{"id":284,"date":"2019-10-05T18:47:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T18:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/red-pony\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T20:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T20:15:15","slug":"red-pony","status":"publish","type":"program_note","link":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/red-pony\/","title":{"rendered":"The Red Pony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copland wrote the scores for eight films\u2014including two documentaries\u2014beginning in 1939.\u00a0 He was in the forefront of those who brought a modern musical style to a Hollywood that had been thoroughly dominated by pseudo-romantic film composers.\u00a0 His music for the film dramatization (1949\u2014starring Myrna Loy and Robert Mitchum) of John Steinbeck\u2019s The Red Pony<\/em> was composed in 1948, and a suite of six movements for concert performance was subsequently extracted.<\/p>\n

Steinbeck\u2019s work\u2014an \u201cepisodic novella\u201d of four short stories–was written in 1933.\u00a0 Each of the stories was subsequently published separately in various American magazines before joint publication in 1939.\u00a0 The Red Pony<\/em> is a characteristic example of Steinbeck\u2019s narrative genius in telling simple stories about common people that nevertheless plumb the profound truths of humankind.\u00a0 In this case, the themes revolve around a few slices of the life of an adolescent, Jody, on a small ranch in the Salinas Valley of California after World War I.\u00a0 There, with his father, mother, grandfather, a hired hand, and an elderly transient, the simplicities of Jody\u2019s childhood are confronted by the more sinister challenges of life.\u00a0 The stark realities of adult life that follow the na\u00efve world of youth are examined here with Steinbeck\u2019s well-known probity.\u00a0 It is Jody\u2019s \u201cinitiation into a violent world where pain and death are everywhere and danger is always present.\u201d\u00a0 Steinbeck\u2019s novel is now a classic, and for many years was requisite reading in high school literature classes.\u00a0 Well over a half-century later, this writer well remembers the examination and discussion in class of Jody\u2019s world. The author\u2019s observation, \u201cA boy becomes a man when a man is needed, \u201d has never been forgotten.<\/p>\n

The first story, \u201cThe Gift,\u201d relates Jody\u2019s introduction to responsibility with his father\u2019s gift of a red pony.\u00a0 Unfortunately, his joy turns to tragedy, with the grotesque death of the beloved pony.\u00a0 In \u201cThe Great Mountains\u201d Jody meets an old Mexican who, turned away from the ranch, steals a worthless nag and disappears into the mountains\u2014leaving Jody to meditate over the encounter\u2019s meaning. \u00a0The third story, \u201cThe Promise,\u201d is grim.\u00a0 Jody anxiously anticipates the birth of a foal, haunted by the death of his pony from the strangles.\u00a0 Tragedy sure enough ensues, as the hired hand has to kill the mare, and delivers the breeched, bloody foal by caesarean–more food for Jody\u2019s thoughts.\u00a0 Finally, \u201cThe Leader of the People\u201d relates the bothersome, constant stories of Jody\u2019s grandfather, who, like so many, incessantly recounts his youthful adventures, to the annoyed boredom of all.\u00a0 Here, Jody learns sympathy for the old, and tolerance, as well.\u00a0 It must be said that Hollywood smoothed out some of the darkness, grimness, and violence of the book, adapting it for contemporary movie audiences.<\/p>\n

With these life themes as inspiration, Copland, crafts a score whose style and attractive simplicities are well known to all who admire and enjoy all of the masterpieces that made Copland\u2019s reputation during the 1930s and 40s.\u00a0 The extracted suite of six movements begins tranquilly with \u201cMorning on the Ranch\u201d, followed by \u201cThe Gift.\u201d\u00a0 The latter perfectly reflects Jody\u2019s joy in his red pony, with his excited schoolmates animating the middle section.\u00a0 \u201cDream March and Circus Music\u201d are apt accompaniment to Jody\u2019s fantasies of riding the pony, first as a steed in glorious chivalric battle to a pompous little march that\u2014like a dream\u2014just peters out at the end.\u00a0 The second march finds Jody and the pony performing tricks in the circus to spiky, dissonance-laden musical clich\u00e9s.\u00a0 \u201cGrandfather\u2019s Story\u201d gently, nostalgically\u2014although with a bit of stamping–evokes the old man\u2019s obsession with distant memories of his trek along the Oregon Trail.\u00a0 The limping \u201cWalk to the Bunkhouse\u201d drolly depicts the hired hand, Billy Buck, who was an aging, bandy-legged, real horseman.\u00a0 Finally, \u201cHappy Ending\u201d is just that, a scampering, effervescent affair in Copland\u2019s best upbeat manner, and recaps the mood and music of the opening.<\/p>\n

–Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n

\u00a92019 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[11],"class_list":["post-284","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\/284","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=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}