Copland's music of hope and home - Newsday.com
Copland's music of hope and homeThe Bard Music Festival celebrates the national voice that resonates in the varied works of Aaron Copland
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Aaron Copland (PHOTO/ CORBIS)
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A portion of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man: Molto deliberato " (RealAudio)
A portion of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo: Hoe-Down - Allegro" (RealAudio)
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The recorded life of an American Master
BY MATHER PFEIFFENBERGERMather Pfeiffenberger is a freelance writer.August 7, 2005
Close your eyes and imagine the sound of America. What do you hear? The crack of a baseball bat? Maybe that fanfare they play at sporting events? Or the music from that beef commercial?You're hearing the music of Aaron Copland all the time, though you may not know it: the latter two examples come from "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Rodeo," respectively, among the most famous pieces by Copland, the subject of this year's Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson over the next two weekends (Aug. 12-14 and 19-21).
Since his death in 1990, Copland's fame has rested on a handful of works. Researchers have been supplementing his iconic status with new insights about his Jewishness, his homosexuality, his brush with McCarthyism and how they affected his life and music.The adventurous Bard festival will intensively explore these and other topics, and it will provide a broad musical survey of Copland and his colleagues through 12 concerts, three panel discussions, a symposium and documentaries. Performers include first-class solo, chamber and vocal musicians, the American Symphony Orchestra, folk singers Peggy and Mike Seeger (Aug. 20), and actress Mia Farrow (Aug. 21). All told, music by 44 other composers spanning Gershwin to Boulez will also be presented, a mark of Copland's influence and range of interests.The ubiquity of Copland's music indicates something that Leon Botstein, co-artistic director of the Bard festival, feels was missing from the centennial celebrations in 2000. "I don't think that his centrality in American life and culture was emphasized enough," Botstein said. "His music played a defining role in shaping 20th century American national consciousness, not just because he used folk sources, but because of the individual style he created."It's a grandiose, open sonority, a rhetorical, gestural sound with a big dramatic line punctuated by cross-rhythms that has come to represent America itself to us all, whatever our background. Composers such as Bernstein and Sondheim have used it, as have hundreds of film scores. But it started with Copland."Copland's life was a take on the classic American success story. Born in Brooklyn in 1900 to Eastern European immigrant shopkeepers, he went to Paris in 1921 to study composition with Nadia Boulanger, and returned in 1924 determined to play a leading role as composer and advocate for a recognizably American classical music.His stylistic trajectory encompassed European- and jazz-inspired works in the 1920s; abstract and dissonant works in the early 1930s; the famous populist works of the 1930s and '40s, epitomized by "Billy the Kid" and "Appalachian Spring," and 12-tone experiments in the 1950s and '60s. He won acclaim in the concert hall, the dance stage and Hollywood, and was unstintingly generous to his fellow composers as a concert organizer, institution builder and teacher.Copland's New York roots contribute to his music's appeal. Biographer Howard Pollack observes that "some of Copland's works, such as 'Quiet City,' draw explicitly on his New York experiences. But even the so-called Western works have an urbanity and sophistication that reflect his big-city background."To Vivian Perlis, who collaborated on Copland's autobiography, it's not unusual that his music also evokes patriotism: "Copland inherited an old-fashioned patriotism from his parents, who were always grateful for the opportunities available to immigrants in this country." But Judith Tick, a scholar in residence at the Bard festival from Northeastern University, added that "it's important to remember that Copland's music offers a pluralist vision of American identity. His patriotism was not facile; it included a strong sense of social justice."The Bard festival partners this year with Copland House, the composer's longtime home in Cortlandt, restored as a creative center for American music (www.coplandhouse.org). A sponsor of composer residencies and home to an active ensemble (Music from Copland House, Aug. 12), Copland House views its role as continuing its namesake's legacy of far-reaching support to American music.Michael Boriskin, its artistic and executive director, will perform Copland's spiky Piano Fantasy (the composer's own favorite) on Aug. 20. Boriskin characterizes the piece as "a musical Mount Everest. Already famous, Copland chose to stretch and refresh himself artistically again in his mid-50s, when he challenged himself in this work by writing a half-hour uninterrupted block of music that strikes an amazing balance between being tightly controlled yet sounding like spontaneous improvisation."Does Copland speak to the post-9/11 America? "He absolutely does," Botstein said. "As a country, we are in a period of fear and anxiety and loss. The only way you suffer those kinds of emotions well is with some plausible optimism. And that's what Copland's music still offers us."
Email this story
Printer friendly format
Photos
Aaron Copland (PHOTO/ CORBIS)
Audio
A portion of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man: Molto deliberato " (RealAudio)
A portion of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo: Hoe-Down - Allegro" (RealAudio)
More Coverage
The recorded life of an American Master
BY MATHER PFEIFFENBERGERMather Pfeiffenberger is a freelance writer.August 7, 2005
Close your eyes and imagine the sound of America. What do you hear? The crack of a baseball bat? Maybe that fanfare they play at sporting events? Or the music from that beef commercial?You're hearing the music of Aaron Copland all the time, though you may not know it: the latter two examples come from "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Rodeo," respectively, among the most famous pieces by Copland, the subject of this year's Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson over the next two weekends (Aug. 12-14 and 19-21).
Since his death in 1990, Copland's fame has rested on a handful of works. Researchers have been supplementing his iconic status with new insights about his Jewishness, his homosexuality, his brush with McCarthyism and how they affected his life and music.The adventurous Bard festival will intensively explore these and other topics, and it will provide a broad musical survey of Copland and his colleagues through 12 concerts, three panel discussions, a symposium and documentaries. Performers include first-class solo, chamber and vocal musicians, the American Symphony Orchestra, folk singers Peggy and Mike Seeger (Aug. 20), and actress Mia Farrow (Aug. 21). All told, music by 44 other composers spanning Gershwin to Boulez will also be presented, a mark of Copland's influence and range of interests.The ubiquity of Copland's music indicates something that Leon Botstein, co-artistic director of the Bard festival, feels was missing from the centennial celebrations in 2000. "I don't think that his centrality in American life and culture was emphasized enough," Botstein said. "His music played a defining role in shaping 20th century American national consciousness, not just because he used folk sources, but because of the individual style he created."It's a grandiose, open sonority, a rhetorical, gestural sound with a big dramatic line punctuated by cross-rhythms that has come to represent America itself to us all, whatever our background. Composers such as Bernstein and Sondheim have used it, as have hundreds of film scores. But it started with Copland."Copland's life was a take on the classic American success story. Born in Brooklyn in 1900 to Eastern European immigrant shopkeepers, he went to Paris in 1921 to study composition with Nadia Boulanger, and returned in 1924 determined to play a leading role as composer and advocate for a recognizably American classical music.His stylistic trajectory encompassed European- and jazz-inspired works in the 1920s; abstract and dissonant works in the early 1930s; the famous populist works of the 1930s and '40s, epitomized by "Billy the Kid" and "Appalachian Spring," and 12-tone experiments in the 1950s and '60s. He won acclaim in the concert hall, the dance stage and Hollywood, and was unstintingly generous to his fellow composers as a concert organizer, institution builder and teacher.Copland's New York roots contribute to his music's appeal. Biographer Howard Pollack observes that "some of Copland's works, such as 'Quiet City,' draw explicitly on his New York experiences. But even the so-called Western works have an urbanity and sophistication that reflect his big-city background."To Vivian Perlis, who collaborated on Copland's autobiography, it's not unusual that his music also evokes patriotism: "Copland inherited an old-fashioned patriotism from his parents, who were always grateful for the opportunities available to immigrants in this country." But Judith Tick, a scholar in residence at the Bard festival from Northeastern University, added that "it's important to remember that Copland's music offers a pluralist vision of American identity. His patriotism was not facile; it included a strong sense of social justice."The Bard festival partners this year with Copland House, the composer's longtime home in Cortlandt, restored as a creative center for American music (www.coplandhouse.org). A sponsor of composer residencies and home to an active ensemble (Music from Copland House, Aug. 12), Copland House views its role as continuing its namesake's legacy of far-reaching support to American music.Michael Boriskin, its artistic and executive director, will perform Copland's spiky Piano Fantasy (the composer's own favorite) on Aug. 20. Boriskin characterizes the piece as "a musical Mount Everest. Already famous, Copland chose to stretch and refresh himself artistically again in his mid-50s, when he challenged himself in this work by writing a half-hour uninterrupted block of music that strikes an amazing balance between being tightly controlled yet sounding like spontaneous improvisation."Does Copland speak to the post-9/11 America? "He absolutely does," Botstein said. "As a country, we are in a period of fear and anxiety and loss. The only way you suffer those kinds of emotions well is with some plausible optimism. And that's what Copland's music still offers us."
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