Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland , 1900-1990, American composer, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Copland was a pupil of Rubin Goldmark and of Nadia Boulanger, who introduced his work to the United States when she conducted his Symphony for Organ and Orchestra in 1925. Although his earliest works show European influences, the American character of the greater part of his compositions is evident in his use of jazz and of American folk tunes, as in the short piece for chamber orchestra, John Henry (1940). Copland's many ballets include Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944). He composed music for the films Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940), The Red Pony (1948), and The Heiress (1949). His major orchestral works are El Salon Mexico (1936) and the Third Symphony (1946). Copland wrote a song cycle, 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson, and a quartet for piano and strings (both 1950), Canticle of Freedom for chorus and orchestra (1955), and a tone poem Inscape (1967). With Roger Sessions he founded the Copland-Sessions Concerts (1928-31) and in 1932 organized the American Festivals of Contemporary Music at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He lectured extensively and received many awards. His writings include What to Listen for in Music (1939, rev. ed. 1957), Copland on Music (1960), and The New Music: 1900-1960 (rev. ed. 1968).

Bibliography: See biographies by A. Berger (1953, repr. 1987) and H. Pollack (1999); study by N. Butterworth (1986).

Copland, Aaron (1900–1990), composer, pianist, conductor, and writer.Born in Brooklyn, the son of Russian‐Jewish immigrants, Copland found his most important teacher, Nadia Boulanger, in Paris (1921–1924). She helped guide his understanding of Europe's master composers while encouraging his inclination to assert his American identity.

On his return to the States, he won important friends, including, notably, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. The modernity of Copland's Music for the Theatre (1925), Piano Concerto (1926), and Piano Variations (1930) perplexed some listeners and delighted others. Even as he continued to write challenging pieces like the Piano Sonata (1941), some more accessible works—including El Salón México (1936); ballet scores for Eugene Loring (Billy the Kid, 1938), Agnes de Mille (Rodeo, 1942), and Martha Graham (Appalachian Spring, 1944); the patriotic Fanfare for the Common Man and Lincoln Portrait (both 1942); and film music for Our Town (1940) and The Red Pony (1948)—made him by midcentury the best‐known American concert composer of his time. For some of his later scores—including the Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations (1962), and Inscape (1967)—he adapted Arnold Schoenberg's twelve‐tone method of composition.

Working within the tradition of European art music, though indebted as well to jazz and the folk musics of the Americas, Copland produced a vibrant body of work resonant of American life in style and content. His writings include What to Listen for in Music (1939) and Our New Music (1941, rev. 1968). Exceptionally generous, he also helped the careers of numerous composers as teacher, benefactor, concert organizer, critic, and friend.
See also Dance; Music: Classical Music.

Bibliography

Aaron Copland and and Vivian Perlis , Copland: 1900 through 1942, 1984.
Aaron Copland and and Vivian Perlis , Copland since 1943, 1989.
Howard Pollack , Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man, 1999.

Howard J. Pollack