As the United States transitioned from a wartime power to a Cold War superpower, musicians grappled with the best means for composing pieces that embodied the country's values. Emily Abrams Ansari's The Sound of a Superpower: Musical Americanism and the Cold War contributes to the growing scholarship that addresses the role of music and cultural diplomacy in the Cold War. Ansari presents a focused study that explores the contributions that six musicians—Howard Hanson, William Schuman, Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein—made toward defining the US postwar music scene. These musicians struggled with the complexity of composing works that would be examples of “musical Americanism” (1–3). In particular, they grappled with how to express values such as progress, individual freedom, and equal opportunity in their music and debated whether serial or tonal music would be most suitable for the expression of those values. With the Eisenhower Administration's implementation of programs to promote US culture abroad, musicians understood these programs as opportunities to showcase examples of “musical Americanism” that would not only demonstrate the US's distinct culture but also reflect their own conceptions of their country's values.

Ansari's book begins with an informative introduction in which she argues that these six musicians interpreted “musical Americanism” differently and consequently chose musical selections for overseas tours that reflected these individualized understandings. For all six composers, Ansari contends, personal aspirations also played a role in their decisions to become involved with these cultural programs since these programs provided an international venue for promoting their own work. In each chapter, Ansari's meticulous research, drawing from the papers of each musician and utilizing material from numerous archival collections, convincingly advances her argument.

Ansari first focuses on Howard Hanson and William Schuman, whose musical preferences denoted their support for US foreign policy actions and objectives. Both Hanson and Schuman were members of the State Department's Music Advisory Panel and utilized their positions to promote the export of tonal concert works. Hanson and Schuman introduced a list of six criteria—including such vague responses as “musical reasons” or “not meet our professional standards” (41)—that would allow them to reject individuals whose works were not reflective of the classical music genre. Though not always successful, Hanson's and Schuman's efforts largely resulted in the export of classical works. Ansari ends her chapter with an analysis of Schuman's Credendum (1955), which was written at the behest of Max McCullough, the executive secretary of the US Commission to UNESCO. McCullough sought a piece to convey humanity's “hopes [and] disappointments” (56–57) associated with the United Nations’ creation and development. Furthermore, McCullough desired that this same piece should evoke humanity's yet unrecognized aspirations for “solidarity” (56–57). Though McCullough stated that the work met his expectations, Ansari considers the work more reflective of Schuman's support for assertive US foreign policy than the embodiment of “peace and unity” (56).

Similar to Hanson and Schuman, Virgil Thomson sat on the State Department's Music Advisory Board; understood the classical genre as the best means for promoting “musical Americanism”; and promoted composers that he favored. However, Ansari demonstrates that Thomson's actions and statements, particularly his careful crafting of a politically centrist position, reveal that his political pragmatism and opportunistic character fully informed his actions and his works. The most artful example occurs with Ansari's examination of his opera Four Saints in Three Acts (1927–1928), which was performed at the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris. Ostensibly, the opera, which included an all African American cast, appeared to be revolutionary. However, Thomson's promotion of the opera did not translate into support for African American culture. Instead, as Ansari notes, the opera allowed Thomson to promote his own work abroad, a work that aided with the US objective of countering negative reports of the treatment of African Americans.

The musical evolution of Roy Harris reveals the shifting conceptions of “musical Americanism” within an individual's corpus. Harris had fashioned his identity as a product of the American West, and throughout his career, he attempted to compose music in a patriotic style. However, Ansari demonstrates that Harris became disillusioned by his fellow citizens’ focus on economic motivations and success. Furthering his disillusionment with the United States were apparently false charges of pro-Communist sympathies in 1953. When Harris toured the Soviet Union in 1958, though, he began to speak highly of the country's musical education and artistic life, and late in life, he even contemplated moving to the Soviet Union. Harris remained in the United States, and Ansari's careful analysis of his Symphony no. 11 (1967) illustrates his unresolved stance toward his country. Though familiar tropes from his earlier works appear in this symphony, the symphony becomes more and more dissonant. Ansari rightfully concludes that the work can be heard as the destruction of the “optimistic Americanism” of Harris's work and, more generally, that the Eleventh Symphony finds “musical Americanism . . . effectively destroying itself” (122).

If Harris’ Eleventh Symphony can be understood as destroying “musical Americanism,” then the work of Aaron Copland remains the quintessence of that style. Ansari's analysis of Copland begins with a detailed discussion of the composer's progressive beliefs, particularly those found in his most famous works. Ansari partially utilizes Elizabeth Crist's work in this section, though the author concludes that after 1937, Copland's interest in Communism declined.Footnote ¹ Moreover, Ansari, drawing from Nadine Hubbs’ work,Footnote ² explains that Copland's concerns with being viewed as subversive, due to his homosexuality and his questioning before Senator Joseph McCarthy, prompted him to focus on composing more serialist music rather than pure tonal works. Ansari demonstrates that Copland's focus on serialism was not simply politically motivated, but that serialism had been an element of Copland's musical style for years. This fusion of personal interests and politics later appeared in Copland's numerous overseas tours. Ansari convincingly argues that Copland believed in the ability of music to bridge differences and that he remained devoted to promoting US musical works and composers abroad. These cultural diplomatic tours and other endeavors with the federal government successfully rewrote aspects of Copland's biography, which resulted in the composer being the “United States’ best-known musical Americanist” (160).

Ansari concludes her case studies with a discussion of Leonard Bernstein and the evolution of “American exceptionalism” (165). Bernstein's notion of “American exceptionalism” celebrated the country's ethnic diversity and not its power. As Ansari details, Bernstein's creativity was hampered by his devotion to Copland's musical style. When Bernstein stopped attempting to imitate Copland, his work was met with success, most notably in West Side Story (1957), which combined operatic style music with popular musical styles to encapsulate his ideas about ethnic pluralism. Overseas, Bernstein desired to promote US cultural nationalism and not political nationalism; nevertheless, these overseas tours, which included a meeting with Boris Pasternak and the performance of works by Igor Stravinsky, emphasized the United States’ commitment to freedoms and thus aimed to showcase the superiority of democracy.

Ansari's The Sound of a Superpower: Musical Americanism and the Cold War reminds readers of the key importance of considering context when analyzing musical selections. Specifically, in the conclusion, she examines the use of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) at 9/11 anniversaries by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. When accompanying Bush's statements on US resolve, she argues, Copland's music reminded listeners of the nation's strength and power, whereas the Fanfare for the Common Man accompanied Obama's focus on ordinary American heroes and victims. Through these examples, Ansari vividly demonstrates that context informs the audience's receptions of the pieces under study, and that recognizing these six musicians’ works as cultural weapons in the Cold War provides additional context for analyzing these pieces. Ansari's book will appeal to both musicologists and scholars of the Cold War. Though musicologists may have desired more technical studies of the works discussed, Ansari's analyses remain accessible for non-specialists, thereby aiding in the book's appeal to a wide audience. Ansari provides an astute examination of the factors that shaped the sound of the United States during the Cold War and highlights the intersection of personal motivations, domestic politics, and foreign affairs in forming “musical Americanism.”