Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland (* November 14th 1900 with Brooklyn, New York - † December 2nd 1990 with North Tarrytown, New York) is a Compositeur of music American.

Biography

Born in a family from Russian emigrants, he studies the piano as of his more young age, with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler. Of 1921 with 1924, it follows the teaching of Ricardo Viñes, with the Conservatoire American of Fontainebleau, in France. It is there that it meets Nadia Boulanger: “I included/understood immediately that I had found my Master” will write it. It is near it that it is formed with the composition like practically all the American type-setters of its generation and the following ones.

Of return to the the United States in 1924, Copland gives creations of its first works: Symphony for organ and orchestra (1925), by Walter Damrosch and Nadia Baker; Music for the theater (1925) and Concerto for piano and orchestra (1927), by Serge Koussevitzky and the Symphony orchestra of Boston. This concerto makes scandal because of insertion of elements resulting from the jazz. Copland will remain related all its life to the Symphony orchestra of Boston like to the activities of the Fondation Koussevitzky.

It founds in 1928 the Copland-Sessions Concerts with New York. They are series in concerts intended to promote the young American music. These sessions will perdureront until in 1931. Of 1932 with 1933 it directs the Festival of modern music of Yaddo, in New York, while continuing a career of pianist, leader and pedagog. It is there that he is his first great successes as a type-setter.

He liked to say that its music was intended before very for music lovers.

Aaron Copland was one of the friends of Leonard Bernstein, type-setter and Leader.

In 1938, it agrees to write for the troop of Lincoln Kirstein, “Caravan Ballet” (today the New York City Ballet) a ballet recalling the life of Billy the Kid, the American gangster. It is the first western expressed in musical language. True cinematographic spectacle by its impetuosity and its promptness, it tells the legend of an innocent boy who turns as outlaw under the violence of manners of the life of American pioneer. It quotes always partially of the authentic songs of cowboys, like “The Old Chisholm Trail”, “The Dying Cowboy” or “Old Paint.” Balance between the comic one and the pathetic one, the melodrama and the tragedy are remarkable there. The Continuation (two thirds of the battet) creates an intensity which exceeds by far the requirements of choreography as for the picturesque one. It owes its undoubtedly impassioned side, mainly, with very particular sympathy that Copland dedicated, as homosexual, with this outlaw of the company.

In 1949, it gained the Oscar of the best film music for the Heiress .

One of its most famous parts is Appalachian Spring , made up for a Ballet in 1943. The original version written for a Chamber orchestra composed of 9 cords, a clarinet, a bassoon and a flute, was later rewritten for Symphony orchestra.

From years 1950, Copland, having discovered music of Webern and of Swell, starts to interest in Sérialisme (standard of writing in which it had already briefly been interested with its Variations for piano of 1930), by taking “the broad outlines of the theory to adapt them to my own needs. (…) It was thus a new means of moving the sounds which had, for a type-setter, a regenerating effect on its approach and its technique”. (Copland). Thus, as from this time, much of works of Copland will be marked by the serial writing, like its Quatuor for piano and cords (1950), its Fantaisie for piano (1955-57), and perhaps its two larger masterpieces: Connotations (1961-62) and Inscape (1967), for orchestra. Connotations was created on September 23rd 1962, by Leonard Bernstein and the Philharmonic orchestra of New York at the time of the first concert televised of the history. This particularly austere work strongly shocked the American televiewers.

However, Copland will continue to write works with tendency " néo-classique" until the end of its career, among which Old American Songs (1950-52); its opera The Tender Land (1952-54); Latin Three American Sketches (1959-71)…

With the beginning of the year 1970, Copland will be victim of the disease of Alzheimer and will then stop composing. Curiously, it will continue however its career of Leader until in 1983.

One of criticisms which could be formulated in its connection is to have supported a kind of " Homintern" homosexual type-setters. It was inter alia the friend of Leonard Bernstein.

Work

List (nonexhaustive) its works:
  • Symphony S:
    • Symphony for organ and orchestra (1924, created the 1/11/1925 in New York with Nadia Baker)
    • Symphony n°1 (arrangement for orchestra of the Symphony for organ and orchestra ) (1926-1928, created the 12/9/1931 in Berlin under the direction of Ernest Ansermet)
    • Dance Symphony (arrangement of the ballet Grogh ) (1930)
    • Symphony n° 2 " Symphony" shorts; (1932 - 1933, created the 11/23/1934 in Mexico City under the direction of Carlos Chavez)
    • Symphony n°3 (1944 - 1946, created the 10/18/1946 by Serge Koussevitzky)
  • Concerto S:
    • Concerto for piano and orchestra (1926)
    • Concerto for clarinet and string orchestra, with toothing-stone and piano (1947 - 1948 created the 11/6/1950 by Benny Goodman under the direction of Fritz Reiner)
  • Ballet S:
  • Film music:
  • symphonic Music various:
    • Music for the Theater , small orchestra (1925)
    • Symphonic Ode , for orchestra (1927 - 1929)
    • Statements , for orchestra (1932 - 1935)
    • El Salon Mexico City , for orchestra (1936)
    • Variations for orchestra (according to the Variations for piano ) (1957)
    • Three Latin-American Sketches , for orchestra (1959 - 1971)
    • Connotations , for orchestra (1962 )
    • Inscape , for orchestra (1967)

It composed El Salon Mexico City (1936), Billy the Kid (1938), the music of the film Of the mice and the men of Lewis Milestone (1939), Rodeo , Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the common man (1942), It also composed a Concerto for Clarinette on order of Benny Goodman.

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