Copland's 'Hurricane' for kids

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1937, one of Aaron Copland’s least known work had its premiere performance. The Second Hurricane was an opera written for high school students, New York’s Henry Street Settlement Music School, to be exact.

In his memoirs, Copland recalled that at the time he wrote it, he was living at the Empire Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for $8.50 a week, and that he wrote the score in a studio he rented, located at what is now the site of Lincoln Center. To direct the premiere of his school opera, Copland hired young actor-director Orson Welles. Copland’s score also called for some adult performers, including one professional actor, Joseph Cotton, who was paid $10 for his performance.

“The newspapers seem to enjoy the idea that a dyed-in-the wool modernist was writing an opera for schoolchildren, so they gave a great deal of attention to every step along the way, particularly the casting,” Copland recalled. “Those kids must have gotten a kick out of seeing their names in the Times and Tribune! The idea of an opera for high school performers appealed to the press, I suppose, for the same reason it appealed to me. My motives were not all unselfish, either: the usual run of symphony audiences submitted to new music when it was played at them, but never showed signs of really wanting it. The atmosphere had become deadening. Yet the composer must compose. A school opera seemed a good momentary solution for one composer, at any rate.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): The Second Hurricane; High School of Music and Art; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60560

On This Day

Births

• 1899 - American composer and teacher Randall Thompson, in New York

• 1933 - American composer and pianist Easley Blackwood, in Indianapolis

Premieres

• 1845 - Lortzing: opera Undine, in Magdeburg at the Stadttheater

• 1889 - Puccini: opera Edgar, in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala

• 1917 - Debussy: Sonata No. 2 for flute,viola, and harp, at a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante in Paris, by the trio of Manouvirier (flute), Jarecki (viola), and Jamet (harp)

• 1918 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 (Classical), in Petrograd, by the former Court Orchestra with the composer conducting

• 1922 - Frederick Converse: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony, Pierre Monteux conducting

• 1924 - Youmans: musical No, No Nanette, in Detroit. After stops in Chicago and London, the musical opened on Broadway on Sept. 16, 1925.

• 1937 - Copland: a play-opera for high school The Second Hurricane, at the Grand Street Playhouse in New York City, with soloists from the Professional Children’s School, members of the Henry Street Settlement adult chorus, and the Seward High School student chorus, with Lehman Engle conducting and Orson Welles directing the staged production. One professional adult actor, Joseph Cotton, also participated (He was paid $10)

• 1939 - Leonard Bernstein’s first appearance as a conductor, leading his own incidental score to The Birds at Harvard

• 1942 - Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata, in Boston, with clarinetist David Glazer and the composer at the piano

• 1948 - Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6, at Royal Albert Hall in London, by the BBC Symphony, Sir Adrian Boult conducting

• 1973 - Bliss: Variations for orchestra, in London, with Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1985 - Morton Feldman: For Philip Guston, for chamber ensemble, in New York

• 1988 - Bernstein: Missa Brevis, in Atlanta by the Atlanta Symphony Chorus conducted by Robert Shaw

Others

• 1749 - Against Handel’s wishes, in advance of its official premiere scheduled for April 27, a public rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks at Vauxhall Gardens takes place. Reports suggest 12,000 attended, causing traffic jams on London Bridge (Gregorian date: May 2).

• 1829 - Mendelssohn, 20, arrives in London for his first visit

• 1863 - American premiere of J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Claviers and Orchestra, at Dodworth’s Hall in New York during a Mason-Thomas chamber music Soiree, with Henry C. Timm and William Mason performing on two pianos.