Discover… Rejuvenation
Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring: Suite
Aaron Copland is generally considered America’s greatest composer. That is, it is he, through his compositions and through his essays, books, lectures, and other thoughts on music who has done more than any other individual to establish a corpus of “serious” music in this country that largely defined an “American Sound.” He lived a long life; influenced generations of young composers; advanced the cause of art music in this country; and composed music that delighted millions in the audiences of ballet, chamber music, symphonic music, radio, television, and the movies. The son of Jewish immigrants, he lived for most of his life in New York City—or close by—but assimilated so much of the disparate elements of our culture that he came to be considered as representative of all of it. In his music one finds jazz, ethnic, western, folk, intellectual, and populist elements and references—and much more: Cuban, Mexican, and European Continental. But his wide-ranging intellect easily synthesized it all into an inimitable style (or small group of stylistic voices) with which his music spoke with a clear and unified expression.
His greatest musical influence was undoubtedly the grande dame of teachers, Mme. Nadia Boulanger, with whom he studied in Paris during the early 1920s. Teacher of generations of distinguished performers and composers, she counted Copland as her greatest pupil. Of course, while spending those years in Paris—along with the so-called “lost” generation (Copland was assuredly not part of it)—he was exposed to a wealth of musical styles and composers. Of them, Stravinsky was the other great influence upon Copland. Upon his return to the USA his early dalliances with jazz and “symphonic jazz” were more or less replaced by a severe, often dissonant style—one not often associated with Copland by many of today’s audiences, but definitely a life-long option for him in his compositions. During the 1930s his interest in socialist perspectives crystallized for him and he turned to a more accessible, populist style that has come to be his hallmark for mainstream America. His ballets, Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, as well as his music for the films, Of Mice and Men and Our Town and other works all endeared him to a wide audience and made his reputation as a composer of “American” music. He continued that trend with the Lincoln Portrait, music for the film adaptation of Steinbeck’s Red Pony, and even wrote a clarinet concerto for the great Benny Goodman. How mainstream American can you get? But about 1950 both Copland’s musical style and his popular place in society took a distinct turn. His earlier support of socialist causes (he supported the American Communist Party in the election of 1936) made him a target of Red Hysteria and Senator McCarthy. The Republican Party cancelled a performance of his Lincoln Portrait for Ike’s inauguration, and other indignities followed him for a few years. His music began—but not completely—to return to the severe and dissonant basis that informed his early work, and he occasionally disappointed those who commissioned works thinking they were going to get another Appalachian Spring. By 1972, in his own words, it was “as if someone had simply turned off a faucet,” and he gave up composition completely. He died in 1990 of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1943 the great American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, armed with $500 from a prominent patron, approached Copland with the idea to write some music for her ballet company. He had already garnered success with Billy the Kid, and Rodeo—Copland was a lifelong aficionado of dance—and soon produced a half-hour or so of music appropriate to a story quite unlike that with which we now are familiar. He simply entitled the work, “Music for Martha.” Dissatisfied with the original story, Graham completely reworked it into a scenario (following the published score) that concerns a pioneer celebration:
.” . . in spring around a newly-build farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”
Needless to say, Copland’s music was conceived with none of this in mind, moreover, the title that Graham chose originated in a Hart Crane poem about a mountain rivulet. Copland was often amused later at plaudits accorded him for evoking the “hope” inherent in simple people in the “spring” season. Nevertheless, his angular melodies, spare textures, and relatively simple harmonies were brilliantly exploited by Graham in her appropriation of his music for her choreography. While much of Copland’s earlier work consciously had used folk melodies as part of his musical resources, Appalachian Spring is based around original material that seems to evoke folk simplicities. The major, important exception is his use of the Shake dance tune, ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple,’ around which he builds a set of variations that lead to the climax of the work. His rhythms echo the muscular, almost jerky, movements that—as every serious dancer knows—are characteristic of Graham’s choreographic style. Metrical shifts and constantly changing accents inform most of the livelier sections.
This little gem of a ballet has assumed a place of favored—almost iconic—status for American audiences. It, along with Fanfare for the Common Man, Lincoln Portrait, Rodeo (Beef—It’s What’s for Dinner!), and other brilliant compositions have all come to help inform our sense of who we are as Americans. And, it is a comment upon the great, sprawling nature of our country that one of its most eloquent creators of that image was a gay, leftist, son of Jewish immigrants from Brooklyn.
