Aaron Copland wrote spacious, rhythmic, modern classical music as all-American and nearly as popular as the cowboy, the hoe-down, or the folksong “Campdown Races.”
It’s a long time now since Copland’s greatest hits burst into the repertoire in the nineteen thirties and forties: “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo” were ballet scores, like “Appalachian Spring” which won a Pulitzer prize in 1944.
“Fanfare for the Common Man” was a symphonic celebration; the “Lincoln Portrait” from 1942 was a patriotic wartime piece that used Lincoln’s words about right, wrong, freedom, tyranny and saving the country.
But at the approach of Copland’s hundredth birthday the persistence of these pieces in concert halls-of a Copland sound in the air-nails his reputation as the composer who caught the ear and the spirit of his country as no other classicist or modernist ever did.
Aaron Copland wrote spacious, rhythmic, modern classical music as all-American and nearly as popular as the cowboy, the hoe-down, or the folksong “Campdown Races.”
It’s a long time now since Copland’s greatest hits burst into the repertoire in the nineteen thirties and forties: “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo” were ballet scores, like “Appalachian Spring” which won a Pulitzer prize in 1944.
“Fanfare for the Common Man” was a symphonic celebration; the “Lincoln Portrait” from 1942 was a patriotic wartime piece that used Lincoln’s words about right, wrong, freedom, tyranny and saving the country.
But at the approach of Copland’s hundredth birthday the persistence of these pieces in concert halls-of a Copland sound in the air-nails his reputation as the composer who caught the ear and the spirit of his country as no other classicist or modernist ever did.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Maestro Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops