{"id":1426,"date":"2019-07-30T01:03:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T05:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2019-07-30T01:19:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T05:19:28","slug":"re-thinking-aaron-copland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/07\/re-thinking-aaron-copland.html","title":{"rendered":"Re-Thinking Aaron Copland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How did Aaron Copland\u2019s film music attempt to counteract the Hollywood influence of Erich Korngold? To what degree did he draw inspiration from the master Mexican populist Silvestre Revueltas? How did the Red Scare change Copland\u2019s style in the 1950s? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were some of the questions tackled by \u201cCopland\u2019s America,\u201d this summer\u2019s festival-within-a-festival at North Carolina\u2019s impressive Brevard Music Festival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far as I can tell, Brevard is unique. It manages to combine the focused intellectual exploration that Leon Botstein has long pursued at Bard with the ambitious training activities for gifted young musicians that we associate with places like Aspen and Tanglewood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Copland festival \u2013 in which I was fortunate to participate as a teacher, producer, and speaker — engaged all three Brevard orchestras (including high school, conservatory, and professional musicians) plus a range of chamber music, film, and lectures. Copland\u2019s turn to populism in the 1930s was an inescapable central topic. When Roger Sessions quipped that Copland “was more talented than he realized,” he of course meant that for him Copland the high modernist trumped Billy the Kid, Rodeo, <\/em>and Appalachian Spring<\/em>. I myself have long been similarly disposed; my favorite Copland is the 1930 Piano Variations, which once emptied rooms with its scathing dissonances and skittish urban energies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Formidably performed by Douglas Weeks, the Piano Variations kicked off \u201cCopland and the Cold War,\u201d a Brevard program tracking Copland\u2019s compositional odyssey as well as his political lurch to the left. Copland\u2019s prize-winning 1934 workers\u2019 song \u201cInto the Streets May First\u201d preceded a 25-minute re-enactment of his 1953 grilling by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn. In this context, encountering the 1950 Piano Quartet \u2013 a non-tonal work eschewing Copland\u2019s accustomed ebullience \u2013 was a chilling experience. For the first time, it occurred to me that the example of Shostakovich \u2013 whom Copland more esteemed for his mission than his music \u2013 might be pertinent to the stark textures and black humor of this little-known example of Copland\u2019s \u201clate style.\u201d I would call it music by a composer to whom something bad has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brevard\u2019s music director,\nKeith Lockhart, is a true believer in Copland\u2019s capacity to reach a \u201cnew\naudience\u201d \u2013 to (like Shostakovich) compose for both \u201cus and them.\u201d And\nLockhart\u2019s reading of the heroic Third Symphony \u2013 a symphony unthinkable\nwithout Shostakovich\u2019s example \u2013 was the most persuasive I have ever\nencountered. This 1945 patriotic paean can easily sound overwrought. Lockhart tracked\na long line and ascended to high ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was my pleasure to work with more than 100 high school musicians, exploring Copland the film composer in juxtaposition with Korngold, Revueltas, and Bernard Herrmann. Six of them hosted their own orchestral concert, conducted by Kenneth Lam (who every summer achieves stellar results with pre-college players). Copland\u2019s music for The City<\/em> (1939) was compared with Korngold\u2019s for Kings Row<\/em> (1942). The former is Copland\u2019s highest achievement as a film composer \u2013 the most important Copland score we don\u2019t know. The latter is one of Korngold\u2019s admired Hollywood soundtracks, for a film featuring a signature Ronald Reagan performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copland\u2019s loud critiques of Korngold\u2019s plushly upholstered style, smothering Hollywood with Vienna, were pondered by the student hosts. The swagger of the Kings Row<\/em> score made a great effect in concert. But I emerged with a fresh appreciation of its redundancy \u2013 Kings Row<\/em> would be a better film shot \u201csilent,\u201d sans dialogue; Korngold repeats everything the actors have to say. The title music<\/a><\/strong> (played at the first Reagan inauguration) is risibly irrelevant to the film\u2019s subject matter \u2013 Korngold composed it thinking the movie would be about kings, not smalltown America. Even so, I\u2019m glad he kept it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another symphonic program explored in detail Copland’s Mexican epiphany. This is a scripted, bi-lingual presentation I have produced many times in all parts of the US — including El Paso, <\/a><\/strong>where its impact was unique. Part two is the film Redes<\/em> (1935), which I have often extolled. At peak moments in the story, its combination of Paul Strand’s majestic cinematography and Revueltas’s explosive score (which impetuously charts its own course) is simply unbeatable. Brevard’s conductor was my DC colleague Angel Gil-Ordonez, who memorably commands this music and has recorded it with our PostClassical<\/a> Ensemble.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My three weeks at Brevard were capped by Dean Anthony\u2019s production of Johann Strauss\u2019s sublime Die Fledermaus<\/em>. As I have previously written<\/a><\/strong> in this space, he achieves miracles with his young singers — I have never seen a Brevard production that failed to ignite.\u00a0 In Fledermaus<\/em>, Anthony waltzed a fine line between humor and sentiment. The score\u2019s crucial number \u2013 Falke\u2019s \u201cBruderlein und Schwesterlein,\u201d here rendered as \u201cSing to Love\u201d in the Ruth and Thomas Martin translation \u2013 was given full emotional weight. Unlike so many opera directors nowadays, Anthony is musically literate — he was a comprimario tenor of wide experience. He paces his productions flawlessly, precisely gauging the cadences and the silences, seizing the big trajectory. Of necessity, he works intimately and organically with his conductors. (I am reminded of the difference between Copland scoring The City<\/em>, as a core member of the creative team, and Copland scoring the Hollywood films he was handed by their creators. He abandoned Hollywood in 1949.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A cavil: Is the Viennese waltz a lost musical art? The original performance style of a Mozart or Verdi or Wagner opera is informative but not imperative; fresh perspectives are fine. But I don\u2019t see any alternative to kicking the second beat in The Blue Danube<\/em>. There are different ways to do it \u2013 the beat needs a rhythmic accent (play it early) and\/or a dynamic accent. But it has to be done. And it isn\u2019t \u2013 cf. Jonas Kaufman at Carnegie<\/a><\/strong> last fall with the Orchestra of St Luke\u2019s (not youngsters) and a German conductor; every Lehar waltz was flat as a table and tables don’t dance. You can hear Lehar conducting the Merry Widow<\/em> Waltz \u2013 he recorded it. You can hear Clemens Krauss conducting Strauss, or Carlos or Eric Kleiber, or (my favorite) Josef Krips.<\/a><\/strong> They\u2019re all hiding in plain site on the web. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did Aaron Copland\u2019s film music attempt to counteract the Hollywood influence of Erich Korngold? To what degree did he draw inspiration from the master Mexican populist Silvestre Revueltas? How did the Red Scare change Copland\u2019s style in the 1950s? These were some of the questions tackled by \u201cCopland\u2019s America,\u201d this summer\u2019s festival-within-a-festival at North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-n0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}