AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)
Appalachian Spring
American artistic expression in the 1930s and 40s was guided by a small group of prominent painters, composers, and performers who held strong views on the uniqueness of American culture. None of these artists was more influential than composer Aaron Copland and dancer-choreographer Martha Graham. Separately and together, Copland and Graham helped define what today is recognized worldwide as American art.
As a composer, Copland created American music which reflected the country’s energy and spirit. His musical training, though, was thoroughly European. In the 1920s he studied in Paris with the famous composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Through her he met the post-war generation of young artists who were a part of her salon. From many diverse influences he developed his own unique musical personality–one that avoided radical elements in favor of mainstream tradition.
Martha Graham, on the other hand, deliberately chose to break away from the high traditions of classical ballet. She was a fearless innovator and a passionate artist who created a wholly new concept of dance.
In 1944 the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commissioned Copland to write a ballet score to be choreographed and danced by Graham and her company. The ballet, which Copland titled Appalachian Spring (Ballet for Martha), was a folk tale of a young pioneer, his bride, and a wandering preacher and his band of followers. The dance tells of the couple’s wedding, their move into a new home, and the preacher’s impassioned sermon. A gentle blessing closes the story as the couple begins a new life together in the wilderness.
Simplicity is the musical essence of Appalachian Spring. From the barest of materials Copland created a work with many sections, capturing in the music a sense of charm, innocence, religious fervor, and wonderment. Around the busy, pulsating rhythms, Copland wove folk-like melodies which he enhanced by luminous orchestrations. For the final tune of the ballet, he borrowed the well-known Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” setting it in an uncomplicated and wistful arrangement.
With Martha Graham dancing the role of the pioneer bride, Appalachian Spring was first performed in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress in October 1944. The theater had very limited space for an orchestra, so Copland wrote the music for only thirteen players. Immediately after the premiere, he extracted a concert suite from the music and expanded it to full symphonic size. A year later, Copland’s musical genius was honored when he received the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Appalachian Spring.
PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 23
As a young composer still learning his craft, Peter Tchaikovsky often sought the counsel of older composers and musicians, several of whom were colleagues at the Moscow Conservatory, where he held a teaching position. Under the guidance of composers such as Mily Balakirev and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky produced several operas, collections of songs, and orchestral concert pieces, mostly modeled on these other composers’ styles and techniques.
By 1874 the thirty-four-year-old Tchaikovsky felt musically practiced enough to compose a piano concerto. He was a pianist himself and felt his knowledge of the instrument gave him particular insight into the writing. Unfortunately, when he presented the finished concerto to the great Russian pianist Nikolai Rubinstein in hopes he would perform it, Rubinstein summarily dismissed the work as unplayable, trite, clumsy, and impossible to correct. He did, however, offer to play the concerto if Tchaikovsky would revise it according to his demands. Needless to say, Tchaikovsky was angered by Rubinstein’s comments and refused to change a single note of the work. The concerto was quickly taken up by the German pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, who gave its first performance in October 1875 in Boston.
The concerto begins with one of the world’s most distinctive and recognizable thematic flourishes. French horns call out, strings answer with a soaring melody, and the piano accompanies with dramatic block chords spanning the breadth of the keyboard. Curiously, though, this memorable beginning is just that–an introduction–and once it’s over, it never reappears anywhere in the concerto. The true theme of the first movement then emerges–a rapid, bouncy tune derived from a Ukrainian folk song. A secondary theme with a gently longing character then appears in the woodwinds and is echoed by the piano. From here to the movement’s end, these musical materials are passed back and forth between soloist and orchestra. An extended, demanding, and often introspective cadenza for the solo piano leads the movement to its bravura conclusion.
A flute plays a lullaby-like melody to the accompaniment of quietly plucked strings as the second movement opens. The piano soon answers the flute and extends the melody. A contrasting middle section of much faster tempo and sprightly mood interrupts the languidness, which then returns to gently conclude the movement.
The third movement bursts forth with a rhythmic theme and repeated pattern by the piano. Orchestral exchanges alternate with the piano as a second, more lyrical theme appears. The two themes are tossed back and forth by orchestra and soloist until a brilliant cadenza of rushing and pounding octaves by the piano brings the orchestra back to the fore with the lyrical melody. The tempo quickly increases as the concerto concludes in a rousing and virtuosic display of pianism and orchestral unanimity.
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Suite from The Firebird (1919 Version)
A chance encounter in Russia in 1908 between a young composer and a powerful impresario began one of the most productive and historic collaborations between artist and producer that would take place in the 20th century. The composer was Igor Stravinsky, just twenty-six years old and with few compositions to his credit. The impresario was Sergei Diaghilev, a wealthy producer and manager of artists, who presented performances in Paris by Russian performers. Diaghilev was planning a season of opera and ballet and invited Stravinsky to join his advisory group of dancers, choreographers, and artists. Over a fifteen-year period, Stravinsky provided Diaghilev and his dance company, the Ballets Russes, with music for some of the greatest and most controversial ballets the world had ever seen.
In 1909 Diaghilev’s staff developed a storyline for a new ballet to be called The Firebird. Based upon folk elements from several Russian fairy tales, the scenario told an exotic story of a magic bird. Stravinsky was not the first choice of composer for the music; but after being turned down by two better-known composers, Diaghilev invited Stravinsky to compose the music in time for the opening of the Paris ballet season the following summer.
The first performance of The Firebird took place on June 25, 1910, at the Paris Opéra. The ballet quickly became Stravinsky’s greatest success and the most popular and most performed work in the Ballets Russes’ repertoire.
Stravinsky originally wrote The Firebird for an extremely large orchestra. He subsequently returned to the music several times in his career, extracting and publishing sections of the music as orchestral suites, arranged for a somewhat smaller and more standard-sized orchestra.
For the suite issued in 1919, Stravinsky included seven sections from the full ballet, all played without pause. The music begins with the eerie and rumbling sounds representing the castle of the evil King Kastchei. The Firebird suddenly appears, pursued by a wandering Prince who chases her over the castle walls. Inside, the Prince discovers petrified statues, each one a human turned to stone by Kastchei’s evil magic. The Prince captures the Firebird, who promises to help him if he will free her. Twelve beautiful princesses, all captives of Kastchei, then appear and dance in the moonlight. With the coming of dawn, King Kastchei and his minions appear, to the accompaniment of barbarous rhythms and pounding accents. Just as Kastchei is about to turn the Prince into stone, the Firebird appears and forces everyone to dance until they drop from exhaustion. With a lullaby (berceuse), the Firebird lulls Kastchei and his court to sleep; the Prince then rescues the fairest princess and kills Kastchei. The enchanted kingdom melts away, all the statues return to life, and the Prince and Princess become king and queen of the newly liberated kingdom.
Program notes by Dennis Loftin
