Aaron Copland 1900 1990

1
THE BOULANGER CONNECTION

• Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990)
• Walter Piston (1894 - 1976)
• Virgil Thomson (1896 - 1989)
• Roy Harris (1898 - 1979)
• William Schuman (1910 -
• Vincent Persichetti (1915 -
• Philip Glass (1937 -
• Jon Polifrone (1937 -
• Marc Blitzstein (1905 - 1964)

PARIS
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AARON COPLAND1900 - 1990

• parents were from Poland and Lithuania
• born in Brooklyn
• studied harmony, counterpoint and sonata form
  under Goldmark
• saw Ivess Concord Sonata at Goldmarks studio
  but was not allowed to become contaminated by
  it
• went to the new American Conservatory at
  Fontainebleau in 1920
• studied with Boulanger until 1924

3
AARON COPLAND1900 - 1990

• met Roussel, Prokofiev, Milhaud and Koussevitzky
• heard the premiere of Ravels orchestration of
  Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition
• spent his summers in Berlin
• interested in jazz
• 1924 - began as a private teacher
• music began to attract the attention of the BSO
  under K., the MacDowell Colony and the Guggenheim
  Foundation

4
AARON COPLAND1900 - 1990

• 1928-1931 - sponsored a series of new music
  concerts with Roger Sessions
• helped found the Arrow Music Press, the Yaddo
  Festivals and taught at the New School for Social
  Research
• 1935 1944 taught at Harvard (Piston)
• first American composer to hold the Norton
  Professor of Poetics at Harvard - lectures
  published as Music and Imagination
• 1940 - teacher and advisor at the Berkshire Music
  Center (established by K)

5
AARON COPLANDHonors and Awards

• 1945 - Pulitzer Prize
• 1945 - New York Music Critics Circle Award
• 1950 - Oscar
• 1956 - Gold Medal from the National Institute of
  Arts and Letters
• 1956 - honorary degree from Princeton
• 1964 - Presidential Medal of Freedom
• 1970 - Commanders Cross of the Order of Merit of
  the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1970 - Howland Prize of Yale University

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AARON COPLAND2 Operas including

• his social concerns resulted in his opera for
  children, with a chorus of parents, The Second
  Hurricane (1936)

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AARON COPLAND30 Orchestral Works including

• 1933-1936 El salon Mexico led to his permanent
  contract with Boosey Hawkes as his publisher
• 1939 - Quiet City
• 1942 - Fanfare for the Common Man Lincoln
  Portrait
• 1947-1948 - Clarinet Concerto for Benny Goodman

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AARON COPLAND19 pieces of Chamber Musicincluding

• 1923 - 2 Pieces for String Quartet
• 1939 - Quiet City (orig. unpub.)

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AARON COPLAND25 works for Keyboard including

• 1920-1921 - Three Moods Embittered, Wistful,
  Jazzy
• 1930 - Piano Variations
• 1947,1934,1948,1926 - 4 Piano Blues
• 1977 - Midsummer Nocturne (his last composition)

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AARON COPLAND12 pieces of Choral Musicincluding

• 1925 - The House on the Hill (Womens U. Glee
  Club)
• 1955 - Canticle of Freedom (MIT)

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AARON COPLAND12 Songs including

• 1944-1945 - 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson
• Old American Songs
• Old American Songs, set 2

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AARON COPLAND8 Film Scores including

• 1939 - Of Mice and Men
• 1940 - Our Town
• 1948 - The Red Pony

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AARON COPLAND6 Ballets including

• 1938 - Billy the Kid comm. by Lincoln Kirstein
  for Eugene Loring
• 1942 - Rodeo for Agnes de Mille
• 1943-1944 - Appalachian Spring for Martha Graham

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AARON COPLANDStyle

• plain, clean-colored, deeply imaginative,
  theatrically functional

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AARON COPLANDAppalachian Spring

• written in 1943-1944 for Martha Graham
• scored for fl, cl, bn, pf, 4 vn, 2 va, 2vc, db
• Premiere in Wash., DC Oct. 30, 1944
• full orch. suite - 1945
• Copland orchestral know-how consists in keeping
  instruments out of each others way
• never conventional
• uses irregular rhythms (5/8 and 7/8) but never
  for an entire movement

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AARON COPLANDAppalachian Spring

• Shaker Tune is unusual in that it is not
  modified and it is the only borrowed tune with
  variations
• Simple Gifts (after Copland) was adopted into
  the repertory of schools, churches and by
  folksingers
• the music always turns to simplicity
• Commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
• title is from a poem by Hart Crane

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AARON COPLANDQUIET CITY

• 1940 - re-cycled his original 4-instr. 1939 score
  for Irwin Shaws Quiet City (the play never made
  it to Broadway)
• new scoring is for English horn, trumpet and
  strings
• premiered by the Saidenburg Little Symphony
  1/28/41 at Town Hall
• Boston premiere on 4/18/41 conducted by
  Koussevitsky