Leonard Bernstein on NPC American Music

Leonard Bernstein on NPC American Music
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Bernstein enters into a lecture about what exactly makes American music distinguishable as American music. It is now similar in any way to any other music, and several features make it so. He goes ahead to play the song, Americans in Paris, composed by Gershwin (Bernstein 2018). He says that anyone on the globe can distinguish this music as undeniably American regardless of where in the world they were watching the show. It is not because of the title, “Americans in Paris” nor is it because the composer is an American. Instead, it is because of the type of music that is being played. You feel its American origins when you hear it. Bernstein echoes that every single country has its kind of music that is undeniably and distinguishably theirs and everybody can relate that music to its country of origin. Therefore, the pertinent question is why some music seems to belong to America.
He reiterates that the type of music that is undeniably identified as belonging to a specific country is known as ‘nationalistic’ music (Bernstein 2018). The type of music could range from complex musical compositions to simple folk songs, to the banging of the drums in Congo as a prayer for rain. It could be the primitive chanting of the people from Arabia, or the Mazurka from Poland, which is a dance type of music, or the Tarantella from Italy. All these are undeniably ‘nationalistic’ compositions.
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