Aaron Copland

Born November 14, 1900

Died December 2, 1990

Aaron was said to be a shy man, however, he still would rather be in a crowd than alone. He lived modestly, and composed the same way. He read a lot, and was always very frugal, even after he gained substantial wealth! He was also quite clownish and fun-loving.

Aaron was an accomplished pianist, as well as an American composer of music for both concerts and films. His style was a balance between modern and folk music, utilizing orchestration with the strong beat of the percussion section, changes in timing, using 'polyrhythms' or "the simultaneous occurrence of sharply contrasting rhythms within a composition" as well as 'polychords' "A musical instrument of ten strings", and 'tone rows' "a series of tones in which no tone is duplicated, and in which the tones generally recur in fixed sequence, with variations in rhythm and pitch, throughout a composition", all of which were utilized for his compositions for concerts, films, ballets, and theater. Aaron Copland was a versatile artist, not only composing, but also teaching, lecturing, critiquing, writing and conducting.

He was born on November 14, 1900 of Lithuanian Jewish descent in Brooklyn, New York to Harris Morris Kaplan (who later Anglicized his surname to Copland) and Sarah Mittenthal Copland. They lived above and helped out with the family store, a neighborhood Macy's, throughout his childhood. He lived a typical Jewish life, having been active in the Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes, and having celebrated his Bar Mitzvah.

His father had no particular musical interest, however, his mother sang and played the piano and arranged for music lessons for the children. She attended the Metropolitan Opera School, and often went to the opera; she would bring the libretti to Aaron for study. He attended Boys' High School and went to many camps. He was exposed to music at an early age at Jewish weddings and ceremonies, as well as family musicals. When Aaron was eleven years old, he created an opera setting called Zanatello, including seven bars of music which was his first written music. He began taking lessons with Leopold Wolfsohn from 1913 to 1917 and studied the standard classics.

Copland regularly attended the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony, as well as continuing his musical development via his relationships with his musical friends. He played in dance bands, continued his music education, and took further piano lessons from Victor Wittgenstein. Copland tended to develop friendships with people who had socialist or communist beliefs.

Copland had a great affinity for the latest European musical flare, so he went to Paris for further study. His father wanted him to go to college, but his mother voted he go to Paris and give it a try. He studied with Paul Vidal at the Fontainebleau School of Music, but switched to Nadia Boulanger finding Vidal to be too much like Goldmark. Before that time, no one had thought of studying with a woman, but in her interview with him, she recalled, "One could tell his talent immediately." Though he had only planned on studying abroad for a year, he enjoyed her company and teaching so much..."this intellectual Amazon is not only professor at the Conservatoire, is not only familiar with all music from Bach to Stravinsky, but is prepared for anything worse in the way of dissonance. But make no mistake...A more charming womanly woman never lived" that his study stretched out to three years abroad, finding her approach inspirational to his own taste.

Many of the artists in Paris in the 1920's included expatriate American writers Paul Bowles, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound as well as artists like Picasso, Chagall, and Modigliani. Also influencing the new music were intellectuals like Marcel Proust, Paul Valery, Sartre and Andre Gide, who was cited by Copland as being his personal favorite and most read. However, above all the others, Copland said that Igor Stravinsky was his "hero" and his favorite 20th century composer. Furthering his education, Copland traveled to Italy, Austria, and Germany. While in Paris, he wrote musical critiques on Faure, which helped spread his fame and name throughout the country. Copland returned to America as very optimistic about the future, rather than being self-piteous like many of his peers.

When he returned to America, Copland became a full-time composer. He rented an apartment close to Carnegie Hall as well as other musical venues and publishers. He lived frugally, and survived on a Guggenheim Fellowship which he received in 1925 and again in 1926.

His compositions of the 1920's showed a 'modernist' belief among intellectuals; they would be appreciated over time. He formed the Young Composer's Group, after France's "Six", gathering the young composers, and acting as their mentor. He didn't have very many American contemporaries to pattern after besides Carl Ruggles and Charles Ives, though the 1920's were Golden Years for American popular music and jazz, with George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong in the lead. Copland later joined the younger contemporaries, and formed a group called the "commando unit" doing joint concerts showcasing their work to new groups of people. Copland played a key role in keeping the "commando unit" together, and helped promote their works, but they had fights which were festered by the affirmation by the masses that Copland was the "truly American" composer.

He began to rethink the the idea of composing orchestral music for a select group, and decided to create music that could serve a down-to-earth as well as artistic purpose; music that would not only be easy to learn, but also have a greater appeal. He was also motivated by the circumstances of the children of the Depression, and around 1935 Copland began to compose music for young audiences. During those years, he traveled to Europe, Africa and Mexico, where he composed the first of his signature works, El Salon Mexico, and which fulfilled the second goal of American Gebrauchsmusik which was to have wider appeal.

In the 1930's Copland's broad range branched out into theater and ballet, as well as writing for film scores. He also scored a Clarinet Concerto for solo clarinet, strings, harp and piano which was for bandleader and clarinetist Benny Goodman in 1948, and which was a complement to Copland's earlier jazzy work the Piano Concerto.

In 1950 he received the Fulbright scholarship to study in Rome, Italy, where he studied the following year, and at which time he composed his Piano Quartet utilizing Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition, and also wrote Old American Songs.

Although many of Copland's friends were Socialist or Communist, he never actually enrolled as a member of any political party; however, in 1951, he began resigning from participation in leftist groups, and he began to vote democratic, first for Stevenson and then Kennedy.

America's political climate was changing, and the 'red scare' was on everyone's mind. Copland was called to testify before Congress that same year, indicating that he never was a communist along with many other artists of that era. Regardless of his being a suspected Communist, he traveled extensively during the 1950's and 1960's, keenly aware of the avant-garde approach in Europe, and the new Soviet music. He also was exposed to the new trends in music of Poland and Scandinavia, and in noting these new formats, he revised his text "The New Music" commenting on the styles that he experienced. He said that the radical trends in music appealing to those "who enjoy teetering on the edge of chaos" were unlikely to please those "who envisage art as a bulwark against the irrationality of man's nature." He said "I've spent most of my life trying to get the right note in the right place. Just throwing it open to chance seems to go against my natural instincts." He did not go for the chaos of the 'new music'!

In 1954 he received a commission from Rodgers and Hammerstein to create music for an opera; he had been wary of trying to write an opera, including weak libretti. Regardless, he decided to try his hand at the form, and as he feared, critics found the libretto to be its weak spot. He said later that he regrets that he never did write a 'grand opera', however, in spite of its weaknesses, his opera has become one of America's standard repertory [The Tencer Land].

From the 1960's on, Copland was composing less and less. "It was exactly as if someone had simply turned off a faucet." He was often a guest conductor of orchestras in both Europe and America. He had made several recordings of his music, particularly in the 1970's.

Some of the awards that Aaron Copland earned include the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit on December 15, 1970; the New York Music Critics' Circle Award; the Pulitzer Prize in Composition for "Appalacihian Spring"; His scores for "Of Mice and Men" and "Our Town" and "The North Star" all won Academy Award nominations, while "The Heiress" won Best Music in 1950; Yale University's Sanford Medal; Special Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in 1987.

He deteriorated through the 1980's and died of Alzheimer's disease and respiratory failure in North Tarrytown, New York on December 2, 1990. Much of his estate was bequeathed to the Aaron Copland Fund for Composers, giving over $600,000 each year to performing groups.