# Aaron Copland



## Kenneth E.Aust (Jul 19, 2009)

Aaron Copland gets a sound from a string section which is very,very, AMERICAN.

The perfect example is on Appalachian Spring quite near the end of the Quaker tune.

The sound he gets conjures up instant visions of the Grand Canyon et., etc.,

My question is : does he get this sound by the way that he has written his harmonies, or what or who influenced his writing. The minute I hear his compositions I can tell instantly that this is an 'American' string section with it's American sound.


I recently heard, but did not quite get the full explanation, that he was influenced by Dvorak, but as Dvorak was in New York fulfilling his stint as conductor to the forerunner of the New York Philharmonic, I forget the name, around the year 1885 and Copland was not born until 1900, that theory is difficult to fathom.

Does anybody on the forum have any explanation or answers to my question ?

Thank you all in anticipation,

Ken Aust


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## kg4fxg (May 24, 2009)

*Influenced by Art, Theater, Music, Jazz, Literature*

It is really not an easy question because so much influence him. What inspired him.....

...influenced Copland and a whole generation of artists and photographers, including Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walker Evans.[29] Copland was directly inspired by the photographs of Walker Evans in his opera The Tender Land.

...Copland also had contact later with other major American playwrights, including Thorton Wilder, William Inge, Arthur Miller, and Edward Albee and considered projects with all of them.

...Copland's earliest musical inclinations as a teenager ran toward Chopin, Debussy and Verdi, and the Russian composers. Some of his preferences may also have been formed by the anti-German feelings during World War I, as later he studied German music as well.[77] Copland's curiosity about the latest music from Debussy and Scriabin was frustrated by the fact that sheet music for "avant-garde" works was expensive at that time and hard to come by.[15] So he borrowed these works from a music library and studied them intensely. Some of his earliest compositions were songs and piano pieces inspired by these European influences.

...His teacher and mentor Nadia Boulanger was his most important influence, having studied with her in Paris from 1921-1924. In gratitude for the immense support and promotion on his behalf, he stated to her in 1950, "I shall count our meeting the most important of my musical life… Whatever I have accomplished is intimately associated in my mind with those early years, and with what you have since been as inspiration and example.

He also incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords and tone rows in a broad range of works for concert hall, theater, ballet, and films.

Aaron Copland seems at first to be an odd person to create a musical style that combined the myths of the American West and the styles of Latin American music into a populist music that spoke to a large segment of American society. Copland was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, grew up in New York, and found his musical voice in the international, avant-garde atmosphere of Paris in the 1920s. In New York he was part of a musical elite, championing the cause of modern music. At the same time, he had ties to the political and social left with its reformist agenda. Yet it could be argued that all of these elements were important ingredients, not just in the fabric of America in the 20s and 30s, but in the creation of a distinctly American aesthetic.

Copland began his study of music with piano lessons from his older sister. He soon turned to other teachers, and began attending symphonic concerts, soaking up the music of the standard symphonic repertoire. While in high school, he studied harmony, counterpoint and orchestration with Rubin Goldmark, who tried to steer his tastes down a conservative path. But at age twenty, Copland left New York to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, who was to serve as a teacher and mentor to many of the leading composers of the century. In Paris, and in his travels through Europe, he was exposed to a wide variety of new styles. He returned to a New York that was in the midst of an artistic and social revival, and he immediately became a part of that renewal. From 1928 to 1931 he coordinated a series of concerts with the composer Roger Sessions that presented important new works to the American public. He lectured at the New School for Social Research (from which his book What to Listen for in Music took shape), and built his reputation as a composer.

His early music mixes very modern musical ideas with hints of jazz influence. Pieces such as his Piano Variations stand out for their harmonic and rhythmic experimentation, and jazz rhythms are an important part of his Music for the Theater. Copland's concern with modern techniques lessened during the Great Depression. Reacting to a changing social consciousness, he (along with a number of other composers) began to shape his style to speak to a larger segment of the population. This comes through most clearly in ballets such as Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring and in his music for films. In these works, simpler (but no less sophisticated) harmonies, broad melodies, and hints of folk melodies created a sound that came to be associated with our pictures of the mythic American West. And works such as Fanfare for the Common Man and A Lincoln Portrait (in which the narrator recites various writings of Lincoln) added a populist and patriotic element. While Copland never abandoned the more adventurous style (including, later in his life, twelve-tone composition), he is best remembered, and justly so, for creating a truly American symphonic style. Over the course of his life he not only served as a trendsetter, but also played an important role in the development of younger composers at places such as the Berkshire Music Center. He was, in fact, the musical father to more than one generation of young composers.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

sometimes his harmonies have an 'open' sound to me. i automatiacally think the american 'sacred harp' sound when i hear him. i think he shared some tonal ideas with our old tunesmiths.

dj


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

There's already a thread about Aaron Copland in the Composer Guestbook section just to let you guys know.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

i know, not sure if the others do.

dj


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