Aaron Copland
With Vivian Perlis
Peekskill, New York
December 23, 1975-December 8, 1976
TABLE OF CONTENTS
December 23, 1975
Side a: pp. 1-16
Early childhood in Brooklyn, parents’ emigration from Russia--religion within the family--Capriccio for violin and piano--music lessons--Bar Mitzvah--summer camp--parents.
Side b: pp. 16-33
Hebraic influences in music--piano teacher Leopold Wolfsohn--first piano performance--Aaron Schaffer, first intellectual friend--family in Texas--Rubin Goldmark, theory teacher--The Cat and the Mouse and a piano piece (1919)--manuscripts at the Library of Congress--music libraries in NYC--Dorothy Lawton, music librarian--little interest in visual arts--Musical America and The Dial on new music--Rubin Goldmark and Copland’s less conventional pieces--Nadia Boulanger and Goldmark--Victor Wittgenstein, piano teacher--Ravel and Debussy.
Side c: pp. 33-48
High school and literary interests--Arne Vainio, cellist and intellectual friend--study of scores--Scriabin--maids--Arne Vainio--Trois Esquisses--Copland’s output--Harold Clurman--Fontainebleau School--Clarence Adler--The Cat and the Mouse--the Piano Sonata (1920-1921)--Marcel Duchamp.
February 12, 1976
Side d: pp. 48-64
Milhaud’s ballet L’Homme et son Désir--Contemporary music scene in New York and Paris during 1920s--Franco-American Musical Society, Pro Music, and Robert Schmitz--Djina Ostrowska--Paul Vidal at the Conservatoire in Paris--Mlle. Nadia Boulanger--France and the study of composition--Lili Boulanger--Blvds. Montparnasse at Raspail and Copland’s apartment--The Cat and the Mouse première performance and publication--Rondino--Passacaglia--“As It Fell Upon a Day”--Nadia Boulanger’s mother.
Side e: pp. 64-78
Lessons with Boulanger--Stravinsky--Paris in early 1920s--Sylvia Beach’s bookstore--James Joyce--Koussevitzky concerts--Grohg ballet--Cortège Macabre--Dance Symphony--original scores at the Library of Congress--Ricardo Viñes--Boulanger’s reaction to student compositions over the years--nationalism in music--Satie--Eyrind Hesselberg, Norwegian composer--return to New York in 1924.
Side f: pp. 78-93
Organ Symphony for Boulanger--travels to Berlin and Vienna--cabarets with American Jazz Groups--London--Herbert Ellwell, music critic for Cleveland Plain Dealer--compositional process--job in Milford, PA, and Organ Symphony--Claire Reis and performance for League of Composers--rehearsals of Organ Symphony with Boulanger and Damrosch--Guggenheim fellowship.
March 9, 1976
Side g pp. 93-108
Sponsorship of Koussevitzky--first performances of Organ Symphony--Stokowski--Music for the Theatre--rhythms--Paul Rosenfeld’s gatherings--split between International Composers’ Guild and the League--Virgil Thomson--Carlos Salzedo--Koussevitzky and jazz rhythms--critics and composers.
Side h: pp. 108-124
Financial problems in late 1920s and 30s--Alma Wertheim--New School for Social Research--What to Listen for in Music--Leonard Bernstein--First Symphony (Organ Symphony)--rewriting compositions for available instrumental combinations--Music for the Theatre--Letter From Home--Appalachian Spring in chamber music version--meeting Gershwin--split in popular and classical music worlds--MacDowell colony--Edwin Arlington Robinson--League of Composers and Modern Music (formerly League of Composers Review)--need for performance of young American composers’ works and Copland’s own “league”--Copland-Sessions concerts--Sentimental Melody--e.e. cummings song.
Side i: pp. 124-139
Two recent concerts in Raleigh, NC with 20,000 people attending--concerts in Washington--interest of today’s young people in contemporary music--Alma Wertheim and the Cos Cob Press--John Kirkpatrick--Grohg and Harold Clurman’s “script”--Dance Symphony--Nocturne and Ukulele Serenade--Copland-Sessions concerts--early years with financial worries--Chavez’s friendship--friends in 1930s, including Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, Israel Citkowitz--the piano trio Vitebsk--unconscious musical connections between compositions--Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky--Piano Variations--12-tone influences on Copland’s own music--Lawrence Gilman and the Piano Variations.
September 8, 1976
Side j-k: pp. 139-171
Early performance of the Piano Concerto--Koussevitzky and Copland’s jazz rhythms--Koussevitzky and Natalie Koussevitzky--John Kirkpatrick’s arrangement for 4 hands of the Piano Concerto--Alma Wertheim and the Cos Cob Press--Lehman Engle and the Arrow Press--Copland and American publishers--1928 and the Hollywood Bowl--Henry Cowell and his New Music Society on the West Coast vs. the League of Composers on the East coast--Schoenbergian influence on Copland’s serial compositions--Lento molto and Rondino for string quartet--trip to Germany in 1922-1923--Symphonic Ode.
September 16, 1976
Side l-m: pp. 171-202
Symphonic Ode and the Depression--method of composing from germinating ideas--notebook of sketches at the Library of Congress--RCA grant of $5,000 at the time of the Depression--Elizabeth Ames and Yaddo--The Piano Variations written at Yaddo--assessment of critics’ division of Copland’s works into periods--El Salón México--different audiences for different kinds of compositions--Piano Variations: orchestration of, Virgil Thomson’s view of Copland's performances, first performance of, Copland’s subsequent trip to Tangiers--Paul Bowles, Miss Stein, and Miss Toklas--Elizabeth Ames and the Yaddo festival--Ives’ “Seven Songs” and Benny Herrmann--Young Composers Group: the theories behind it, partial list of members, Modern Music magazine--Copland’s work on Modern Music--El Salón México: Stokowski, Mexican folk tunes--El Mosco--Short Symphony and Statements for Orchestra.
Side n: pp. 202-217
More on Statements for Orchestra: written at Lake Bemidji in MN, early performance under Ormandy, later performance under Mitropoulos--Short Symphony and Sextet--Nonet--Hear Ye! Hear Ye! ballet and Ruth Page--Antheil and Ballet Méchanique--The Second Hurricane and the Henry Street Settlement, libretto by Edwin Denby--Music for the Radio--Copland’s The New Music and What to Listen for in Music--Harvard and the Norton professorship--25 summers at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood--Copland’s relationship to Bernstein.
Sides o, p, q, r: pp. 217-274
Simplicity of musical style in the 1930s--The Outdoor Overture--use of American folk tunes in compositions--“What Do We Plant” and the Henry Street Settlement House--Alexander Richter, the Second Hurricane, and “The Capture of Burgoyne”: first performance by Lehman Engel, 21 April 1937--“John Henry,” the Columbia Broadcasting Co., and Alan Lomax--School of the Air conducted by Howard Barlow--piano pieces “The Young Pioneers”--Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, and their influences--going to Hollywood to look for a job--film: The City for New York World’s Fair of 1939, Copland’s introduction to writing film music, music for Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, The Heiress, The North Star--German emigré composers: Hanns Eisler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Toch--Copland composes at the piano--incidental music for Quiet City, The Five Kings, The Miracle at Verdun--Copland’s patriotic music of the 1940s: A Lincoln Portrait and performances, Fanfare for the Common Man commissioned by Goossens--conductors and contemporary music--Preamble for a Solemn Occasion--ballets: Grohg in Paris, ballroom dancing, Helen Tamiris and the Passacaglia, the Dithyramb based on Piano Variations, Martha Graham, Billy the Kid with Eugene Loring, Hear Ye! Hear Ye! with Ruth Page--Jerome Robbins and the Pied Piper--problems related to the use of folk material--Appalachian Spring: the two different orchestral versions, Martha Graham.
October 5, 1976
Sides s, t: pp. 274-299
Managers and secretary--refusals to accept university positions--control of recordings for his own music--conducting and conductors--let-up in schedule for composing--recordings made by Copland and other early records--American music in England--difficulties with musical performances in Latin America--hearing with Senator McCarthy--song “Into the Streets May 1st” published in The New Masses--Canticle of Freedom--Piano Sonata commissioned by Group Theater, Tender Land, and the play Tragic Ground--dictates of music composition--performances of Piano Sonata--Violin Sonata, Lt. Harry Dunbar and early performances--Third Symphony: composition of in Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Side u: pp. 299-326
More on Third Symphony--variations by different composers on the same theme--music for documentary on Cummington Story--Piano Quartet--12-tone method of composition and the Variations--views of indeterminate and chance composition--Piano Fantasy, Quartet, Connotations, Vocalise, and The Second Hurricane--songs of Emily Dickinson’s poems--Tender Land Suite with chorus for the last two movements--beginnings of opera Tender Land commissioned by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1952-1954 for League of Composer’s 30th birthday--use of nom de plume, Horace Everett by Eric Johns for libretto of Tender Land--recent performances--American opera.
December 8, 1976
Sides v-w: pp. 326-358
Choral writing and In the Beginning--Robert Shaw--composing at the piano--Copland and Benjamin Britten--affiliation with Boosey and Hawkes--Inscape, Threnody I and Threnody II--lag in composing after 1973--arrangement of The Red Pony, an inaugural fanfare, and an arrangement of Happy Birthday--Emblems for band--transcriptions of Dickinson Songs--Duo for flute and piano, Three Latin-American Sketches--Threnody I and II--Night Thoughts (for Ives)--Lawrence Morton and the OJAI Festival in California--memoirs--relationship with Harold Clurman--American Music after the bicentennial--Sarah Caldwell and productions of The Second Hurricane--C.C. Birchard--original publisher of The Second Hurricane--travels--anecdotes concerning autographed copies of his books--Benny Goodman and the Clarinet Concerto--orchestrating idiomatically--Julia Smith’s book.
