By John Ardoin
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Copland in Paris during the '20s.
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Aaron Copland once said that it was his good fortune that he was "twenty in the twenties." It was America's good luck, too, for historically he was the right man at the right time. When he was growing up, American music had no internationally recognized voice of its own. His destiny was to supply one.
Although he was the son of Jewish immigrants, the music he wrote -- with its clear and clean open harmonies and frequent folk-like melodies -- came to be regarded as the most representative echo of the American spirit. There is a certain irony in this fact, since Copland began his composing career as a jarring modernist.
After premiering Copland's "Organ Symphony" in 1925, conductor Walter Damrosch remarked, "... when the gifted young American who wrote this symphony can compose at the age of twenty-three a work like this one -- it seems evident that in five years more he will be ready to commit murder!" While it is true that a number of his early scores were brash and dissonant, in mid-career he wrote a string of works of such immediacy and sophisticated simplicity that the world recognized and cheered them not only as American, but as quintessentially Copland-esque.
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Scene from "Appalachian Spring." |
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These included the ballets "Billy the Kid" and "Rodeo" as well as the modern dance piece "Appalachian Spring." There was also "Lincoln Portrait" for narrator and orchestra, "An Outdoor Overture," and, above all, the majestic "Third Symphony," a work which grew out of Copland's rousing "Fanfare for the Common Man."
Perhaps because Copland summed up so well so many strands of the experience of being an American, he can be regarded as our national musical voice, even over the more popular, but localized, New York jazz refrains of George Gershwin and the more austere, original New England sounds of Charles Ives. "He is the best we have, you know," Leonard Bernstein once said, and considering how closely tied together were their lives and careers it is touching that they died only two months apart. Copland, after all, was the first to recognize Bernstein's gifts as a composer and encourage him, and few composers have had a more loyal and dedicated advocate than Bernstein the conductor.
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Leonard Bernstein.
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"I have a feeling that his body of work is all his own," Bernstein said of Copland, "and that it's all one thing. There is not really such a great dichotomy between pieces like 'Billy the Kid' and the 'Piano Variations'. ... I used to think that a Copland work belonged either to the popular class or the austere class of his music. But, as time passes, I find that the division decreases and Copland sounds like Copland whether he is writing a cowboy tune or a Mosaic prophecy."
Born in Brooklyn on November 14, 1900, the youngest of five children, his early music training came from an older sister Laurine. He later went abroad to complete his musical education at a new conservatory for American musicians established at Fontainebleau, near Paris -- a further irony surrounding the work of this maker of classic American sounds. But it was a measure of Copland's personality and the vigor of what he had to express that he remained staunchly his own man despite the European influences he came in contact with.
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Aaron Copland at age nine with his sister Josephine.
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Today, we remember Copland as more than just an original, skillful maker of music. He became a symbol of what could be attained as a serious musician in this land. He was an articulate spokesman on behalf of America's music and its musicians, a teacher, critic, conductor, and writer whose books and articles helped to explain to a wide public both old and new music.
Although he stopped composing after 1970, he remained a powerful influence and a mentor for young composers and was the recipient of most of the honors this country can bestow, from the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Kennedy Center Honors to a Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar. However, he once told his close friend, playwright Harold Clurman, that he actually had only one ambition -- "I want to be remembered." It was an ambition he achieved many times over.
Photos, from top to bottom: Copland in Paris: Library
of Congress, Music Division. "Appalachian Spring": Library
of Congress, Music Division. Leonard Bernstein: BBC. Aaron and Josephine
Copland: Library of Congress, Music Division.
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