Page 289 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

MODERN 1900–1950 287

See also: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune 228–231 ■ Le Sacre du
printemps 246–251 ■ Les Biches 262 ■ Romeo and Juliet 272

Aaron Copland

The son of Russian immigrant
parents, Copland was born in
Brooklyn, New York, in 1900.
Studying in Paris with the
composer Nadia Boulanger,
he came under the influence
of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and
Poulenc. In collaboration
with Roger Sessions, he
ran the Copland-Sessions
concert series (1928–1931) to
encourage young American
composers. His own music
brought him worldwide fame
in the 1940s, although his later
Martha Graham performs as the warmth flooding the entire score, serialist works were less
young bride in Appalachian Spring at from the opening sense of dawn well received.
a New York theatre. The music, which breaking over a Shaker farmstead. Copland taught at the
Copland also reshaped as an orchestral The music perfectly captures the
suite, won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1945. new Berkshire Music Center
tenderness of young love, the gaiety in Massachusetts from 1940,
and buoyant dances of the ensuing and in 1951 he became the
to say what he had to say “in the wedding, and the most magical first American composer to
simplest possible terms.” What moment of all—the ending of the be appointed as Harvard’s
Graham had requested was ballet, when the newlyweds, alone Norton Professor of Poetry
perfectly captured in his skeletal for the first time, realize the sheer (poetry in its broadest sense).
musical language that created a immensity of what they have Around this time, he was
rich sense of space hitherto done. They are pioneers, about to falsely accused of communist
activities. In 1960, he moved
unknown in American music. start their life together in a new to Rock Hill, New York, where
country. Although they are safe he lived until his death in 1990.
Emotional inspiration in their home, they must tame and
Copland found his theme for the cultivate the unconquered land
work in the first line of a Shaker stretching out before them. Other key works
hymn: “Tis the gift to be simple.” These mixed feelings of 1930 Piano Variations
The Shakers were an American comfort, awe, fear, optimism, 1942 Fanfare for the
Protestant sect known for their vulnerability, and courage were Common Man
plain way of living. The clarity of transformed by Copland into pure, 1967 Inscape
texture suffuses the ballet, its deeply moving music. ■

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