Published January 1992
Everyone knows that the war between the present and the past has a political dimension. Few recognize, however, how far into even the most obscure corners of our culture you can hear echoes of this war. Consider the posthumous life of two American composers: Ives and Beach.
Charles Ives (18741954) was arguably the first modernist composer, and perhaps the first post-modern composer as well (he refused to stick to one tradition or aesthetic program, instead honoring, incorporating, and even encompassing as much music as possible). Often dubbed America's greatest composer, he is without question Connecticut's greatest claim to musical fame (though what the state had to do with his development is, well, disputable). So it is at least understandable why Connecticut State Senator Tim Upson (Rep.) introduced a bill to name Danbury's iconoclast the State Composer of Connecticut.
Politics being what it is, however, this seemingly innocuous bit of legislation was fated to twist in the windings of current ideological fashion. Democratic Senator James Maloney insisted that the state honor, instead, living composers. An imbroglio ensued. What began as an attempt to declare a simple truth wound up turned into yet another program of the Distributive State: every year Connecticut arts-organizations will bestow (oh-so-democratically) on a contemporary Connecticutian the title of State Composer Laureate. Ives will serve the first year, posthumously.
The difficulty of balancing the past and the present is even more startlingly demonstrated in a current non-controversy concerning Ives's contemporary, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (18671944). I say non-controversy because I seem to be the only person offended by what everyone is calling her these days: that is, Amy Beach. During her rather successful career as a concert pianist and composer of Late Romantic music (she was certainly more successful in the profession than was Ives, who made his living innovating the insurance business) she referred to herself as Mrs. H. H. A. Beach. Times they have a-changed, of course, and the acceptability of a professional woman referring to herself in such a sexist
way is, of course, long past. And so contemporary critics, disk jockeys, and other collaborators of the tyranny of modern mores have changed her name for her.
Now, I wholeheartedly applaud the spirit of this age on the matter of married names. I find patriarchal name changing a bit unseemly. I think it would be good and progressive if women, when they married, kept their old last names. It would be even better if both parties to the marriage altered their names, each in honor of the other. But I am not censorious about the issue: traditionalists should have the right and propriety to choose the custom that suits them. And I abhor the disrespect involved in not calling people by the names they choose for themselves. If you wish to go by a moniker such as Amadeus, or John Galt, or even Attila, I will not deny your preference. And this courtesy, or justice, should surely extend to the dead. We do not honor an individual by making her conform to our values, rather than hers, no matter how "reprehensible" her values may seem to us.
Amy Beach should be called by the name she actually chose: Mrs H. H. A. Beach. It is what she wanted. It is the only decent thing to do.
But what would Charles Ives have thought about these issues? What would he have thought of Mrs Beach's nom de politique ‹ or current feminism, for that matter ‹ considering that his ultimate word of opprobrium was "sissy"? (He used it against his Late Romantic critics, oh-so-sensitive to his provocative, dissonant music.) And how would his naive, extravagant faith in "The Majority" have fared had he witnessed his fate in the hands of the Connecticut legislature? I am reminded of the words of a wise poet:
The minority has the majority.
The dead are outvoted.
Copyright 1991, Liberty Publishing.
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