of contexts within which experimental music affirmed itself (these include radio broadcasts, festival and concert hall performances, speaking engagements, teaching opportunities, published writings on new music and commissioning of works among others). Beal’s impressive research uncovers a wide range of strategies which served to align the interests of German artists and intellectuals with those of American experimental composers and Cold War strategists.

Yet the story told is not strictly composed of amicable exchanges. On the contrary, Beal situates her thesis within larger discourses about tradition and progress. She discusses the aesthetic conflicts that pitted experimental composers against champions of the European classical tradition. The author also reflects on the problematic stereotyping of American composers by the patrons of new music and the exponents of cultural diplomacy. New Music, New Allies successfully traces the tumultuous path of experimental music across Germany’s postwar cultural and political landscapes.

However, by focusing extensively on Germany, Beal unfortunately omits to discuss with sufficient details the American context. The belief that composers in the United States suffered “decades of financial struggle and limited recognition at home” is mostly taken for granted. Moreover, it would have been interesting to include – for comparative purposes – discussions of France and Italy (both countries experienced totalitarian regimes prior to 1945 and maintained multiple connections to experimental music throughout the 20th century).

New Music, New Allies ends with the reunification of East and West Germany and the collapse of the cultural infrastructure discussed above. But the book is not a lament. Beal pertinently concludes with a visit to a medieval church situated in the town of Halberstadt where Cage’s “ASLSP” is currently being performed. The composer’s organ piece is set to last for another six centuries thereby ensuring continued creative exchanges between future generations of artists.

Beal closes with the following words: “As I turned to leave the abbey courtyard, reverberating its endlessly resonating interval, it occurred to me that the Halberstadt project could be seen as an enduring epilogue to the story of American music in Germany after 1945. If fully realized, it will far outlive us all.”

This is a truly essential book about the lasting legacy of new music. Get it!