Aaron Copland is generally considered America\u2019s greatest composer.\u00a0 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 \u201cserious\u201d music in this country that has largely defined an \u201cAmerican\u201d style.\u00a0 He lived a long life; influenced generations of young composers; advanced the cause of art music in this country; and composed music that has delighted millions in the audiences of ballet, chamber music, symphonic music, radio, television, and the movies.\u00a0 The son of Jewish immigrants, he lived for most of his life in New York City\u2014or close by\u2014but assimilated so much of the disparate elements of our culture that he came to be considered as representative of all of it.\u00a0 In his music one finds jazz, ethnic, western, folk, intellectual, and populist elements and references\u2014and much more: Cuban, Mexican, and European Continental.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
His greatest musical influence was undoubtedly the\u00a0grande dame<\/em>\u00a0of teachers, Mme. Nadia Boulanger, with whom he studied in Paris during the early 1920s.\u00a0\u00a0 Teacher of generations of distinguished performers and composers, she counted Copland as her greatest pupil.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, while spending those years in Paris\u2014along with the so-called \u201clost\u201d generation (Copland was assuredly\u00a0not<\/u>\u00a0part of it)\u2014he was exposed to a wealth of musical styles and composers.\u00a0\u00a0 Of them, Stravinsky was the other great influence upon Copland.\u00a0 Upon his return to the USA his early dalliance with jazz and \u201csymphonic jazz\u201d was more or less replaced by a severe, often dissonant style\u2014one not often associated with Copland by much of today\u2019s audiences, but definitely a life-long option for him in his compositions.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 His ballets,\u00a0Billy the Kid<\/em>,\u00a0Rodeo<\/em>, and\u00a0Appalachian Spring<\/em>, as well as his music for the films,\u00a0Of Mice and Men<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Our Town<\/em>\u00a0and other works all endeared him to a wide audience and made his reputation as composer of \u201cAmerican\u201d music.\u00a0 He continued that trend with the\u00a0Lincoln Portrait<\/em>, music for the film adaptation of Steinbeck\u2019s\u00a0Red Pony<\/em>, and in 1946 premi\u00e8red what many consider his most significant work, the monumental Third Symphony.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, Benny Goodman, who at the time was riding high in popularity, approached Copland with the idea of writing a concerto for the clarinet.\u00a0 Two thousand dollars from Goodman did the trick, and Copland, who was (characteristically) in South America at the time, went to work, and it was finished the next year\u20141948.\u00a0 There was some give and take along the way between Copland and Goodman\u2014the latter was a tough man\u2014and the first performance took place in 1950.<\/p>\n It must be said, there is little of the popular image of Benny Goodman the jazz legend in this concerto, so put that association away at the outset.\u00a0 But, it does speak much of the depth of musicianship of the great jazz virtuoso to commission and perform a composition so far removed from his natural musical m\u00e9tier.\u00a0 Clarinetists everywhere owe him an immense debt for helping to bring to their repertoire a major work by one of America\u2019s greatest composers.\u00a0\u00a0 It is all Copland, too, with little condescension to Goodman\u2019s jazz orientation.\u00a0 Alternatively entitled, \u201cConcerto for Clarinet, Strings, and Harp\u201d it is cast into two large sections, with a substantial cadenza for the soloist in between.<\/p>\n The first movement is pensive, lyrical affair that takes full advantage of the lyric capabilities of the clarinet, floating on a lush and evocative cloud of harp and string sonorities.\u00a0\u00a0 As with all great artists, Copland is a creature of many guises, and the soul of this first section is that of gentle, yet profound sentiments familiar\u2014and beloved\u2014to audiences from parts of\u00a0Appalachian Spring<\/em>, or say,\u00a0The Tender Land.<\/em>\u00a0 The ensuing clarinet cadenza begins quietly, extending the mood, but gradually becomes more and more demonstrative\u2014even strident\u2014and evolves into a quite different mood.\u00a0\u00a0 While the wild figurations may seem rather random, the composer is working through some of the important intervals and motives of the work. \u00a0\u00a0The cadenza finally arrives at the intense, rhythmic character of the last section and we\u2019re off to the races.\u00a0\u00a0 Light, staccato strings and piano bounce along on the spritely tempo as the clarinet dances with a seemingly endless stream of short ideas.\u00a0\u00a0 The ability of the clarinet to articulate clean, precise motives is the basis of the writing, here, as the Stravinsky-like texture races along.\u00a0 Soon, things become more intense, rhythmic displacements abound, and we begin to hear more and more of the soloist\u2019s intense high register.\u00a0 It is to be admitted that short interludes of whimsy that remind one of Goodman\u2019s style of improvisation interrupt from time to time, but not necessarily \u201cjazzy\u201d ones.\u00a0\u00a0 What becomes more and more prevalent are the syncopations of Mexican and South American folk music that Copland adored.\u00a0 Add to that the composer\u2019s intrinsic preferences for \u201cspiky,\u201d wide intervals (perfectly suited to the clarinet).\u00a0 All of this is mixed, stirred, and intensified\u2014along with piercing high notes from the clarinet\u2014to the jerky, dancing conclusion.\u00a0 This is the \u201cother\u201d side of Copland that is integral to so many of his compositions all throughout his career, and without which no picture of the man\u2019s music is complete.\u00a0 And thanks to the progressive side of Goodman, the world has a masterpiece for the instrument.<\/p>\n –Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n \u00a9 2026 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[11],"class_list":["post-259","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-aaroncopland"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}