[continued]
Inasmuch as these divergences have been researched to preclude the possibility of misprints, they represent alterations of the sonic imagery conceived by the composer. These changes may have been caused by a desire to sharpen the sonority, an adjustment in aesthetics, disappointment with the performance; or being misled by errors in the two early editions (as I have discovered amongst the corrections and changes he made in the Curwen copies and again shortly before his death). As a matter of fact, the two premieres, both with totally inadequate scores and parts, were the only performances Varèse ever heard of Amériques.
Varèse had been working on Amériques at least since 1918, as Louise Varèse, his wife, noticed shortly after they met at the end of 1917 that he was working on an orchestral score. The composing was thus accomplished, often interrupted, in the midst of some of the most challenging and rewarding years of his life, which included the launch of the New Symphony Orchestra and the International Composers Guild. It was a time during which he began presenting literally all of the great composers of the early 20th Century, publicly argued the need for “new mediums for expression,” disapproved of “all ‘isms’,” championed for “the individual,” and even proposed a “League of Nations in Art.”
Ever since childhood, the word “America” had meant to Varèse all discoveries, all adventures… the Unknown.” Amériques was his first composition after his arrival in the “new” continent on December 29, 1915. To him, the title symbolized “new worlds” on earth, in space, in the mind, but not specifically geographic ones. As he said later, he could have named it “the Himalayas.” Today, looking back from a new century, Amériques strikes us as a masterpiece of discoveries and adventures. Not surprisingly, then, we learn that Varèse said, “with Amériques, I began to write my own music.”
While Amèriques exudes an aura of post-Romanticism brimful of fin-de-siècle orchestral resources (including a quarter-tone passage removed from the revised version), its volcanic sonority and thundering rhythm set it apart from all other turn-of-the-century masterpieces. The difference is in his perception of chordal formation and spacing, instrumental sonority and register, of timing and dynamics as intrinsic means of structure and expression for his music.