Aaron Copland on Music Theory Print

Appalachian Spring

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Background#

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Aaron Copland spent much of his time promoting American composers and music. Copland’s compositions during this time turned jazzy and dissonant, a style that interested few. During the Great Depression, his left-wing political stances strengthened, motivated by addressing the concerns of ordinary people. This initiated the idea of music that was simple and accessible enough to be liked by the general public, a concept pioneered in his opera for children The Second Hurricane (1937) and his greatly successful ballet El Salón México (1936). This “ordinary music” idea is present in Appalachian Spring; Copland remarked in a 1980 interview that the music was “plain, singing, comparatively uncomplicated and slightly folksy. Direct and approachable”. The composer solidified his populist and Americana style with ballets like Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942), both of which used cowboy songs and fit with the popular stereotypes about the Wild West. In addition, Lincoln Portrait (1942) and Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) received widespread acclaim for their American themes, distinguishing Copland’s versatility as a composer. Martha Graham was a modern dancer and choreographer best known for creating the “Graham technique” of dance. The Martha Graham Dance Company originally consisted of only women due to Graham’s feminism; this played a key role in productions like American Document (1938), which mixed important moments in American history with Native American themes and American folklore. In the 1930s, she began commissioning scores from various composers; the scenarios often involved American history and culture.

Billy the Kid (ballet)

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Story#

Setting: New Mexico and Arizona, 1870s and 1880s The story follows the life of the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid. It begins with “The Open Prairie” and shows many pioneers trekking westward. The action shifts to a small frontier town, in which a young Billy and his mother are present. His mother is killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight and he stabs her killer, then goes on the run. The next scene shows episodes in Billy’s later life. He is living in the desert, is hunted and captured by a posse (in which the ensuing gun battle features prominent percussive effects) and taken to jail. He manages to escape after stealing a gun from the warden during a game of cards and returns to his hideout, where he thinks he is safe, but sheriff Pat Garrett catches up and shoots him to death. The ballet ends with “The Open Prairie” theme and pioneers once again travelling west.

Clarinet Concerto (Copland)

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Composition#

Soon after Copland composed his Symphony No. 3, in 1947 jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman commissioned him to write a concerto for clarinet. Goodman told Copland biographer Vivian Perlis: I made no demands on what Copland should write. He had completely free rein, except that I should have a two-year exclusivity on playing the work. I paid two thousand dollars and that’s real money. At the time there were not too many American composers to pick from… We never had much trouble except for a little fracas about the spot before the cadenza where he had written a repetition of some phrase. I was a little sticky about leaving it out—it was where the viola was the echo to give the clarinet a cue. But I think Aaron finally did leave it out… Aaron and I played the concerto quite a few times with him conducting, and we made two recordings" Copland was in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 as a lecturer and conductor. While there he made many drafts of the concerto. On August 26, 1948, Copland wrote that the concerto was still “dribbling along”. A month later, he wrote in a letter that the piece was almost done. On December 6, 1948, he wrote to composer Carlos Chávez that he had completed the composition and was pleased with the result. Copland accepted a commission from conductor Serge Koussevitzky to arrange the concerto’s first movement as an Elegy for Strings, to be performed by the Boston Symphony. However, in a letter to Koussevitzky dated August 29, 1950, Copland backed away from the commission. The composer explained that, after further thought, he believed that performing an arrangement of the first movement by itself “takes away from the integrity of the Concerto as I originally conceived it, and I am basically unwilling to do that”. Copland was also concerned, he wrote, that a performance of the concerto’s first movement by itself when the concerto still had not been performed—Goodman repeatedly postponed his premier of the piece—might be misperceived by the public as expressing doubt about the quality of the concerto’s second movement. He proposed a different way to satisfy his commitment for an elegy.

Connotations (Copland)

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Background#

Aaron Copland wrote Connotations to fulfill a commission from Leonard Bernstein for the opening concert of the New York Philharmonic’s new home in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Since this hall was slated as the first part of Lincoln Center for completion, its inauguration was considered especially momentous. Among the guest list of 2600 for the first concert and the white-tie gala which would follow it were John D. Rockefeller III (chairman of Lincoln Center), Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Governor and Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, United Nations Secretary General U Thant and prominent figures in the arts that included of Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing, violinist Isaac Stern and actress Merle Oberon. Noted composers would also attend included Samuel Barber, Henry Cowell, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Richard Rodgers, William Schuman and Roger Sessions. United States President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie had also been invited. Their initial inability to attend caused some consternation, since they had voiced their support for American culture. At the last minute, Jackie Kennedy said she would be there. Copland was one of ten internationally known composers who accepted invitations to contribute music for the opening. His would be the first new piece to be heard. Other compositions included the Eighth Symphony of American composer William Schuman, an Overture Philharmonique by French composer Darius Milhaud and “Andromache’s Farewell” for soprano and orchestra by American composer Samuel Barber. It would also be Copland’s first purely symphonic piece since his Third Symphony of 1947, although he had penned orchestral works in a number of genres throughout the 1940s and 50s. According to Taruskin, Copland’s receipt of such a commission testified to both his status as a creative figure and his close relationship with the American public. This position was unique among “serious” American composers and derived from the populist works he had written in the 1930s and 40s. However, from the 1950s Copland’s public works—the ones for which he had developed his populist style—were increasingly written in what he called his “difficult” or “private” style. That style had become increasingly non-tonal. Copland began sketching the work early in 1961. To gain composing time, he cancelled his 1962 trip to Tanglewood and determined to stay at home the entire year. Even so, he accepted an invitation to revisit Japan early in 1962 for a United States State Department conference and combined the trip with conducting engagements in Seattle and Vancouver. By June 25, Copland wrote to Mexican composer Carlos Chavez, “I am working day and night on my symphony for the Philharmonic commission. It is in three movements and I have just finished the last, the first being more than half done.” Copland then went to Mexico at Chavez’s invitation, partly to conduct but mainly to compose. From there, he wrote American composer Leo Smit on July 4 that he was not yet finished and was having trouble finding a title for the new work. He completed the piece in September 1962, just in time for orchestra rehearsals. When he considered the form the work would take, Copland wrote that he “concluded that the classical masters would undoubtedly provide the festive and dedicatory tone appropriate to such an occasion.” He therefore decided to offer “a contemporary note,” one that would reflect “the tensions, aspirations and drama inherent in the world today.” This tension, he explained in 1975, “is inherent in the nature of the chordal structures, and in the general character of the piece.”

Dance Panels

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Background#

Aaron Copland wrote Dance Panels in 1959 on a commission from Jerome Robbins and his “Ballets: U.S.A.” company. This company was sponsored through the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA), a United States government agency set up to represent American art abroad. According to Pollack, Robbins had wanted to work with Copland on a ballet since 1944, following his Broadway success with Leonard Bernstein’s ballet Fancy Free, and had a proposed a similar scenario to Copland at that time. In Copland Since 1943, the composer dates their desire to collaborate on a ballet at 1954, when Robbins directed the premiere of his opera The Tender Land at the New York City Opera. At the beginning of 1959, Robbins suggested two options to Copland, a ballet based on The Dybbuk and a non-programmatic ballet. Copland opted for the latter. Robbins then volunteered an outline that he tentatively called Theatre Waltzes: The originating idea is to do a ballet with presents the style, youth, technical competence, theatrical qualities and personalities of the company Ballets: U.S.A. in pure dance terms. The technique is essentially classic ballet (in the way that Americans employ it) and to make the whole ballet a declarative statement—open, positive, inventive, joyous (rather than introspective)—a parade; a presentation; perhaps elegant, witty, tender and with a sure technique. The ballet should be a chamber work in effect, both on stage as well as in the pit: the form, number of people and the quality of the atmosphere intimate and clear. It should say, this is Dance; it’s the way we use our European heritage (classic technique) in America. At the top of his proposal to Copland, Robbins wrote, “These are only ideas,” Pollack writes that the choreographer “went on to suggest over twenty different types of waltzes, including ‘circus waltz’ and ’tea-room waltz’; at the same time, he recognizes the advantages of working with ‘more abstract and evocative’ forms.” Copland finished the ballet in early 1959, in the hope the work would be premiered at that year’s Spoleto Festival in Florence, Italy. However, Robbins, to the dismay of ANTA, decided not to stage Dance Panels. While the choreographer claimed at the time that he did not receive the full score until the day before the troupe was to leave for Italy, both he and the composer had found the music had not turned out as either person had anticipated. Robbins later wrote that the score was “much more serious and difficult than I had expected….I realized that because of fatigue from my work on the musical Gypsy…it would be foolhardy to attempt it if I rushed into rehearsal without assimilating the score.” Copland wrote that Dance Panels “sat on the shelf” until the Bavarian State Opera approached him in 1962 for a ballet to stage at the opening of their new house that November. Once that offer came, the composer revised the score, partly in hope that Robbins could still choreograph it. Robbins again refused.

Danzón cubano

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Composition#

After having premiered El Salon Mexico in Mexico City in 1937, Copland traveled to Havana and other Latin American countries to study their rhythms and musical forms, with which he had a fascination. During this trip, he finished his second book, Our New Music, together with his lover, Victor Kraft. Four months after that, in 1941, he became a representative of the Committee of Inter-American Relations and went on a tour which took him four months to complete and traveled around nine different countries. He spent the time during this trip giving lectures and concerts after returning once again to Havana, which he considered to be a special place to him. Copland, however, entitled the work Birthday Piece as a reference not only to the League’s anniversary, but also to Rudy Burckhardt’s birthday. The composer premiered this work together with Leonard Bernstein on this occasion and dedicated it to Rudy Burckhardt, who was a friend of Copland and his lover who accompanied them while on their trip to Havana. The score was published shortly after the premiere by Boosey & Hawkes in 1943. One of the last performances that Copland gave was in a concert by American fellow musician and Principal Pianist at the New York Philharmonic Paul Jacobs on December 15, 1979. In the concert, Jacobs discussed the influence of jazz in modern classical music, as he performed pieces by Frederic Rzewski, William Bolcom and Copland’s own Four Piano Blues. After having been able to convince Copland to come up the stage, they both played the Danzón, even though Copland confessed to have been a little nervous about playing the piano again after a hiatus of more than 10 years. As Copland said: “Paul’s an old friend and he talked me into it”. The piece was recorded and the concert was partially released by Nonesuch Records.

El Salón México

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The dance hall#

The composition, subtitled “A Popular Type Dance Hall in Mexico City,” was inspired by a dancing establishment in Mexico City called “El Salón México.” El Salón México opened in 1920 and was a popular venue for a wide variety of tunes of dances: waltz, foxtrot, tango, pasodoble, and the Cuban danzón. There was one entrance, but three doors off of it, where patrons sorted themselves by what kind of music and dances they wanted. It was frequented by people from all classes of society. A famous sign in the lower-class room, where barefoot dancing was frequent, stated “Don’t throw cigarette butts on the floor because the ladies will burn their feet.” Copland wrote in his autobiography that he had been taken to “El Salón México” by Carlos Chávez, but had first learned of it from a guidebook: Perhaps my piece might never have been written if it hadn’t been for the existence of the Salón México. I remember reading about it for the first time in a tourist guide book: “Harlem-type nightclub for the peepul sic in the original , grand Cuban orchestra. Three halls: one for people dressed in your way, one for people dressed in overalls but shod, and one for the barefoot.” When I got there, I also found a sign on the wall which said: “Please don’t throw lighted cigarette butts on the floor so the ladies don’t burn their feet.” …In some inexplicable way, while milling about in those crowded halls, one really felt a live contact with the Mexican people — the atomic sense one sometimes gets in far-off places, of suddenly knowing the essence of a people — their humanity, their separate shyness, their dignity and unique charm.

Fanfare for the Common Man

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Instrumentation#

This fanfare is written for the following instruments: * four French horns (in F) * three trumpets (in B) * three trombones * tuba * timpani * bass drum * tam-tam

Fanfare#

Copland, in his autobiography, wrote of the request: “Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, had written to me at the end of August about an idea he wanted to put into action for the 1942–43 concert season. During World War I he had asked British composers for a fanfare to begin each orchestral concert. It had been so successful that he thought to repeat the procedure in World War II with American composers”. A total of 10 fanfares were written at Goossens’ behest, but Copland’s is the only one which remains in the standard repertoire. It was written in response to the U.S. entry into World War II and was inspired in part by a famous 1942 speech where vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the dawning of the “Century of the Common Man”. Goossens had suggested titles such as Fanfare for Soldiers, or sailors or airmen, and he wrote that is my idea to make these fanfares stirring and significant contributions to the war effort…." Copland considered several titles including Fanfare for a Solemn Ceremony and Fanfare for Four Freedoms; to Goossens’ surprise, however, Copland titled the piece Fanfare for the Common Man. Goossens wrote, “Its title is as original as its music, and I think it is so telling that it deserves a special occasion for its performance. If it is agreeable to you, we will premiere it 12 March 1943 at income tax time”. Copland’s reply was “I am all for honoring the common man at income tax time”. Copland later used the fanfare as the main theme of the fourth movement of his Third Symphony (composed between 1944 and 1946).

Four Piano Blues

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Composition#

The set of short blues for piano is the assembling of two pieces from the ’20s and two more from the ’40s. The first two pieces were written in 1926, as separate movements of an incomplete suite for piano, entitled Five Sentimental Melodies. This work was largely drawn from other melodies extracted from Copland’s Piano Concerto. One of the pieces was initially intended to become a part of another set of two blues. However, Copland published the first blues (entitled Blues No. 1) and left Blues No. 2 unpublished. The other piece was originally entitled Hommage à Milhaud, which he revised again in 1934, and was the basis for the Dove Dance in Copland’s Hear Ye! Hear Ye!. The other two pieces were composed in 1947 and 1948, and were, in turn, the basis for some melodies of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, which was completed in 1948. Upon finishing the concerto, Copland decided to revise all four previously unpublished sketches and published them as Four Piano Blues. The order of the movements was as follows: the 1947 piece, the Hommage à Milhaud, the 1948 piece and, finally, the Blues No. 2. The set as a whole was published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1949. Even though all blues have a title (drawn from their tempo markings) and a subtitle (drawn from their dedicatees), the set was never premiered, as some pieces may have served as encores and short intermezzos.

Inscape (Copland)

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Lincoln Portrait

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History#

Conductor Andre Kostelanetz commissioned Copland to write a musical portrait of an “eminent American” for the New York Philharmonic. Copland chose President Abraham Lincoln, and used material from speeches and letters of Lincoln, as well as original folk songs of the period, including “Camptown Races” and “On Springfield Mountain.” Copland finished Lincoln Portrait in April 1942. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra premiered the work on May 14, 1942, with William Adams as the narrator. Because of his leftist views, Copland was blacklisted and Lincoln Portrait withdrawn from the 1953 inaugural concert for Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Music for a Great City

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Composition#

The piece is divided into four movements: “Skyline”, “Night Thoughts”, “Subway Jam”, and “Toward the Bridge”. Much of the material is derived from the score Copland wrote for the 1961 film Something Wild.

Reception#

Reception was divided after the London premiere, with Sydney Edwards of the Evening Standard calling it disappointing and likening it to a knock-off of West Side Story. However, in a special to The New York Times, Charles Osborne complimented the piece, although admitted that the city in question was clearly New York and not London.

Old American Songs

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External links#

Library of Congress
Video - Aaron Copland - “Old American Songs” (1 of 2) (12:23).
Video - Aaron Copland - “Old American Songs” (2 of 2) (13:37).

Piano Concerto (Copland)

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Background#

Copland completed work on the piano concerto in November 1926. It is cast in two connected movements: a short, slow first movement, with a tempo marking of Andante sostenuto, and a large, fast second movement, marked as Molto moderato (molto rubato). Like George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (composed two years prior), the piece demonstrates an early use of jazz and blues in an orchestral setting.

Instrumentation#

The work is scored for piano and a large orchestra consisting of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone (doubling soprano saxophone), two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, five percussionists, celesta, and strings.

