Don Chance Gillespie, Ph.D. 1977

Advisor: Thomas Warburton

Dissertation Title: John Becker: Midwestern Musical Crusader

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Dissertation Abstract:

John Joseph Backer (1886-1961) lived in the American Midwest, where he was at one time well-known as a modern composer and Crusader for New Music, an advocate of the “ultra-modern” in American culture. Towards the end of his life, both his career as a musical militant and his compositions had been largely forgotten.

            This dissertation has two principal goals. First, Becker’s career as a proponent for modern music is traced in detail over a period of thirty years, from its origins in Texas in the early 1900s to its culmination in Minnesota in the middle 1930s. Becker’s activities fall into chronological periods (and chapter headings) corresponding to the areas of the country in which he lived: northern Texas (1906-14), Indiana (1915-28), Ohio (1928-29), and Minnesota (1929-36). Around 1935, his energies for intense avant-garde propaganda turned in other directions, and his career as an effective force for the modern movement subsided rapidly. It is shown that Becker’s rebellious and belligerent philosophy had its origins in the ultra-conservative, European-dominated atmosphere of his early teaching experiences in Texas and was further strengthened in the 1920s through his contacts with the poet Ezra Pound and the composer Henry Cowell. His Crusade for New Music found its fullest expression in his Minnesota Period, when he succeeded in combating the repressive cultural environment of the Twin Cities.

            Second, Becker’s music is examined in detail in order to delineate those musical stylistic features which place the composer clearly within the avant garde of his day. Both Becker’s early conservative works and his later modern works are surveyed, with special emphasis placed on his experimental traits and on his innovative stage works, which show similarities to the mixed media theater of the 1960s. Becker’s eclipse as a composer is shown to have been the result of the musico-political struggles of the 1930s and the economic hardships of the Great Depression.

            In addition, this study contends that Becker, who was a close friend of Charles Ives, was a member of a group of older American experimental composers who were influenced by Ives both spiritually and philosophically, who embraced cultural values similar to those of Ives, and who shared his suspicion of, and occasionally his hostility towards, the European musical culture. It is asserted that the nucleus of the older pioneering group, often called “the American Five,” consists of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Wallingford Riegger, Henry Cowell, and John Becker.

            This dissertation makes three conclusions. It contends that Becker’s Crusade for New Music was influential in establishing a favorable climate for contemporary music in the present-day Midwest. It suggests that Becker was one of the most significant of the ultra-modern composers of his generation.

Dr. Gillespie, whose dissertation research took him to New York City, made connections there that resulted in his being hired by the C.F. Peters Corporation, a major music publisher. He eventually became the Vice President and Director of the Board at Peters, where he was particularly known for his openness to new ideas in contemporary music. In addition, he published books on John Cage and Thomas F. Ward.