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Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (1900–1990), an American composer, composition teacher, writer, was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition. In his later years he was often referred to as “the Dean of American Composers”. He is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in an accessible style. Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man and Third Symphony. The slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are considered typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Aaron Copland studied in Paris where he studied with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Upon his return to the U.S. Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. He shifted in the mid-1930s to a musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik (“music for use”), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. Copeland was influenced by the composer Aaron Stieglitz who felt that American artists should create work that gave expression to American democracy. Copland did this in several popular ballets that made use of American folk tunes, particularly cowboy songs. The ballet Rodeo and the movement from that work featured on our playlist, “Hoedown,” is unmistakeable in its reference to the American West. This American nationalism stands in stark contrast to the modernist music of Copland’s contemporaries.
However, during the late 1940s Copland felt a need to compose works of greater emotional substance than his utilitarian scores of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Copland began to make use of twelve-tone rows in several compositions. He incorporated serial techniques in some of his later worksin the 1950’s. From the 1960s onward, Copland’s activities turned more from composing to conducting.
Popular Works
Copland wrote El Salón México between 1932 and 1936, which met with a popular acclaim that contrasted the relative obscurity of most of his previous works. Inspiration for this work came from Copland’s vivid recollection of visiting the “Salon Mexico” dance hall where he witnessed a more intimate view of Mexico’s nightlife. Copland said that he could literally feel the essence of the Mexican people in the dance hall – prompting him to write a piece celebrating the spirit of Mexico using Mexican Themes. Copland derived freely from Mexican folk tunes, changing pitches and varying rhythms. The use of a folk tune with variations set in a symphonic context started a pattern he repeated in many of his most successful works right on through the 1940s. This work also marked the return of jazz patterns to Copland’s compositional style, though they appeared in a more subdued form than before and were no longer the centerpiece.
Copland achieved his first major success in ballet music with his groundbreaking score Billy the Kid, based on a Walter Noble Burns novel, with choreography by Eugene Loring. It was distinctive in its use of polyrhythm and polyharmony, particularly in the cowboy songs. It became a staple work of the American Ballet Theatre, and Copland’s twenty-minute suite from the ballet became part of the standard orchestral repertoire.
In 1942, Copland produced Fanfare for the Common Man, scored for brass and percussion intended as a national morale booster. It would later be used to open many Democratic National Conventions, and to add dignity to a wide range of other events. Even musical groups from Woody Herman’s jazz band to the Rolling Stones adapted the opening theme.
In the same year, Copland wrote A Lincoln Portrait, a commission from conductor André Kostelanetz. This lead to a further strengthening of his association with American patriotic music. The work is famous for the spoken recitation of Lincoln’s words. “Lincoln Portrait” is often performed at national holiday celebrations. Many Americans have performed the recitation, including politicians, actors, and musicians and Copland himself, with Henry Fonda doing the most notable recording.
Continuing his string of successes, in 1942 Copland composed the ballet Rodeo, a tale of a ranch wedding, written around the same time as Lincoln Portrait. Rodeo is another enduring composition for Copland and contains many recognizable folk tunes, well-blended with Copland’s original music.
Notable in the final movement, is the striking “Hoedown”. This was a recreation of Appalachian fiddler W. H. Stepp’s version of the square-dance tune “Bonypart” (“Bonaparte’s Retreat”). https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?post=738&action=edit
Click on this link of a recording of an old cowboy tune had an impact Copeland in his “Hoedown” movement of Rodeo. This NPR story of the Hoedown Melody used by Copland and its transformation from a western fiddler’s tune to an orchestral dance is quite interesting. Also read the paragraph on that movement from the Wikipedia article on Rodeo. The link will take you directly to that paragraph.,
This “Bonypart” was transcribed for piano by Ruth Crawford Seeger and published in Alan Lomax and Seeger’s book, Our Singing Country (1941). Copland borrowed note for note from Seeger’s piano transcription of Stepp’s tune (above). This melody fragment became one of the best-known compositions by any American composer, . Rodeo was choreographed by Agnes de Mille, niece of film giant Cecil B. DeMille. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera on October 16, 1942, with de Mille dancing the principal “cowgirl” role and the performance received a standing ovation. A reduced score is still popular as an orchestral piece, especially at “Pops” concerts.
Figure 2. Martha Graham in 1948
Copland was commissioned to write another ballet, Appalachian Spring, originally written using thirteen instruments, which he ultimately arranged as a popular orchestral suite. The commission for Appalachian Spring came from Martha Graham, who had requested of Copland merely “music for an American ballet”. Copland titled the piece “Ballet for Martha,” having no idea of how she would use it on stage but he had her in mind. “When I wrote ‘Appalachian Spring’ I was thinking primarily about Martha and her unique choreographic style, which I knew well. . . . And she’s unquestionably very American: there’s something prim and restrained, simple yet strong, about her which one tends to think of as American.” Copland borrowed the flavor of Shaker songs and dances, and directly used the dance song Simple Gifts. Graham took the score and created a ballet she called Appalachian Spring (from a poem by Hart Crane which had no connection with Shakers).
It was an instant success, and the music later acquired the same name. Copland was amused and delighted later in life when people would come up to him and say: “Mr. Copland, when I see that ballet and when I hear your music I can see the Appalachians and just feel spring.” Copland had no particular setting in mind while writing the music, he just tried to give it an American flavor, and had no knowledge of the borrowed title, in which “spring” refers to a spring of water, not the season Spring.
Copeland wrote songs, too. This one is very popular.