Piano Variations (Copland)

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Background#

The Piano Variations were a product of Copland’s second-style period, also called the abstract period, which consisted only of instrumental (non-vocal) compositions. During this time, the composer moved away from the jazzy idioms he experimented with in the 1920s and started working more in the direction of absolute music. The influence of composition pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, with whom Copland studied in Paris at the Fontainebleau School of Music for Americans, is prevalent in the formal style, logic, patterns, and attention to detail in the Piano Variations and other works in this period. Copland stated that he worked on the variations individually without an agenda for fitting them together or sequencing them, which seems to contradict the piece’s highly ordered construction and seemingly inevitable development. Copland acknowledged this contradiction but maintained that, in fact, “One fine day when the time was right, the order of the variations fell into place.” Copland had ambitious plans for this “serious piano piece”—the first of three including the Piano Variations (1930), the Piano Sonata (1939–41), and the Piano Fantasy (1957); he worked painstakingly and thought at epic proportions, saying he “should like to call them like Bach did the Goldberg Variations—but thus far haven’t been able to think up a good one.”

Quiet City (music)

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History#

In 1939, Copland wrote incidental music for the play Quiet City by Irwin Shaw. He later worked some of it into a ten-minute composition designed to be performed independently of the play. The piece premiered on January 28, 1941, by conductor Daniel Saidenberg and his Saidenberg Little Symphony in New York City. The original score for the play was composed for trumpet, alto saxophone, B clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), and piano. For a 1941 Boston Symphony performance, the composer wrote: In the Spring of 1939 I was asked by my friend, Harold Clurman, director of the Group Theatre, to supply the incidental musical score for a new play by Irwin Shaw, author of ‘Bury the Dead,’ ‘Gentle People,’ and other dramas his new opus was entitled ‘Quiet City,’ and was a realistic fantasy concerning the night-thoughts of many different kinds of people in a great city. It called for music evocative of the nostalgia and inner distress of a society profoundly aware of its own insecurity. The author’s mouthpiece was a young trumpet player called David Mellnikoff, whose trumpet playing helped to arouse the conscience of his fellow-players and of the audience. The play was given two ’try-out’ performances in New York on successive Sunday evenings in April of 1939, and then withdrawn for revisions. Several friends urged me to make use of some of the thematic material used in my stage score as the basis for an orchestral piece. This is what I did in the summer of 1940, as soon as my duties at the Berkshire Music Center were finished. I borrowed the name, the trumpet, and some of the themes from the original play. The addition of English horn and string orchestra (I was limited to clarinet, saxophone, piano, plus the trumpet of course, in the stage version), and the form of the piece as a whole, was the result of work in a barn-studio two miles down the road from Tanglewood. The orchestration was completed in late September, and the score dedicated to Ralph Hawkes, junior member of the London firm of Boosey and Hawkes, who published the composition recently. According to Copland, the piece was “an attempt to mirror the troubled main character of Irwin Shaw’s play”, who had abandoned his Jewishness and his poetic aspirations in order to pursue material success by anglicizing his name, marrying a rich socialite, and becoming the president of a department store. The man, however, was continually recalled to his conscience by the haunting sound of his brother’s trumpet playing. Continuing the assessment in his own autobiography, Copland observed that “Quiet City seems to have become a musical entity, superseding the original reasons for its composition”, owing much of its success to its escape from the details of its dramatic context.

Rodeo (ballet)

