Aaron Copland
Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next half-century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. His sheer popularity and iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuated the familiar words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers.
Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible. In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory. Copland went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Viñes and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky, Milhaud, Fauré, and Mahler, but others such as author André Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924 Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965.
After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote American music. By the mid-'30s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public.
While Copland gradually became less prolific from the mid-'50s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra. Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s, Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in understanding the growth of American music in the 20th century.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Festival Aaron Copland, Concert du 28/05/1955, Orchestre Radio Symphonique, Aaron Copland (dir), E. François (clarinette)
Aaron Copland and Orchestre Radio Symphonique de la RTF featuring François Etienne
Classical - Lançado por Ina, musique(s) em 03/08/2016
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Something Wild (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Film Soundtracks - Lançado por Varese Sarabande em 01/01/2003
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Copland Conducts Music for a Great City & Statements for Orchestra
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 16/02/2024
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Copland: Billy the Kid - Ballet Suite & 4 Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 04/11/1970
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
El Salon México
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 10/11/1997
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Copland: The Tender Land
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 16/02/2024
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Music of the Twentieth Century (Mono Version)
Aaron Copland, Ernest Bloch, Zara Nelsova
Classical - Lançado por BNF Collection em 01/01/1952
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Celluloid Copland
EOS Orchestra, Jonathan Sheffer, Aaron Copland
Film Soundtracks - Lançado por Telarc em 23/01/2001
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Tender Land
Classical - Lançado por Albany Records em 01/01/2000
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Aaron Copland, Fanfare For The Common Man
Classical - Lançado por Classical.com Music em 16/02/2009
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Copland: Dance Panels; Eight Poems of Emily Dickenson; Short Symphony
Dennis Russell Davies, Orchestra of St. Luke's
Classical - Lançado por Musical Heritage Society em 01/01/2005
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Copland Before the LP
Classical - Lançado por Parnassus em 12/06/2017
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Billy The Kid - Ballet Suite / Statements For Orchestra
Classical - Lançado por Everest Records em 02/08/1958
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Copland Conducts Copland: El Salón México & 3 Latin American Sketches & Dance Panels
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 01/03/1975
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Copland: Concerto for Clarinet and Strings & Quartet & Piano Variations & Vitebsk
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 17/08/1951
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Copland Conducts Copland: Appalachian Spring & Fanfare for the Common Man
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 25/08/1971
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Copland: Works for Piano - Premiere Recordings, 1945-1949, played by Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Leo Smit
Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Leo Smit
Classical - Lançado por Soundmark em 01/01/1947
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Chamber Music
Classical - Lançado por Meridian Records em 07/11/2006
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Copland Conducts Copland: Symphonic Ode & Preamble for a Solemn Orchestra & Orchestral Variations
Classical - Lançado por Sony Classical em 18/10/1972
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Copland: Billy The Kid & Statements for Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Classical - Lançado por Everest em 06/10/2017
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Symphony No. 3
Classical - Lançado por Everest Records em 29/07/1965
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo