This month, as part of our 50th anniversary celebration, we delve into the Peabody Award-winning series, 'The MTT files,' with host Michael Tilson Thomas, to explore 'What does American music sound like?' In this episode, MTT explains Aaron Copland's musical transformation, and the political and artistic sentiments behind it. You'll hear Copland's greatest modernist work, the Symphonic Ode, with MTT conducting the New World Symphony.
When it originally aired, this episode was the second of two episodes on American music. Classical MPR with air part two (only) on Monday, July 24, at 7 p.m., or using the audio player above.
Part 1: What Does America Sound Like?
Before 1900, there was no real American concert music. But only 20 years later, composers had begun to break the hold of European standards for art and were experimenting in earnest with ways to portray an American sound.
In this program, Michael Tilson Thomas reviews what American classical music was like at the turn of the 20th century, and asks what it was about the cultural melting pot of places like Brooklyn that led us beyond Beethoven and Brahms, to our very own concert music. Aaron Copland's modernist compositions are front and center. Featured is a recorded rehearsal of Copland's little-known piece for women's chorus, "An Immorality," where Michael demonstrates the raucous sounds the composer was striving for in his earlier works.
Playlist
(If no performer is listed, piece performed by San Fransisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas.)
Sammartini: Sinfonia in D
Angelicum Orchestra of Milan/Jenkins
(Nonesuch H-71162) (LP)
Copland: "Rodeo"
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Copland: Piano Variations
Copland: Piano Variations
Copland: Dance Symphony
London Symphony Orchestra/Copland
(Sony SM2K 47232)
Dvorak: "American" String Quartet
Emerson String Quartet
(Deutsche Grammophon 445 551-2)
Trad. Spirtual: "Lord, I'm Out Here On Your Word"
Fisk Jubilee Singers
(Curb D2-78762)
Billings: "Chester"
William Appling Singers and Orchestra
(New World Records 9322-80539-2)
Heinrich: "The War of the Elements and the Thundering of Niagara"
Gottschalk: "The Banjo"
Cecile Licad
(Naxos 8.559145)
MacDowell: From "New England Idyls,""In Deep Woods"
Antheil: Ballet Mecanique
New Palais Royale Orchestra & Percussion Ensemble/Peress
(Music Masters 67094-2)
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
New World Symphony/Tilson Thomas
(RCA 9026-68788-2)
Copland: Dance Symphony
London Symphony Orchestra/Copland
(Sony SM2K 47232)
Israel Goldfarb: "Shalom Alechem"
Zamir Chorale of Boston/Jacobson
(HZ 915)
Trad.: "Yoshke"/"Der Rebbe Hort Gehessen"
Maxwell Street Klezmer Band
(Shanachie 67008)
W. C. Handy: St. Louis Blues
W. C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band
(Memphis Archives MA 7006)
Copland: Dance Symphony
London Symphony Orchestra/Copland
(Sony SM2K 47232)
Copland: Passacaglia
Charles Fierro
(Delos D/CD 1013)
Copland: "An Immorality"
San Francisco Girls Chorus/Tilson Thomas
Copland: Concerto for Piano & Orchestra
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Milhaud: "The Creation of the World"
New World Symphony/Tilson Thomas
(RCA 9026-68788-2)
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
New World Symphony/Tilson Thomas
(RCA 9026-68788-2)
Varese: "Arcana"
Copland: Symphonic Ode
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Copland: "Appalachian Spring"
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Part 2: What Does America Sound Like?
As a part of Aaron Copland's move from modernism to populism, he created musical landscapes that were abstractions of the sounds he'd heard all his life-folk tunes, Jewish music, the blues and jazz. This music was so successful that we now associate it with the sound of America-with prairies, cowboys, and the heartland.
In this program, Michael Tilson Thomas explains Copland's musical transformation, and the political and artistic sentiments behind it. Included is a recorded rehearsal of the composer's greatest modernist work, the Symphonic Ode, with MTT conducting the New World Symphony, America's Orchestral Academy.
Playlist
(If no performer is listed, piece performed by San Fransisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas.)
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Copland: Symphonic Ode (RCA 09026-63720-2)
Copland: Symphonic Ode in rehearsal
New World Symphony/Tilson Thomas
"The Golden Willow Tree"
The Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture
(Rounder 1516)
"The Golden Willow Tree" from "Old American Songs"
William Warfield/Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Copland
(Sony 89329)
Virgil Thomson: "The Plow That Broke the Plains"
Symphony of the Air/Stokowski
(Vanguard VSD 501)
Copland: "Billy the Kid"
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
Carlos Chavez: Symphony No. 2
New World Symphony/Tilson Thomas
(Argo 436 737-2)
"Camino Real de Colima"
Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan
(Arhoole CD 7015)
Copland: "El Salon Mexico
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
(RCA 09026-63720-2)
William Billings: "David's Lamentation"
Recorded by Alan Lomax/From "White Spirituals of the Sacred Harp"
(New World 80205-2)
Copland: "In the Beginning" (SFS Chorus)
The MTT Files are supported by a grant from Koret Foundation Funds and by members of Minnesota Public Radio. The MTT Files are part of Keeping Score, made possible with lead funding from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund and with generous support from The James Irvine Foundation, Marcia and John Goldman, Nan Tucker McEvoy, William and Gretchen Kimball Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others.
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