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Sextet (1937)
| composer |
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) |
| performers |
Atlanta Chamber Players:
Laura Ardan, clarinet
Paula Peace, piano
Carolyn Toll Hancock, violin
Christopher Pulgram, violin
Paul Murphy, viola
David Hancock, cello |
| publisher |
Boosey & Hawkes (ASCAP)http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr
|
| label |
aca Digital Recording CM20038mailto:tjaaca@mindspring.com
|
| duration |
15:09 |
Copland's Sextet is an arrangement of an earlier orchestral work entitled Short Symphony (1932-1933), which at the time was considered too difficult to perform. He arranged it for chamber ensemble in the hope that it might be performed more often. Aaron Copland:
"The work is in three movements (fast, slow, fast) played without pause. The first movement is scherzo-like in character. Once, I toyed with the idea of naming the entire piece The Bouncing Line because of the nature of the first section. The second movement is in three brief sections--the first rises to a dissonant climax, is sharply contrasted with a song-like middle part, and returns to the beginning. The finale is once again bright in color and rhythmically intricate."
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is one of the best-known composers in the history of the United States. He believed in creating a concert music that was recognizably American; in this he was quite successful, for many now associate his name with music from the US. Throughout his life, Copland wrote works in several different styles, nationalistic or otherwise; yet his compositional personality is distinct enough that most of his pieces are easily identifiable, regardless of style or complexity.
Copland was born to Russian immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York in 1900. He first studied piano with his older sister, and continued his formal training with Leopold Wolfsohn, Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler. At age 17, he began his studies of harmony and counterpoint with Rubin Goldmark, whose conservative views inspired Copland to rebellious investigation of the music of Debussy, Ravel, Mussorgsky, and Scriabin. In 1920, Copland left New York for Paris, where he became a student of Nadia Boulanger and made contact with musicians Sergei Prokofiev, Darius Milhaud and Serge Koussevitzky. During this time he developed a growing interest in popular music (especially jazz), realizing that there was as yet no tradition in the United States similar to the national styles being created by composers from France, Russia, and Spain. He became determined to create, in his words, "a naturally American strain of so-called serious music."
Upon his return to the US in 1924, Copland began to receive support for his music by Serge Koussevitzky (the new conductor of the Boston Symphony), the patron Alma Morgenthau Wertheim, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He became very active in the promotion of new music (both his and others) by lecturing, writing for the journal New Music, and by organizing with composer Roger Sessions the Copland-Sessions concerts in New York (1928-1931), which brought many works of the European avant-garde to US audiences for the first time. He also co-founded the Yaddo Festivals, the Arrow Music Press, and the American Composers Alliance, the last of which he was president from 1937 to 1945. During this busy time he was also able to return to Europe several times in the 1920's and later to visit Mexico and tour Latin America on behalf of the US government.
During and after World War II, Copland began to share many of his fellow artists' commitment to reaching a wider audience by writing music for the average citizen. His intentions were fulfilled as works from Billy the Kid (1938) to Lincoln Portrait (1942) to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Appalachian Spring (1943-1944) found both popular success and critical acclaim. His decision to "say it in the simplest possible terms" separated him from some of his peers, who saw in it a denial of musical progress -- theirs and his own. But many who had been drawn to Copland's music through his use of familiar melodies were in turn confused by his use, beginning in the mid-1950's, of a unique 12-tone compositional technique. His orchestral works Connotations (1962) and Inscape (1967) are perhaps the definitive statements of his mature style.
Copland never ceased to be an supporter and promoter of new music. In 1951, he became the first US composer to hold the position of Norton Professor of Poetics at Harvard University; his lectures there were published as Music and Imagination. For 25 years he was a leading member of the faculty at the Berkshire Music Center (later Tanglewood) in Lenox, Massachusetts. Throughout his career, he nurtured the careers of others, including Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Chávez, Toru Takemitsu, and David Del Tredici. He took up conducting while in his fifties, becoming a persuasive interpreter of his own music; he continued to conduct in concerts, on the radio, and on television until he was 83.
Aaron Copland was one of the most honored cultural figures in the history of the United States. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Award, the National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences "Oscar", and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany were only a few of the honors and awards he received. In addition, he was president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Society of Arts in England; an early and prominent member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP); and served as director or board member of many organizations devoted to American music. In 1982, The Aaron Copland School of Music was established in his honor at Queens College of the City University of New York.
related websites
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp?composerid=2748
The Atlanta Chamber Players, now performing in their 23rd season, are one of the southern United States' best-known performing groups. Each year the ensemble presents a variety of performances in Atlanta, Georgia and throughout the southeast US, including subscription concerts, radio and television broadcasts, touring residencies, and educational and special audience programs. Members of the ensemble are Artists-in-Residence at Georgia State University, Atlanta, and Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw. It has recordings on the ACA Digital, Leonarda, and Press Avant labels.
related websites
http://www.mindspring.com/~acplayers
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