Aaron Copland

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Aaron Copland
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Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. Instrumental in forging a uniquely American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers." Copland's music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. He incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords and tone rows. Outside of composing, Copland often served as a teacher and lecturer. During his career he also wrote books and articles, and served as a conductor, most frequently for his own works.

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Biography

Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Lithuanian Jewish descent. His father's surname was "Kaplan" before he anglicized it to "Copland" while in England, before emigrating to the United States. He spent his childhood living above his parents' Brooklyn shop. Although his parents never encouraged or directly exposed him to music, at age 15 he had already taken an interest in the subject and aspired to be a composer. His music education included time with Leopold Wolfsohn, Rubin Goldmark (also one of George Gershwin's teachers), and Nadia Boulanger in Paris from 1921.

Upon his return from his studies in Paris, he decided that he wanted to write works that were "American in character" and thus he chose jazz as the American idiom. His first significant work was the necromantic ballet Grohg which contributed thematic material to his later Dance Symphony. Other major works of his first (austere) period include the Short Symphony (1933), Music for Theater (1925) and Piano Variations (1930). However, this jazz-inspired period was brief, as his style evolved toward the goal of writing more accessible works.

Many composers rejected the notion of writing music for the elite during the Depression, thus the common American folklore served as the basis for his work along with revival hymns, and cowboy and folk songs. Copland's second (vernacular) period began around 1936 with Billy the Kid and El Salón México. Fanfare for the Common Man, perhaps Copland's most famous work, scored for brass and percussion, was written in 1942 at the request of the conductor Eugene Goossens. The fanfare was also used as the main theme of the fourth movement of Copland's Third Symphony. The same year Copland wrote Lincoln Portrait which became popular with the wider public, leading to a strengthening of his association with American music. He was commissioned to write a ballet, Appalachian Spring, which later he arranged as a popular orchestral suite. The ballet Rodeo, a tale of a ranch wedding, written around the same time as Lincoln Portrait (1942) is another enduring composition for Copland, and the Hoe-Down from the ballet is one of the most well-known compositions by any American composer.

Copland was an important contributor to the genre of film music. Several of the themes he created are encapsulated in the suite, Music for Movies, and his score for the film of Steinbeck's novel The Red Pony was given a suite of its own. This suite was one of Copland's own favourite scores. Posthumously, his music was used to score Spike Lee's 1998 film, He Got Game, which included a basketball game in a neighborhood court being set to Hoe-Down.

Having defended the Communist Party USA during the 1936 presidential election, Copland was investigated by the FBI during the red scare of the 1950s. He was blacklisted, and in 1953 his music was pulled from President Eisenhower's inaugural concert due to the political climate. That same year Copland testified before U.S. Congress that he was never a Communist. The accusation outraged many members of the musical community, who claimed Copland's patriotism was clearly displayed through his music. The investigation ceased to be active in 1955 and was closed in 1975. Copland's membership in the party was never proven.

Copland was a friend of Leonard Bernstein and a major influence on his composing style. Bernstein is considered the finest conductor of Copland's works. British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer recorded two songs based on Copland works: "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Hoe-Down."

Aaron Copland started showing signs of Alzheimer's disease in the early 1970s, as a result of which he gave up composing. Some believe the disease affected the quality of his final works. He died in North Tarrytown, New York (now Sleepy Hollow).

His bisexuality was documented in Howard Pollack's biography, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man


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Selected Works

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References

Kamien, Roger. Music: An Appreciation. McGraw-Hill College; 3rd edition (August 1, 1997). ISBN 0070365210.

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Films

  • Aaron Copland: A Self-Portrait (1985). Directed by Allan Miller. Biographies in Music series. Princeton, New Jersey: The Humanities.
  • Appalachian Spring (1996). Directed by Graham Strong, Scottish Television Enterprises. Princeton, New Jersey: Films for the Humanities.
  • Copland Portrait (1975). Directed by Terry Sanders, United States Information Agency. Santa Monica, California: American Film Foundation.
  • Fanfare for America: The Composer Aaron Copland (2001). Directed by Andreas Skipis. Produced by Hessischer Rundfunk in association with Reiner Moritz Associates. Princeton, New Jersey: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
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External links

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Listening

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