–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2015 William E. Runyan
Astor Piazzolla arr. Leonid Desyatnikov, Cuatro Estaciones Portoñas
Ástor Piazzolla has created a musical genre and style that began with the traditional elements of the Argentine tango, but has infused it with much of advanced twentieth century “classical” techniques. The result almost obscures its popular roots. Jazz, Stravinsky, Bartók, dissonance, counterpoint, ubiquitous chromaticism, and varied orchestration—they all are incorporated into Piazolla’s musical take on the tango. Piazzolla was born in Argentina, but moved with his parents in 1924 to New York City, living in Greenwich Village, immersing himself in the musical culture and atmosphere of the great city. Jazz, classical music, the blues—all were his métier—all the while his family exposed him to traditional Argentine music at home, including the sound of the bandoneón (the indigenous Argentine accordion, rather like a concertina). He moved back to Argentina in 1936, and there ensued a long and remarkable career as composer of tangos. But, by the early fifties he was immersed in the study of Stravinsky and Bartók, studying composition with Ginastera, listening to lots of jazz, and composing “classical” music. In 1953 he won a major prize with a symphony that he had composed, and was off to Paris to study with the famed Nadia Boulanger. There, she disabused Piazolla of dreams of becoming another Bartók, and insisted that he must acknowledge his brilliance in the tango, and to follow it for his success. And so he did, but not without taking with him his deep engagement with the techniques of jazz, blues, and complicated contemporary art music. All of these elements fuse into his signature style: “Nuevo Tango.” You might flippantly call it Stravinsky and Bartók meet Carlos Gardel.
Typically, his works are performed by a small tango group, generally, but not always, consisting of bandoneón, violin, electric guitar, double bass, and piano. “Spring,” or “Primavera Porteña,” was composed in 1970 (two of the other “seasons” were written separately and earlier) for solo piano, and then for the small tango group, and like so many of his works, has been rescored for larger ensemble. It is quite representative of his “new tango” style of jagged melodic motifs—often repeated motorically, walking bass lines with a tango thump just before beat four, harmonic chromaticism, and some traditional counterpoint. There are three distinct sections—after Vivaldi’s, but there is none of the latter’s pictorialism. Rather than anything specifically seasonal in this “primavera,” it, like the other three, is generally representative of the city of Buenos Aries. Tango traditionalists were originally horrified by his style of tango, but he now is universally popular—at least with progressives.
–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2018 William E. Runyan
Antonio Vivaldi, Le Quattro Stagioni, Op. 8
Antonio Vivaldi was the most important composer of the Italian Baroque period, although appreciation of that fact was slow in coming in later times. But, during his lifetime he was celebrated all over Europe, and his compositions were highly influential—mostly notably on J. S. Bach. He wrote almost fifty operas, but is remembered now for his amazing fecundity in composing instrumental works. He wrote about five hundred concertos (not as one unappreciative wag once said, “the same concerto five hundred times.”) While many of them feature wind instruments, the majority of them are for strings, and are practically an early eighteenth-century compendium of almost every imaginative passage or technique that one could ask of them.
Vivaldi early on was ordained into the priesthood, and his probable red hair gave him the moniker, “the red priest.” He was a teacher on and off for most of his life at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice (you can still see the building, today, just down the quay from St. Mark’s Cathedral.) The institution was basically a girl’s school for children born to the Venetian nobility under awkward circumstances, shall we say? The school had very high musical standards, and the quality of its student orchestras was legendary. Vivaldi, however, was a great traveler, moving around Italy working for various patrons, and taking up residencies here and there in opera houses. His publications swept Europe, and he was influential in establishing many conventions of eighteenth-century musical composition. His 1725 publication, Il Cimento dell’ Armenia e dell’invenzione, contained twelve concertos, seven of which had descriptive titles, including The Four Seasons. The others were The Hunt, Pleasure, and Storm at Sea.
The Four Seasons consists of four concertos for solo violin and string orchestra. Each concerto—in typical Vivaldi fashion—consists of three movements, the tempos of which are always respectively fast, slow, and fast. Not only did he give each of them the title of a specific season, he is also the presumed author of the four sonnets, each of which corresponds to a respective concerto. From listening to so many orchestral compositions of the nineteenth century that have a “program,” or story, that the music putatively illustrates or tells, audiences today have come to regard program music as practically the norm. But, for early audiences it was quite the novelty—yes, the tradition went back to the Greeks, but it was a rather thin one.
As one listens to each of the twelve movements of the four concertos, the “roadmap” is fairly clear. Each opens with a section for the complete orchestra (the ritornello), followed by a section for solo violin, accompanied by the orchestra—or a few members of them. The ritornello and solo sections alternate—about three times—ending with a final ritornello. The solo sections vary in themes and textures, but the ritornelli generally cover the same material, so you can usually spot them when they return—although Vivaldi usually altered them a little each time.
It is marvelous how the composer is able to evoke the sounds, situations—even the temperatures!—of the various seasons, using only imaginative string figurations, melodies, and tempos. He doesn’t need all the resources of the modern orchestra, at all. Taken from the accompanying sonnets, Vivaldi literally tells us to expect birds and thunderstorms in first movement of “Spring,” the sleeping, faithful dog of the goatherd in the second, and nymphs and shepherds dancing to bagpipes in the third movement.
–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2015 William E. Runyan
Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 1, Op. 38, B-flat major (“Spring”)
Schumann composed in almost all of the common genres, and notwithstanding his success in the larger forms, did perhaps his most respected work in song and piano literature. Known—at least during his lifetime—almost as much for his distinguished career as music critic and essayist, even today his analyses and commentaries lend valuable insights into the music of his milieu and times. He was a formidable pianist—his wife, Clara, even more so—and his contributions to the piano stand with those of Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms in artistic significance.
