2 - Britten, Paul Bunyan, and “American-ness”

Summary

Between 1939 and 1941, when Britten and Auden conceived and produced Paul Bunyan, there was a decided lack of consensus among American composers and critics regarding what “American-ness” in music entailed. This chapter addresses the debate in the late 1930s and early 1940s over the notions of a distinctly American style in art music and examines the complicated relationship of Britten and W. H. Auden with Americanness in Paul Bunyan, the work Britten thought his most American. One tendency of American composers, among many, was to embrace a musical isolationism that was steeped in nationalism and favored American-born composers over imports. This intensely nativistic approach would have hardly provided a fertile soil for a Briton's approach to Americanism, despite nods to such jingoistic American fare as jazz and folk music in the work. But neither did Britten's Paul Bunyan conform entirely to a movement toward European models, traditional or experimental, thought by many the best means by which American composers could gain an international stature commensurate with that of their European colleagues. Although in the majority of his works written during this time Britten best fit within the anti-nationalist, non-experimental composers, his approach in Bunyan was too eclectic to find a refuge in that quarter. In many respects, Britten's and Auden's Paul Bunyan could not be more American, but their perception of America failed to carve out a singular niche within the prevailing notions of American identity, musical or otherwise. Indeed, Britten's music runs the gamut of the contemporary debate from nationalism to experimentalism, while Auden's libretto explores high and low styles from Broadway, radio, and the serious stage. Despite Britten's and Auden's efforts to create a work that would garner entry into the American cultural scene with a conscious expression of a decidedly American sense of self, their Paul Bunyan was not fully American by virtue of the nationality of its creators, nor wholly foreign because of its subject matter and musical content. Britten's and Auden's attempts to express American-ness situate the work squarely within – and yet still outside – the contemporary musical atmosphere of the United States.