- Dream March/Circus Music
- Walk to the Bunkhouse
- Grandfather’s Story
- Happy Ending
Aaron Copland wrote the music for the film The Red Pony in 1948, with the orchestral concert suite being completed during August of the same year. In shaping the suite, the composer recast much of the musical material so that, although all the music may be heard in the film, it has been reorganized as to continuity for concert purposes. The present version of The Red Pony was made by the composer in 1966. Four movements of the six-part orchestral suite were retained as best suitable for band transcription. The first performance of this work was scheduled for the U.S. Navy band under Anthony Mitchell at the Mid-West Band Clinic in December 1968. Steinbeck's well-known tale is a series of vignettes concerning a 10-year-old boy called Jody, and his life in a California ranch setting. There is a minimum of action of a dramatic or startling kind. The story gets its warmth and sensitive quality from the character studies of the boy Jody, Jody's grandfather, the cow-hand Billy Buck, and Jody's parents, the Tiflins. The kind of emotions that Steinbeck evokes in his story are basically musical ones, since they deal so much with the unexpressed feelings of daily living.
I. Dream March/Circus Music
Jody has a way of going off into daydreams. Two of them are pictured here. In the first, Jody imagines himself with Billy Buck at the head of an army of knights in silvery armor; in the second, he is a whip-cracking ringmaster at a circus.
II. Walk to the Bunkhouse
Billy buck was a fine hand with horses, and Jody's admiration knew no bounds. This is a scene of the two pals on their walk to the bunkhouse.
III. Grandfather’s Story
Jody's grandfather retells the story of how he led a wagon train clear across the plains to the coast. But he can't hide his bitterness from the boy. In his opinion, “westerning has died out of the people. Westerning isn't a hunger anymore.”
IV. Happy Ending
Some of the title music is incorporated into the final movement. A folk-like melody suggests the open-air quality of country living and mounts to the climax of a happy ending.
Program note provided by the composer and publisher
Aaron Copland has been called the “dean of American Music... a giant of American culture.” He wrote memorable scores, encouraged younger composers, and helped to create and maintain approving audiences. In addition, according to Richard Franko Goldman, Copland was regarded by all with “admiration, respect, and above all true affection.” From 1927 to 1937 Copland taught at the New School for Social Research and also wrote several books, including What to Listen for In Music (1929) and Our New Music (1941). By 1943, Copland was considered an established composer of serious music in America. As a guest conductor, he led orchestras and bands throughout the U.S. and a dozen other countries. In addition to an Oscar (for Appalachian Spring), the New York Music Critics Circle Award (for Symphony No. 3), and numerous other honors, Copland was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in November 1986. He received honorary doctorates from at least ten universities and was considered by many as America's greatest living composer. Copland’s music is tonal but boldly so, emphasizing complex and often harsh sonorities, and influenced in rhythmic language by jazz and Stravinsky's works. In the late 1930s, however, he gradually switched to almost exclusively diatonic melodic writing and simpler counterpoint. The rhythmic vitality, widely spaced textures, and hints of bitonality of his earlier style remained, but his music became more accessible. He also created, encouraged, and enriched the repertory, leading the way to a musical climate genuinely “Made in America.”
Composer biography extracted from Program Notes for Band