Schumann was a Romantic to the core, yet, withal, he had great respect for clarity, balance, and formal integrity so characteristic of the music of Classicism. It must be admitted, however, that to some degree his deep passions and emotional self-indulgences can be seen as aspects of a personality that ultimately broke down in the psychoses and pathologies that led to his early death in an institution. He was happy early on, however, and the years of his early marriage brought forth masterworks in spates, as his mind focused extraordinarily in narrow directions. Up to the time of his marriage to Clara he had composed exclusively music for the piano, a great corpus of work that is one of the century’s important contributions to the literature for the instrument. And the joy and exuberance upon his marriage in1840 led to a remarkable outpouring of songs—some 125 in that year alone.
Nevertheless, Schumann made important contributions to chamber and symphonic music, and his four symphonies are respected contributions to orchestral literature. He turned his talents to the genre—at Clara’s enthusiastic encouragement–the very next year after the remarkable production of Lieder in 1840. His first two symphonies—No. 1 in Bb Major “Spring” and No. 4 in D Minor (it’s complicated—don’t ask) were the result, and the first is an especially exuberant celebration of the joy and optimism of that period—not at all prescient of the dark and tragic end to his life.
One of the misleading aspects of the popularity of many classic and romantic works is the proclivity of fans to bestow nicknames on them of dubious authenticity or even appropriateness. Probably no composer has suffered more in this respect than, say, Haydn, but there are many others. But in the case of Schumann’s first symphony, the composer himself is the source of the appellation, “Spring.” As a great composer of Lieder, he knew much poetry, and a poem is the inspiration for Schumann’s communicated thoughts on the mood and nature of the symphony so named.
Schumann composed the work quickly during late January and February of 1841, and its première took place the next month. The poetic inspiration of “spring” is generally taken to be by Adolf Böttger, entitled Frühlingsgedicht (poem of spring) and full of inspiring, energetic paeans to the season. Indeed, the first movement opens with a dramatic fanfare by the trumpets summoning spring’s awakening. And that interpretation is on record by the composer. Schumann also wrote that, later in the introduction, the music should suggest the greening of the world and butterflies in the air. The ensuring allegro he said should depict spring coming alive. Well, that’s pretty specific, and fits the music fine. After the dramatic, slow introduction, the main theme of the allegro is easily discerned, as is the somewhat more relaxed subordinate theme. In the development, the latter is completely absent, the composer choosing to work over the first one, alone. The recapitulation is announced by the dramatic fanfare of the opening, and interesting enough, Schumann introduces a completely new theme at the very end of the work, near the end of the coda—a striking bit of originality by a true German romantic!
The second movement (originally entitled “Evening,” but later withdrawn) is simple in form, and perhaps best heard simply as an extended song for orchestra. Schumann was one of the giants of German Lieder, who had just finished his “wonder year” of song composition, and the metaphor is completely apt. Schumann’s gift for melody and rich romantic harmonies comes strongly to the fore here. Of interest are the numerous trills in the orchestral parts—a bit unusual, and more typical of the piano music of the time—think Chopin. Schumann, of course, was a gifted pianist and composer of piano music, so, it shouldn’t surprise. Finally, noteworthy is the short solo for the trombone section at the very end. It seems to come out of nowhere, and its rather dark chromaticism casts an ambiguous tone to the mood. It eerily foretells a similar use of the instruments in his third symphony. But more specifically, it anticipates the main theme of the following scherzo.
The third movement is the usual dance-like diversion, but Schumann extends the form with two trios instead of the usual single diversion in the middle. Furthermore, all of the main sections are divided into two contrasting segments—so, there’s a lot of different ideas to keep track of. But it’s not necessary to “keep track,” anyway. A few interesting points, though: the first section starts with a vigorous, somewhat syncopated affair in the minor mode, followed by a more cheerful response. The following Trio I is a nothing more than an active call-and-response, antiphonal dance in two—not the traditional three beats. Schumann builds it out of the shortest of ideas—essentially two notes! After a return of the opening, Trio II kicks even more vigorously, built on simple scales and displaced accents. Finally, after an abbreviated recap of the opening, there is a rather curious coda that ends it all with in a most tranquil, peaceful mood, but with a little zippy tag worthy of Berlioz.
A bold, ascending scale in broad notes announces the last movement—it will be important—followed by a complementary idea whose dancing rhythm is almost balletic. Collectively they are the main ideas of the movement. After a bit we encounter the second “theme,” but later it is not given much shrift—we’ll hear little of it. But, for the record, it is vaguely redolent of Mendelssohn in its airy lightness (but made interesting with a hint of the opening broad scale—this time in minor). In typical romantic fashion, Schumann develops only the first idea (both parts), and ignores the Mendelssohn-like idea. In a creative twist, a leisurely, soft passage featuring solo oboe, horns, and flute announces the recapitulation—in the best Parisian opera fashion of the times.
The race to the end is exuberant, and its vivacity is completely characteristic of Schumann at the peak of his happiness—both in his artistry and his marriage. Nowhere is a hint of his forthcoming tragic days. It is indeed spring.
–Wm. E. Runyan
©2020 William E. Runyan