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Genesis#

The original ballet was choreographed by Agnes de Mille for the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, a dance company that moved to the United States during World War II. In order to compete with the rival company Ballet Theatre, the Ballet Russe commissioned de Mille out of a career of relative obscurity. The choreographer was given considerable creative control, choosing Aaron Copland as the composer after being impressed by his previous ballet, Billy the Kid. Though Copland was initially reluctant to compose “another Cowboy ballet,” De Mille persuaded him that this show would mark a significant departure from his previous work. As de Mille found herself occupied with instructing a highly international cast in the mannerisms of American cowboys, Copland recommended that Oliver Smith design the sets, in what would prove to be a prescient action. De Mille herself played the lead, and the premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House on 16 October 1942 received 22 curtain calls. The other principal dancers in the cast included Frederic Franklin and Casimir Kokitch. Though de Mille herself was not entirely pleased with the premiere, it was attended by Rodgers and Hammerstein, who approached de Mille afterward to request that she choreograph their upcoming production of Oklahoma!. The ballet makes use of riding movements that de Mille devised with the assistance of Peggy van Praagh, for a recital in London by Peggy van Praagh and Hugh Laing in 1938. De Mille also made use of such vernacular forms as a square dance and a cadenza for a tap dancer. Noted among many reviews was de Mille’s highly evocative choreography, described as “film sensibility” and renowned for its realism. The original production went on to lead a successful tour, though producers were hard pressed to replicate the skill with which de Mille had portrayed the lead. De Mille retained veto power over any casting of the ballet, which often sent companies to extremes in order to find a worthy Cowgirl. Meanwhile, Copland arranged the music as a symphonic suite for orchestra titled Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, which consisted chiefly of removing “Ranch House Party” and minor adjustments to the final two sections. With the middle section removed, the composition resembled the symphonic form with an ambitious opening movement, slow movement, minuet and finale. In this form, Rodeo found even greater success, premiering at the Boston Pops in 1943.

Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes

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Production#

When Peck made Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes, he had only been appointed resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet months ago. Peck claimed he saw the de Mille version performed by the American Ballet Theatre three years prior, and several different versions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, before making his own. He said he “wanted to understand what she did” but not let de Mille’s choreography “loom over” him. On why he chose this score, he said it was due to the “kinetic energy that it embodies” and “it also felt deep enough for the exploration of an entirely different ballet, one that didn’t snub or get in the way of the Agnes de Mille original.” The night before the premiere, dancer Andrew Veyette injured himself while performing George Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations, so Peck, who was still dancing at the time, cast himself in Veyette’s role in the first movement of Rodeo, while Sean Suozzi replaced Veyette in the fourth movement. Peck went on stage before the premiere to explain the situation.

Short Symphony

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History#

From 1926 to 1928, Copland arranged his Organ Symphony into his First Symphony, and in 1929, arranged music from his ballet score Grohg into the ballet suite Dance Symphony. Though both of these “symphonies” preceded the Short Symphony, Copland did not think of the Dance Symphony as a real symphony. Thus, the Short Symphony is considered to be Copland’s second symphony—with the composer himself having referred to it as such. Copland began work on the Short Symphony in 1931. By 1932, Copland was sketching, composing, and revising the symphony in parallel with another composition, Statements for Orchestra. While staying at the Yaddo estate during the summer of 1932, Copland wrote to the pianist John Kirkpatrick that the composition of the Short Symphony had been disrupted because he was simultaneously working on Statements for Orchestra. At the urging of his friend and fellow composer Carlos Chávez, Copland made his first trip to Mexico in the fall of 1932. In Mexico, Copland continued working on his two orchestral pieces and was impressed by the country’s people and music. The trip inspired Copland to incorporate traditional Mexican elements into the finale of the Short Symphony, as well as begin the symphonic piece El Salón México. Work on the Short Symphony extended into the next year; Copland explained the delay in a 1969 radio program, saying that he “was intent on writing as perfected a piece of music as I possibly could”. The symphony was completed in 1933 before the completions of Statements for Orchestra and El Salón México, thus becoming the first product of Copland’s Mexican travels. Copland would make several more trips to Mexico during extended working vacations. After conductors Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski both declined to premiere the Short Symphony due to its rhythmic difficulties, Chávez agreed to conduct the work’s world premiere. It was first performed in Mexico City on November 23, 1934 by Chávez and the Sinfónica de México. In gratitude, Copland dedicated the symphony to Chávez. The symphony remained unperformed for a decade following its premiere. Stokowski had originally put the Short Symphony on a program of contemporary works to be presented during the fall 1935 season of the Philadelphia Orchestra; however, he described the work as “asymetrical in rhythm and very difficult” and later cancelled the performance. Koussevitzky also announced and then cancelled a performance of the symphony. When Copland asked the conductor if the piece was too difficult, Koussevitzky allegedly replied, "" (). Stokowski eventually turned, and he conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra for the symphony’s U.S. radio broadcast premiere in Radio City Music Hall, New York City, on January 9, 1944. Another performance was given in 1955 by the Südwestfunk Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden. In 1957, Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the piece’s U.S. concert premiere. This was followed by the U.S. West Coast premiere at the 1958 Ojai Music Festival in Southern California, with Copland conducting. In 1937, Copland arranged the Short Symphony as the Sextet for Clarinet, String Quartet, and Piano. Copland called this an “act of desperation” to make the piece less difficult to play. The Sextet was first performed in 1939 but subsequently received few performances. He also permitted an arrangement of the symphony by Dennis Russell Davies for a conventional chamber orchestra, which was completed in 1979.

Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (Copland)

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History#

Copland studied composition in Paris from 1921 to 1924 under famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He was especially appreciative of the confidence she displayed in her young American students, and she arranged for him to write a major symphonic work for organ and orchestra to be premiered by herself on organ and the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch followed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) under Serge Koussevitzky. He had come to be known around Paris as “that talented young American composer,” and at a meeting at Koussevitzky’s house with Sergei Prokofiev and Boulanger, the conductor remarked “You vill sic write an organ concerto, Mademoiselle Boulanger vill sic play it and I vill sic conduct it!” Despite his apprehensiveness about his preparedness to write such a large work — Copland had never heard his own orchestration — Boulanger reassured him that he possessed the skills and talent. The Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered in New York on January 11, 1925 at Aeolian Hall, also Boulanger’s American debut. The Boston premiere took place later that year. The premiere of the re-orchestrated First Symphony did not take place until 1931, when the Berlin Symphony Orchestra performed it under Ernest Ansermet’s baton.

Symphony No. 3 (Copland)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

Written at the end of World War II, it is known as the essential American symphony that fuses his distinct “Americana” style of the ballets (Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, etc.) with the form of the symphony, which has generally been a European-dominated musical form. The Fanfare for the Common Man, written in 1942, is used as a theme in the fourth movement. Various fragments from Fanfare are also used for primary thematic material in the first three movements. : \relative c \clef treble \key e \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Molto moderato – with simple expression” 4 = 42 \partial 4*1 e4(\p_“dolce” b2) r4 e( gis, e’ a,2)~ a8 r e'4( b2 ~ \time 2/4 b The first movement (Molto moderato) opens with a simple theme in the woodwinds and strings, which is echoed warmly throughout the orchestra, before quickly heightening into a brassy fanfare (in which we get our first hints of the Fanfare for the Common Man theme.) : \relative c \clef bass \time 4/4 \tempo “Più moss ancora” 4 = 92 d\f-> f– a2– b4– a– gis2– fis4-> a– d– cis– c– ees– g2– The movement ends as peacefully as it started, but we are quickly snapped out of the reverie with the thunderous timpani thump that launches the lively scherzo into action. : f a4-> b-> c1->\sf \new RhythmicStaff \clef bass f4_“Gran Cassa”\ff r4 r2 r1 » The whirling second movement (Allegro molto) features a dashing, boisterous theme, settling into gentler, pastoral segment but ending exuberantly. : \relative c \clef treble \key b \minor \time 5/4 \tempo “Andantino quasi allegretto” 4 = 84 b4(\pp d2) fis gis4( fis2) eis \time 3/4 dis4( fis2) b4.( bes) a( c) e2. The third movement (Andantino quasi allegretto) opens slowly and contemplatively, featuring Copland’s typically sparse and almost ambiguous harmonies. It digresses into a frisky dance-like passage, vaguely Latin American in tone, before transitioning uninterrupted into the finale (Molto deliberato – Allegro risoluto), where we hear a pianissimo version of the Fanfare for the Common Man, and then the fanfare in its full glory. : \relative c \clef treble \key aes \major \time 4/4 \tempo “Molto deliberato” 16( 8~ 2.) 16( 8~ 2) 4( 2~ 4) The duration of this movement is spent primarily with the development and recapitulation of the Fanfare melody: Copland gives it a dazzling contrapuntal treatment while at the same time managing to introduce an entirely new theme. The symphony closes majestically with a final reprise of both the Fanfare and the symphony’s opening motif. In 1947 Leonard Bernstein, while performing the work in Israel, removed some 10 bars from the fourth movement without Copland’s consent. Later on, the composer agreed to these cuts, which were incorporated in the 1966 edition published by Boosey & Hawkes. However, in June 2015, Boosey & Hawkes published a new performing edition in which the cuts have been restored to conform with the original 1946 manuscript. The overall tone of the work is one of heroism and dignity, and it leaves an appropriately stirring impression. Note that the Fanfare in the fourth movement is not a direct copy of the stand-alone work Fanfare for the Common Man. There are numerous subtle changes, including a new introduction (a woodwind duet begins the fourth movement), two key changes, and different percussion parts.

