I spent the day in the archive again. I couldn�t make the early train and the late train was even later than usual. But despite an inauspicious start and rain clouds piling up in the west, the day turned out to be both beautiful and productive. I found an early review that I didn�t know existed � grossly misfiled with reviews from seven years later. I also came across an interview with one of the conductors I�m working on that revealed much more about early life and training than I had hitherto been able to find. I love patching up the holes.

I spent many of my free moments contemplating modernism and nationalism. In the course of my work on music in early 20th century America, I have noticed a curious intertwining and occasionally almost synonymous use of the two terms. I had shelved that thought for a later date until this week when a similar twinning was noted in a paper about the same time period in Hungary that I�m reading/editing for my friend L. When I think of defining modernism, one of the first things that springs to mind is internationalism, a style that transcends boundaries, art that if anything is reactive more to global rather than local conditions.

Then again, perhaps the pairing of modernism and nationalism shouldn�t surprise me. In the U.S., at least, we�ve become accustomed to thinking of the modern as the purview of Americans. In the early 20th century, though, this kind of thinking was still coming into its own. I think of the post-war propaganda that they were still showing when I was in elementary school, of gleaming and efficient factories. Bigger is better. Urban is the rural of the future. Space travel will be the new family vacation. And the United States is the land of all these opportunities. It�s not hard to imagine, then, that the massive wave of immigrant musicians, arriving in their newly adopted home country, most often in New York City, where the modern music movement was born, would marry their new-found nationality and artistic freedom with pride in their newly adopted nation, even as it is becoming a fusion of international styles for the very same reasons.

I suppose schoolchildren are no longer viewing filmstrips and newsreels (at least I hope not, as they are unlikely to be paying much attention). What are they watching these days? Bigger cars are no longer better � they kill the environment and waste resources. Factories are dehumanizing. And while there is still a healthy respect for American cities, they are also the source of our greatest blight. Their sprawl is devouring up our farmland, our Walden ponds, our resources, our peace.

My friend L. poses the question in another way: �What is modern about old music?� She is discussing two repertoires: folk music collection and setting as a mode of national expression (Bela Bart�k�s folk music settings are a good example of this type) and neoclassical music � the writing of new music in an old style or the setting of old music in a new way (Stravinsky is the classic example here � music like The Rake�s Progress or the Pulcinella Suite, the latter of which sets music of early 18th c. composer Pergolesi). She comes to the conclusion that old music is another way of breaking with the recent past. Where the modern music movement sought to create new sonorities to free our ears from the confines of centuries of common practice harmony, the neoclassicists went back to music that had not yet been roped into the cultural center of harmony. Thus in this more narrowly defined way, nationalism (through folk music) could be a stand-in for modernism while at the same time evoking a purer and more innocent time.

All of this makes me think of Godfrey Reggio�s 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi with score by minimalist composer Philip Glass. I first saw this film at a midnight screening at the Calvin Theater in Northampton Massachusetts. The Calvin (so named for Calvin Coolidge, a former Northamptonite) used to have late night screenings for 99 cents. They had a huge glass bowl of pennies on the counter by the ticket window. You�d pay your buck and were free to take your change. No one ever did. We occasionally went to midnight movies in our pajamas, throwing our heavy winter coats on top by way of disguise. But more often we remained in our street clothes in order to take advantage of Jake�s caf� next door, which was only open from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. and served great omelets. But I digress. The night I saw Koyaanisqatsi I was on the brink of a case of pneumonia that would leave me with a cough for the rest of the school year and asthma for the rest of my life. The next day I had a temperature of 104 and I slept for nearly 24 hours straight. As a result of my imminent illness, I was in some sort of altered state, which may be the perfect way to see that film. For those who are unfamiliar with it, Koyaanisqatsi is a wordless film (well, wordless except for its title, which is also the only lyric in the musical accompaniment) that juxtaposes images of nature in motion (waves on the water, clouds sailing across the sky in time-lapse photography) with images of industrialization (machine components in action, factories at work). Plotless, the effect is essentially one of environmentalism. But the industrial images are compelling, in part because they are so reminiscent of those grade school films that glorify mass production as progress. Glass�s score assists matters with a mechanical beat and some pretty earthy sonorities, especially the basso profundo of the opening voices singing the title word in a parody of Gregorian chant. Another odd paring of modernity and antiquity. This time, though, antiquity stands for something that transcends such mundanities as national boundaries. Antiquity is the natural world itself, even more innocent than folk music. Modernity is no longer progress but corruption. In this environment the adoption of neoclassicism has almost political ramifications.

Beyond my current academic preoccupation with this topic, I think I�ve been considering nationalism in part because it is a state of being with which I am personally unfamiliar. Having grown up in so many different places, I don�t feel that sense of place, querencia and I can�t think of a time when I have felt particularly proud of my national identity, although I don�t think I�ve felt especially ashamed of it until relatively recently. As for modernity, my loyalties are most divided. The city holds great allure and I am a huge fan of space age, mid-century furniture and architecture. On the other hand, I am not comfortable living in brand new buildings. I need objects with history in my home. And I love wide open spaces with no people and am literally sickened by the sprawling developments of �Little boxes.� But that may have more to do with a general preference for the beautiful and an even greater preference for the beautifully functional. Modernity wins that round.

To end this great ramble,here is another take on the modern mixing with folk. At least, that�s how I interpreted the interior design that places a horse in the kitchen.

0 people said it like they meant it