Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion begins with a consideration of the ways in which Aaron Copland’s sound has become associated with American exceptionalism in its different twenty-first-century articulations. It argues that the Cold War rebranding of Americanist music described in this book, achieved with the willing participation of Copland and many of his colleagues, made this realignment of the meaning of Copland’s music possible. It explains that the Americanists did indeed experience serialism as “tyrannous” during the 1950s, the result of music-stylistic choices becoming politicized and binarized at a time when so many choices were silently interpreted as an ideological “either/or.” In closing, the conclusion considers the larger issues surrounding musical nationalism, culture, politics, and power that the Americanists’ story raises.