The Second Hurricane

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and performance history#

The Second Hurricane was Copland’s first attempt at composing opera. It was commissioned by the Henry Street Settlement in New York City, and it premiered at the settlement’s playhouse on April 21, 1937, performed by students at its music school. The premiere production was designed by Orson Welles and conducted by Lehman Engel. The young Joseph Cotten played the small speaking role of Mr. Maclenahan. The work was performed on CBS Radio May 9, 1937, in a one-hour broadcast directed by Earle McGill. The work has only been sporadically performed since its premiere. During a weeklong celebration of Copland’s 80th birthday in 1980, it was performed one night at Memphis State University with students from the Memphis Public Schools, directed by Robert Swift. In honor of Copland’s 85th birthday, it was revived at the Henry Street Settlement in November 1985 in a production by Tazewell Thompson which restored an aria and a ballet which had been cut from the work at its premiere. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, a new version was premiered at the 11th Chicago Humanities Festival. For the Chicago production, the producer and musical director Michael Barrett and Jamie Bernstein Thomas (the daughter of Leonard Bernstein) wrote a new libretto updating the story from the 1930s to 2000; the action takes place in a television studio, where the protagonists describe their adventures for a cable-television show called Teen Heroes. In 2014, the opera was revived in Columbia, South Carolina as a co-production between the University of South Carolina’s Magellan scholar program, Opera at USC, FBN Productions, Inc., and Columbia Music Festival Association. The cast was composed of community students from across the Midlands region of South Carolina and was directed by a university senior, Kate McKinney.

The Tender Land

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and reading James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. He wrote the work between 1952 and 1954 for the NBC Television Opera Workshop, with the intention of its being presented on television. However, the television producers rejected the opera. Eventually, the work had its premiere on April 1, 1954 at the New York City Opera, with Thomas Schippers as the conductor, Jerome Robbins as the director, and a cast including the young Norman Treigle. It was poorly received, with criticism focused on the weaknesses of the opera’s characters and the storyline. Later analysis by Christopher Patton stated that one underlying cause of the opera’s failure at the premiere was the contrast between writing for the intimate medium of television, the originally intended medium of the work, versus the more public and larger-scale setting of an opera house. Patton has also noted the influence of Erik Johns’ interest in the Vedanta branch of Hinduism in the libretto. Johns later said: Copland and Johns made revisions to the opera, expanding Act 2 for performances at Tanglewood in August 1954, and making further adjustments for Oberlin College in 1955. With the composer’s consent, Murry Sidlin re-scored the work with reduced forces - the same scoring as the original 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring - for a production in New Haven in 1987, a staging that ran for more than 50 performances. Sidlin also added two of Copland’s Old American Songs to the central party scene. On July 28, 1965, the composer conducted a concert version of his work, as part of the French-American Festival, with the New York Philharmonic. In the cast were Joy Clements, Claramae Turner, Richard Cassilly, Norman Treigle, and Richard Fredricks. Three days later, Columbia recorded an abridged version of the opera, again conducted by Copland, at the Manhattan Center, with the same cast. In 2000, Sony released the historic performance on compact disc.

Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Discography#

No. 3: “Why Do They Shut Me Out Of Heaven?”, with Frederica von Stade (mezzo-soprano) and Martin Katz (piano), CBS, 1982