‘Appalachian Spring’
Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 14, 1900, and died in North Tarrytown, New York, on Dec. 2, 1990. In addition to his distinguished accomplishments as a composer, he was an important author on musical topics, as well as a gifted pianist and conductor. Furthermore, he was a mentor to at least two generations of important American composers. Copland, more than any composer in the 20th century, gave classical music a distinctly “American” voice. His score for Martha Graham’s ballet, Appalachian Spring, dates from 1943 in its original version for 13 instruments. The first performance of the original score took place on Oct. 30, 1944. He later expanded the orchestration and extracted a suite for full orchestra in 1945. The first performance took place on Oct. 4, 1945, with Artur Rodzinski conducting the New York Philharmonic. The work is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings. 

My mentor, the late Professor Charles Warren Fox of the Eastman School of Music, liked to share the following story: 

Aaron Copland was approached by an admirer who, after hearing a performance of his ballet, Appalachian Spring, insisted that its music evoked in the listener’s mind an accurate musical image of the Appalachian mountain chain — one that could never be confused with an image of the Rockies, Cascades, Alps, or any other range. Copland politely responded by telling how, after putting the finishing touches on the score, he approached choreographer Martha Graham with the following query: “Oh Martha, what are we calling this ballet I just composed?” Fox’s story may be apocryphal, but it serves as a warning to avoid imposing too specific an interpretation on any piece of instrumental music. Regardless of which mountain range (and, I might add, what pronunciation of its name) Copland and Graham may have had in mind, we can rest assured that Appalachian Spring is one of the true masterpieces of 20th-century music — American or otherwise.

According to Graham, she conceived the ballet as “a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the (19th) century.” Copland, speaking about his music for Appalachian Spring, observed that it was “generally thought to be folk inspired,” but added quickly that the Shaker tune, “Tis the Gift to be Simple,” was the work’s only actual folk quotation. The composer’s decision to alter his style in this work from an angular modernist idiom to one more audience-friendly was both deliberate and, to Copland’s new style — as exhibited in Appalachian Spring — relies on idiosyncratic and characteristic harmonic vocabulary (based largely on widely-spaced chord formations that take the edge off its dissonance) and rhythmic subtlety and drive learned in Paris during his period of study with Nadia Boulanger, including his experience hearing the works of Igor Stravinsky.

Originally scored for 13 instruments and first performed at the Library of Congress on Oct. 20, 1943, Copland subsequently arranged Appalachian Spring into a concert suite for full orchestra in 1945. It falls into several clearly articulated sections, beginning quietly with hushed chords and lovely touches of orchestration in the winds, harp, and solo violin. The next section introduces a lively (square) dance, full of piquant stops and starts. It is intended to depict the “bride-to-be and the young farmer (enacting) the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invited.” A wonderful hymn in slower note values emerges in the woodwinds as a splendid counterpoint to the vigorous dance. The next section presents a gentler dance, followed by a slower, more intensely contemplative scenario — perhaps intended to display the couples’ apprehensions. A new, even more energetic dance, with humorous rhythmic punctuations at the end of each measure, follows. This mood is interrupted abruptly, if briefly, by the full orchestra, but yields once again to yet another whirlwind dance. This too subsides; the music harkens back to the hymn that we heard a few moments earlier. The sound-world of ballet’s opening now prepares the way for Copland’s quotation of the Shaker hymn and its variations:

‘Tis the gift to be simple,

‘Tis the gift to be simple,

‘tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down

where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves

In the place just right

‘Twill be in the valley of

love and delight . . .

When true simplicity is gained

To bow and to bend we

shan’t be ashamed,

Turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning 

we come round right.

The suite closes in hushed tones reminiscent of a gentle benediction and emblematic of the evening twilight’s fall as the young couple prepare to begin their new life together.

‘Letters from Lincoln’
Michael Daugherty

Grammy Award-winning American composer, pianist and educator Michael Kevin Daugherty, was born on April 28, 1954, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. According to the League of American Orchestras, his music is among the top 10 most performed of American composers. Infused with popular culture, neo-Romanticism and more recent contemporary compositional trends, Daugherty’s music is entirely approachable. Born into a musical family, his teachers have included such notable names as Pierre Boulez, Jacob Druckman and György Ligeti. He has also worked in the world of jazz. Daugherty joined the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance as Professor of Composition in 1991. Letters from Lincoln (2009) is the result of a commission from the Spokane Symphony and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Its world premiere took place in Spokane’s Martin Woldson Theatre at the Fox on Feb. 28, 2009 with Eckart Preu on the podium and Thomas Hampson as soloist. The work was recorded. It is scored for baritone solo, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.

The composer wrote about Letters from Lincoln:

“Letters from Lincoln (2009) for baritone and orchestra was commissioned by the Spokane Symphony led by music director Eckart Preu in consortium with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, which was Feb. 12, 1809.

“The world premiere was given by the Spokane Symphony under the direction of Eckart Preu, with Thomas Hampson, baritone, on Feb. 28, 2009 in the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, Spokane, Washington. The work is 25 minutes in length and scored for baritone solo, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, two percussion, harp and strings.

“Historians and the public generally regard Lincoln as America’s greatest president who successfully led the United States through the Civil War and initiated the end of slavery. His life, which was full of spectacular opposites, ironies, contradictions and pathos, provided me with (an) abundance of musical dramatic possibilities.

“While composing this musical work inspired by Lincoln, I discovered ways to bring his historic greatness into the present. I read Lincoln’s speeches, poems and letters and studied his life; I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., and I traveled to the battlefields of Gettysburg.

“Lincoln’s impassioned writings, from his youth as a poor boy in the backwoods of Kentucky to his tragic death as president of the United States, have moved me to take his own words, both public and private, and set them to song. In Letters from Lincoln, I create a musical portrait of a man who expressed his vision with eloquence, and with hope that the human spirit could overcome prejudice and differences of opinion in order to create a better world.”

The work deservedly takes its place alongside Aaron Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait” as a deeply felt and moving musical tribute to the 16th president of the United States. Its structure comprises seven relatively short segments, with the Daugherty’s setting of the entire Gettysburg Address being the longest and most affecting movement. In it, one hears quotations from the music associated with the Civil War, including, “Dixie,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.”

The movements are:

I. Lincoln’s Funeral Train (April 15 to May 4, 1865, Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois)

II. Autobiography (Dec. 20, 1859, Springfield, Illinois)

III. Abraham Lincoln is My Name (1824 to 1826, Indiana)

IV. Mystic Chords of Memory (March 4, 1861, Washington, D.C.)

V. Letter to Mrs. Bixby (Nov. 21, 1864, Washington, D.C.)

VI. Mrs. Lincoln’s Music Box (June 9, 1863, Washington, D.C.)

VII. Gettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863, Pennsylvania)