Beyond the Canon: Diversity in 19th-Century American Classical Music

Neely Bruce

I recently spent an afternoon with composer and musicologist Neely Bruce at his home in Middletown, Connecticut, where we started laying the groundwork for my next documentary on George Frederick Bristow. Neely welcomed us into his world—books, scores, a well-used piano—and we talked about Bristow’s music, his place in American history, and how little credit he’s gotten for shaping a national sound.

We recorded a few early thoughts, and I’m sharing one of those clips here. William Montes, as always, handled the camera and captured the atmosphere beautifully. It was a quiet but focused session, the kind that reminds me why I love making these films.

JOHNSON - BEACH - CAMMUCK

Diversity in American Classical Music in the 1800s

Indian Melodies

When I first started researching George Frederick Bristow, I expected the usual: a 19th-century American composer influenced mostly by European traditions. And sure enough, Bristow fits that mold—born in Brooklyn in 1825, the son of an English-born violinist, passionate about creating a national musical identity.

But as I dug deeper, the story expanded. American classical music in that period was more diverse than I expected.

Take Francis Johnson—a Black composer and bandleader writing waltzes and marches before the Civil War, touring the U.S. and Europe when slavery was still legal. Or Amy Beach, who broke ground later in the century as one of the first American women to compose and publicly perform orchestral works. And then there’s Thomas Commuck, a Narragansett composer who published Indian Melodies in 1845—an extraordinary example of Native American sacred music written in his own voice.

The more I learn, the more I see Bristow not as the whole story, but as an entry point. His life opens the door to a broader look at the unexpected threads woven through American music—many of them long ignored or forgotten.