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Copland on Music
Whose fault is it that the artist counts for so little in the public mind? Has it always been thus? Is there something wrong, perhaps, with the nature of the art work being created in America? Is our system of education lacking in its attitude toward the art product? Should our state and federal governments take a more positive stand toward the cultural development of their citizens?These are some of the provocative questions which Aaron Copland raises and answers in Copland on Music.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 7
FOREWORD 17
SECTION ONE
1. Three Talks 22
The Pleasures of Music 23
Creativity in America S1
Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit 60
2. Five Personalities Te
The Conductor: Serge Koussevitzky m3
The Teacher: Nadia Boulanger §3
The Composer: Igor Stravinsky Q2
The Critic: Paul Rosenfeld 97
The Pianist: William Kapell 100
3. Four Masters 105
At the Thought of Mozart 105
Berlioz Today 108
Liszt as Pioneer 117
Fauré Centennial in America: 1945 $26
4. From a Composer’s Journal 129
SECTION TWO:
The Twenties and the Thirties: How It Seemed Then
1. The Younger Generation of American
Composers: 1926-59 141
1926: America’s Young Men of Promise 142
1936: Americas Young Men—Ten Years Later 152
1949: The New “School” of American Composers 164
1959: Postscript for the Generation of the Fifties 175
2. European Festivals and Premieres:
A Glance Backward 179
Zurich: 1926 179
Baden-Baden: 1927 183
Paris: 1928 188
London: 1931 1093
Berlin: 1932 a)
3. The Composers of South America: 1941 203
SECTION THREE:
The Reviewing Stand
1. Music By: 208
Darius Milhaud (1947) 224
Benjamin Britten (1947) 225
Stefan Wolpe (1948) 228
Leon Kirchner (1950) 230
William Schuman (1951) 233
2. Books About: 237
Virgil Thomson’s Musical State (1939) 237
Schonberg and His School (1949) 242
The Life and Music of Bart6k (1953) 246
SECTION FOUR:
Occasional Pieces
1. “Are My Ears On Wrong?”: A Polemic 253
2. Interpreters and New Music 261
3. The Dilemma of Our Symphony Orchestras 267
4. Shop Talk: On the Notation of Rhythm 273
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 7
FOREWORD 17
SECTION ONE
1. Three Talks 22
The Pleasures of Music 23
Creativity in America S1
Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit 60
2. Five Personalities Te
The Conductor: Serge Koussevitzky m3
The Teacher: Nadia Boulanger §3
The Composer: Igor Stravinsky Q2
The Critic: Paul Rosenfeld 97
The Pianist: William Kapell 100
3. Four Masters 105
At the Thought of Mozart 105
Berlioz Today 108
Liszt as Pioneer 117
Fauré Centennial in America: 1945 $26
4. From a Composer’s Journal 129
SECTION TWO:
The Twenties and the Thirties: How It Seemed Then
1. The Younger Generation of American
Composers: 1926-59 141
1926: America’s Young Men of Promise 142
1936: Americas Young Men—Ten Years Later 152
1949: The New “School” of American Composers 164
1959: Postscript for the Generation of the Fifties 175
2. European Festivals and Premieres:
A Glance Backward 179
Zurich: 1926 179
Baden-Baden: 1927 183
Paris: 1928 188
London: 1931 1093
Berlin: 1932 a)
3. The Composers of South America: 1941 203
SECTION THREE:
The Reviewing Stand
1. Music By: 208
Darius Milhaud (1947) 224
Benjamin Britten (1947) 225
Stefan Wolpe (1948) 228
Leon Kirchner (1950) 230
William Schuman (1951) 233
2. Books About: 237
Virgil Thomson’s Musical State (1939) 237
Schonberg and His School (1949) 242
The Life and Music of Bart6k (1953) 246
SECTION FOUR:
Occasional Pieces
1. “Are My Ears On Wrong?”: A Polemic 253
2. Interpreters and New Music 261
3. The Dilemma of Our Symphony Orchestras 267
4. Shop Talk: On the Notation of Rhythm 273
- GenresMusicNonfiction
264 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1963
About the author
Aaron Copland
385 books79 followersWorks of American composer Aaron Copland include the ballets
Rodeo
(1942) and
Appalachian Spring
(1944), which won a Pulitzer Prize, any of several awards that, conferred annually for accomplishment in various fields of American journalism, literature, and music, Joseph Pulitzer established.
His musical works ranged from orchestral to choral and movie scores. For the better part of four decades, people considered Aaron Copland the premier.
From an older sister, Copland learned to play piano. He decided his career before the time he fifteen years in 1915. His first tentative steps included a correspondence course in writing harmony. In 1921, Copland traveled to Paris to attend the newly founded music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. He, the first such American, studied of the brilliant teacher, Nadia Juliette Boulanger. After three years in Paris, he returned to New York with his first major commission, writing an organ concerto for the American appearances of Boulanger. His "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra" premiered in at Carnegie Hall in 1925.
Growth of Copland mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris, he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). Neoclassicism of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky strongly influenced his "Piano Variations" (1930).
In 1936, he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. This made his music more meaningful to the large loving audience that radio and the movies created. American folklore based his most important works, including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942), during this period. Another work during this period, a series of movie scores, included "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948).
In later years, work of Copland reflected the serial techniques of the "12-tone" school of Arnold Schoenberg. People commissioned notable "Connotations" (1962) for the opening of Lincoln center.
Copland after 1970 stopped composing but through the mid-1980s continued to lecture and to conduct. He died at the Phelps memorial hospital in Tarrytown (Westchester county), New York.
His musical works ranged from orchestral to choral and movie scores. For the better part of four decades, people considered Aaron Copland the premier.
From an older sister, Copland learned to play piano. He decided his career before the time he fifteen years in 1915. His first tentative steps included a correspondence course in writing harmony. In 1921, Copland traveled to Paris to attend the newly founded music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. He, the first such American, studied of the brilliant teacher, Nadia Juliette Boulanger. After three years in Paris, he returned to New York with his first major commission, writing an organ concerto for the American appearances of Boulanger. His "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra" premiered in at Carnegie Hall in 1925.
Growth of Copland mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris, he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). Neoclassicism of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky strongly influenced his "Piano Variations" (1930).
In 1936, he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. This made his music more meaningful to the large loving audience that radio and the movies created. American folklore based his most important works, including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942), during this period. Another work during this period, a series of movie scores, included "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948).
In later years, work of Copland reflected the serial techniques of the "12-tone" school of Arnold Schoenberg. People commissioned notable "Connotations" (1962) for the opening of Lincoln center.
Copland after 1970 stopped composing but through the mid-1980s continued to lecture and to conduct. He died at the Phelps memorial hospital in Tarrytown (Westchester county), New York.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 12, 2016
A collection of interesting essays centered around composers and music of the 20th century.
Provides insight into the way music has evolved in the European, American and South American continents.
Provides insight into the way music has evolved in the European, American and South American continents.
June 28, 2026
This is a selection of wonderful essays, reviews and newspaper and magazine articles, ranging from the interesting to the fascinating, written by the well-known US composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) between 1926 and 1959 and first published together in 1960. He added a few notes to his older pieces, where he felt he had misjudged or made an appreciation error he later regretted. It provides a rich perspective, especially on the first half of the twentieth-century “classical music” composers.
Copland was seriously interested in an astonishing variety of music and composers including, to name but a few, African poly-rhythms, Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Carlos Chávez, Heitor Villalobos, Alberto Ginastera, Carmargo Guarnieri, and other Latin-American composers, Henry Cowell, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Elliot Carter, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Benjamin Britten, Stefan Wolpe, William Walton, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Leon Kirchner, William Schuman, Arnold Schonberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weil, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Lucio Berio.
The first three pieces (The Pleasures of Music, Creativity in America, Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit) eloquently focus on the struggle living US composers had from 1900-1950 in having their work performed in spite of the first-rate professional US-based orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists, whose programs tended to favor dead composers over living ones. His observations are certainly still very pertinent in countries such as Venezuela whose astonishing growth via The System, still provides few performances of works by living Venezuelan composers.
He singles out five figures in as many essays, who were key to the development of contemporary music, Serge Koussevitzky, the conductor who commissioned and premiered a host of important works, Nadia Boulanger, who single-handedly taught and developed the talents of so manyt 20th century composers from many parts of the workd, Igor Stravinsky, the critic Paul Rosenfeld, and the pianist.
The first section of the book also includes Copland’s fascinating takes, as a composer, on Mozart, Berlioz, Liszt, and Fauré qua composers.
The second section of the book includes four historically invaluable essays of Copland’s perceptions of new and promising US composers (written from the vantage points of 1926, 1936, 1949, and 1959, detailed eyewitness reviews of five major European contemporary music festivals (Zurich 1926, Baden-Baden 1927, Paris 1928, London 1931, Berlin 1932), and a unique essay on Latin-American composers written in 1941 after Copland toured nine countries.
Section three of the book includes reviews of premieres by Darius Milhaud, Benjamin Britten, Stefan Wolpe, Leon Kirchner, and William Schuman, as well as reviews of books on music by Virgil Thomson, and on more scholarly treatments of Schonberg and his school, and Bartok.
Section four includes four essays -the first three (“Are My Ears On Wrong?”: A Polemic, Interpreters and New Music, The Dilemma of Our Symphony Orchestras) take another look at the necessity to encourage more performances of contemporary music. The last essay is much more technical, and it is a reflection on the notation of complex rhythms.
Many of the pieces allude to composers I am not familiar with and whose works may or may not have aged well. What is astounding is Copland’s keen appreciation and encouragement of new music, his wide-ranging interests, and, for the most part, piercingly exact but honest analysis of what each piece and each composer contributes or, in some cases, had the potential to contribute.
This is a very stimulating book which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in twentieth-century contemporary music.
Copland was seriously interested in an astonishing variety of music and composers including, to name but a few, African poly-rhythms, Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Carlos Chávez, Heitor Villalobos, Alberto Ginastera, Carmargo Guarnieri, and other Latin-American composers, Henry Cowell, Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, Elliot Carter, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Benjamin Britten, Stefan Wolpe, William Walton, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Leon Kirchner, William Schuman, Arnold Schonberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weil, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Lucio Berio.
The first three pieces (The Pleasures of Music, Creativity in America, Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit) eloquently focus on the struggle living US composers had from 1900-1950 in having their work performed in spite of the first-rate professional US-based orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists, whose programs tended to favor dead composers over living ones. His observations are certainly still very pertinent in countries such as Venezuela whose astonishing growth via The System, still provides few performances of works by living Venezuelan composers.
He singles out five figures in as many essays, who were key to the development of contemporary music, Serge Koussevitzky, the conductor who commissioned and premiered a host of important works, Nadia Boulanger, who single-handedly taught and developed the talents of so manyt 20th century composers from many parts of the workd, Igor Stravinsky, the critic Paul Rosenfeld, and the pianist.
The first section of the book also includes Copland’s fascinating takes, as a composer, on Mozart, Berlioz, Liszt, and Fauré qua composers.
The second section of the book includes four historically invaluable essays of Copland’s perceptions of new and promising US composers (written from the vantage points of 1926, 1936, 1949, and 1959, detailed eyewitness reviews of five major European contemporary music festivals (Zurich 1926, Baden-Baden 1927, Paris 1928, London 1931, Berlin 1932), and a unique essay on Latin-American composers written in 1941 after Copland toured nine countries.
Section three of the book includes reviews of premieres by Darius Milhaud, Benjamin Britten, Stefan Wolpe, Leon Kirchner, and William Schuman, as well as reviews of books on music by Virgil Thomson, and on more scholarly treatments of Schonberg and his school, and Bartok.
Section four includes four essays -the first three (“Are My Ears On Wrong?”: A Polemic, Interpreters and New Music, The Dilemma of Our Symphony Orchestras) take another look at the necessity to encourage more performances of contemporary music. The last essay is much more technical, and it is a reflection on the notation of complex rhythms.
Many of the pieces allude to composers I am not familiar with and whose works may or may not have aged well. What is astounding is Copland’s keen appreciation and encouragement of new music, his wide-ranging interests, and, for the most part, piercingly exact but honest analysis of what each piece and each composer contributes or, in some cases, had the potential to contribute.
This is a very stimulating book which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in twentieth-century contemporary music.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews