Copland's "Letter from Home"

Synopsis

By the mid-1940s, the famous American bandleader Paul Whiteman was not as popular as he once was during the 20s and 30s. Even so, his name and orchestra were still a draw, and Whiteman was ever hopeful of introducing new pieces that might prove as popular as Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” both commissioned by Whiteman in those earlier decades.

In 1944, Whiteman commissioned a number of short chamber orchestra works, or “symphonettes” as he dubbed them, for his new radio show called “Music out of the Blue.” The show aired at midnight. “So if the pieces are too bad,” explained Whiteman to his radio bosses, “few people will know it.”

And so it was on today’s date in 1944 that one of these new pieces, commissioned from Aaron Copland, had its radio premiere. Its title was “A Letter from Home.”

In the context of an America still at war in Europe, this title had a special resonance for those with loved ones serving abroad. Copland himself had a brother in the army, and wrote the work while living in Mexico, where he, too, received letters from home from his sister, Laurine.

It was from her letters that Copland learned his mother had died and that his father’s senility was getting worse. As a recent Copland biographer puts it, “One cannot help but suppose that some of his feelings about her death and other family matters made their way into this score.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990) Letter from Home St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, cond. EMI 49766

On This Day

Births

• 1892 - British composer Herbert Howells, in Lydney, Gloucestershire;

Deaths

• 1837 - German composer and pianist Johann Nepomuk Hummel, age 58, in Wiemar;

• 1849 - Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, age 39, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1727 - J.S. Bach: "Trauerode" (Funeral Cantata), at a memorial service for Electress Christiane Eberhardine (who died on Sept. 4);

• 1761 - Gluck: ballet, "Don Juan," in Vienna;

• 1831 - Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in g, Op. 25, in Munich, with the composer as soloist;

• 1905 - Glazunov: Violin Concerto, with soloist Mischa Elman, at Queen's Hall, London;

• 1941 - Wm. Schuman: Symphony No. 3, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting;

• 1944 - Copland: "Letter from Home," on a radio broadcast;

• 1958 - Stravinsky: "Epitaphium in memory of Prince Max Egon zum Fürstenberg, at the Donaueschingen Festival in Germany;

• 1988 - Christopher Rouse: “ Artemis” for brass quintet, at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., by The Brass Ring;

• 1991 - Wayne Peterson: "Face of the Night, The Heart of the Dark" for orchestra, by the San Francisco Symphony, David Zinman conducting; This work won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1992;

• 1996 - Peter Lieberson: "Fire" at New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

• 2000 - John Tavener: "The Bridegroom," at the South Bank Centre in London, by Anonymous 4 and the Chilingirian String Quartet;

Others

• 1707 - Johann Sebastian Bach (age 22) marries his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach (age 23);

• 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in e, Op. 6, no. 3 (Julian date: Oct. 6);

• 1978 - President Jimmy Carter presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to singer Marian Anderson