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Composer of the Month - October, 2003

Aaron Copland, 1900-1990
by Daryl Lee

The turn of the 20^th Century marked the entry of a new age into American life, so it was perhaps more than coincidence that it was also the year of Aaron Copland's birth.  Music did not become significant in Copland's life until his teen years. After taking piano lessons from his sister for a year, he attended his first concert at the age of 15 and immediately decided that he would become a composer of classical music. He began his education in New York, but he believed that a complete education in classical music required study in Europe, so at the age of twenty he went to the American Conservatory in Fontainbleu, France.

While in France, Copland was guided by the influential teacher Nadia Boulanger. She not only helped with his grounding in classical composition, but also introduced him to emerging trends in composition and encouraged him to make his own mark on the genre.  She called his attention to the fact that he favored some unusual rhythmic forms.  He had grown up with jazz, and its influence was so natural to him that he hadn't noticed.  This eventually became the hallmark of his compositional style.  During his studies there, he produced his first composition for sale. After three years of study in France, Mlle. Boulanger sent him home to America with a commission: she wanted him to write a piece for her American conducting debut. Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, 1925, performed by the New York Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mlle. Boulanger in Carnegie Hall, marked Copland's entry into the mainstream of American classical music.

His productivity reached a peak in the ten years beginning in 1936, resulting in ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring; film scores for Of Mice and Men and Our Town; compositions for high school music students The Second Hurricane and An Outdoor Overture; and collections The Lincoln Portrait, The Third Symphony, and El salon Mexico.  Copland retired from composing in 1970, finishing his career by touring as a conductor.  He died in 1990, the year after completing his autobiography, a two-volume work produced in collaboration with Vivian Perlis, a prolific biographer of musicians.

Copland's work is marked by his keen ear for musical forms found in his home country. His most famous ballets, Rodeo and the 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning Appalachian Spring, are two of his most famous works.  In these works, Copland showcases his ability to give voice to both Western American and Eastern American themes in a classical setting.

Among Copland's choral compositions is Promise of Living, included on the October MOS concert program.  The finale to Act I of his 1954 opera The Tender Land, it captures the American vision of the beauty of honest labor rewarded with the fruit of the harvest.  Because of its theme and its musical quality, it has become a favorite of many Thanksgiving Day audiences.

For further reading on Aaron Copland:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/achtml/achome.html
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/copland.html
http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/copland.html
http://www.incwell.com/Biographies/Copland.html
http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/copland/bio.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/copland_a.html

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