Born in 1896 to Swedish immigrant parents in Wahoo, Nebraska, Howard Harold Hanson was destined to be one of the most important composers in the United States. His collection of awards and recognitions is too numerous to list, thus confirming his position in the music industry and in the hearts of all American classical musicians.
One such classical musician is Danielle Meier, vice president of artistic administration at the Omaha Symphony. “I am definitely a fan,” she said. “He is almost single-handedly responsible for making sure American music after World War I is performed and celebrated.”
Hanson was indeed an influential figure in the music community, both nationally and internationally. Having earned a diploma from Luther College in Wahoo, he then traveled to New York City to study at the Institute of Musical Art, the forerunner to the famed Juilliard School. The year 1920 saw his first national recognition for The “California Forest Play,” and in 1921, Hanson was the first winner of the Prix de Rome in Music and as such was able to live in Italy for three years.
While abroad, Hanson composed “Quartet in One Movement,” “Lux Aeterna,” “The Lament for Beowulf,” and “Symphony No. 1, Nordic,” further celebrating his Scandinavian heritage after his earlier “Scandinavian Suite.”
In 1924, George Eastman, inventor of the Kodak camera, appointed Hanson to the position of director of the Eastman School of Music after taking notice of his conduction of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Hanson held this position for 40 years, making Eastman School of Music one of the most prestigious in America. The next year, Hanson established the American Composers Orchestral Concerts, followed by annual Festival of American Music in 1931 and “Milestones in the History of Music” in 1938, a weekly radio series, then founded the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra a year later.
Prestigious awards complemented his conducting and composing career, including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946 and a Pulitzer Prize for his “Symphony No. 4.” Hanson’s best known work, however, is his “Symphony No. 2, the Romantic,” which later gained immense popularity as the end credits of the 1979 Ridley Scott film, “Alien.”
“Everyone loves his ‘Symphony No. 2, the Romantic,’” Meier said. “I just discovered his ‘Chorale and Hallelujah Opus 42,’ and that is unbelievably gorgeous!” Meier’s appreciation for Hanson goes beyond his musical talent, pointing out that he was not only an extremely influential composer, but also a spokesman for the importance of music and music education.
“I’ve lived in Nebraska for about 12 years now,” she said. “As someone who works for an American orchestra, it’s kind of fantastic to know that there was someone who was championing this music and making sure it wasn’t forgotten. It’s nice to know that [Hanson] was fighting the good fight back then, and we haven’t lost more because of him.
“He knew how to write a beautiful piece of music,” Meier continued, “but he also took all of his positions of power and responsibility and used them for good to make sure people knew American composers and American music.”
Hanson’s 1934 work, “Merry Mount,” is considered the first truly American opera—complete with an American composer and American librettist. “Merry Mount” also tells a quintessentially American story. Amidst the ocean of foreign-language operas and foreign composers who were rising in popularity across the world, Hanson lit a fire under America’s classical music scene that ignited domestic patriotism among musicians. He even coined the term “modal modulation,” with which nearly all musicians are familiar, referring to shifting the modal center in a chord progression.
Hanson’s work was heavily inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman, most famously noted for his collection entitled, “Leaves of Grass.” Hanson composed “Three Songs from Drum Taps” and “Song of Democracy” based on poems by Whitman. Clearly, Whitman’s proclivity for alliteration had rubbed off on Hanson, as he entitled his 1960 book, “Harmonic Materials of Modern Music.”
“Anyone interested in knowing how to utilize the resources they have at hand to do real good should look at Hanson’s time at Eastman,” Meier averred. “He spent 40 years championing education and music; this guy was the epitome of ‘getting it done.’”
For more information about the composer, visit esm.rochester.edu/iam/history.
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
