The Influence of Aaron Copland on American Music 

Aaron Copland is a very well-known composer of the 20th Century. He incorporated different genres to try to revolutionise American music and make the genre more popular around the world. Copland meddled with Mexican music, jazz, film music and ballets. In this essay I will discuss Copland’s works throughout his lifetime, looking at the different genres he focused on at different periods of his life. I will also write about who or what influenced Copland’s compositions and style of composing. I will look into Copland’s background briefly as knowing the life of any composer, in my opinion, is an excellent way of understanding their work.

Born to two Russian Jewish parents, Aaron Copland was born on 14th November 1990 in Brooklyn, New York. He began playing piano at the age of eleven, under the tutelage of his sister, Laurine. Shortly after taking up the piano, Copland began composing when he was fifteen. Copland came from a musical family, with his brother being a violinist, his sister being a pianist and his mother being a pianist and a singer.

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Copland’s musical journey began after he graduated from high school. When he was twenty-one, he moved to France and studied with Natalie Boulanger in Fontainebleu, situated southeast of the centre of Paris. Boulanger was considered to be an outstanding composer. Not only was she a respected composer, but she is also believed to have influenced many composers of American music. During his years in France, Copland was heavily influenced by French composers such as Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and Claude Debussy (1862-1918), and Russian composer, Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915). From studying in Paris, he was able to observe the trends in music in Europe, which he was able to incorporate into his own compositions over time. He was introduced to the works of Igor Stravinsky(1882-1971), Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Compositions from Copland’s time in Paris include: Alone (1922) for voice and Passacaglia (1922) for piano.

After his time in Paris, Copland moved back to the U.S in 1924. It was around this time that he composed his first major piece, the Symphony for Organ Orchestra. This piece was commissioned for Boulanger’s American performances. The symphony premiered in Carnegie Hall in January 1925. Copland began basing his compositions off jazz styles and musical trends of the time and tried to incorporate them into works for orchestras. Some examples of such works include Music for the Theatre (1925) and his Piano Concerto (1926). Copland wanted to create a new and distinct sound for American music. Serge Koussevitzky, the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was astonished by Copland’s work and as a result, helped Copland gain popularity.

Towards the late 1920s and early 1930s, Copland’s focus shifted to a more experimental style. His compositions were heavily influenced by the likes of Stravinsky. This created a Neoclassical feel and abstract style in his compositions. Some of his works from this period include Piano Variations (1930) and Statements for Orchestra (1933-1935). The late 1930’s conveyed yet another change in Copland’s compositional style. It is referred to as his most famous writing period. He desired a grander audience and so decided to adapt his concept of American music to suit a wider variety of people. Copland felt music during the late 1930s was “an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum”. With that, he decided to turn his attention to simplifying his music.

The radio was becoming increasingly popular around this time and so Copland knew music would reach a wider audience this way. To adapt to the satisfaction of this new audience, Copland simplified his music and made it more radio-friendly. One of his simpler tunes is El Salón México (1936) which is said to be inspired by a trip he made to Mexico. Not only is this an example of one of Copland’s simpler tunes, it also displays how he liked to include folk tunes from other cultures into his music. This earned him a wider audience again, as he was able to appeal to the people of Mexico by incorporating their culture into American music. He also began writing film scores for films such as Billy the Kid (1938) and Of Mice and Men (1939). He wrote patriotic songs during the 1940s as a result of World War II such as a Lincoln Portrait (1942).

The 1950s proved to be another period of change for Copland. He turned his attention from instrumental music to vocal music and began composing operas. His first major vocal work was completed in 1950 and this was The 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950). What I find impressive is that even though this piece was Copland’s first ever vocal work, it later was considered to be one of the greatest pieces of its time. Copland completed an opera during this decade as well. This Opera is known as Tender Land (1954) and it was completed in 1954. It consists of three acts and is about a lower class American farm family living in the midwest of America during the 1930s. Other works of his from this decade were influenced by Schoenberg. Copland made use of the European 12- tone system although these works weren’t as popular as his previous creations. Such works include his Piano Fantasy (1957) which is rather dissonant and Connotations (1962).

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), a good friend and mentee of Copland, was among those who disliked Copland’s new style of writing, saying “ One of the sadnesses I recall in recent years occurred at the premiere of Copland's 'Inscape,' when he said to me, 'Do you realize there isn't one young composer here, there isn't one young musician who seems to be at all interested in this piece -- a brand-new piece which I've labored over?' 'The truth is that when the musical winds blew past him, he tried to catch up with 12-tone music, just as it, too, was becoming old-fashioned to the young.” This sparked a public reply from Copland: “I thought it was rather naive of him to imagine that you can just happily go on doing what you always had been doing and get away with it”. He believed that “going into 12-tone seemed to [him] to be giving [himself] possibilities [he] wouldn't otherwise have had, and it never occurred to [him] that by adopting a method that so many other people were working with that [he] was somehow betraying [himself], [his] chosen path.”

By looking at the first five decades of Copland’s life, it is clearly evident he was a talented and skilled composer. He started composing from a young age. From looking at the first thirty years of his career since the beginning of his career in his late twenties, we can see how his style of composing changed. He started off with jazz rhythms and influences. He composed with what he was familiar with. He was familiar with french music from his years spent abroad in Europe. His early works were influenced by Boulanger, Debussy, Ravel and Scriabin. The following decade’s work evolved into a more Neoclassical and abstract style of writing. This period was heavily influenced by Stravinsky.

The 1940s proved to be a patriotic time for Copland as a result of the Second World War. It was also a time of simple music for Copland, thanks to the influence of the radio. His later years of composing in the 1950s were quite different from his usual style as he began focusing on vocal music rather than instrumental and orchestral music. This conveys Copland’s versatility as a composer. It also displays how he shaped American music by incorporating many different genres and aspects and by showing how a country's music can adapt to the constant changes that are happening in the world.

Not only was Copland an extremely talented composer, he was also a conductor and teacher, not to mention that he also wrote two books. In the 1960s, Copland gradually “retired” from composing and instead began conducting and teaching. Copland’s reason for this transition was due to a lack of inspiration, which is rather upsetting to read tha such a talented composer could lose such a passion. In Copland’s own words, he admitted it was as if “someone turned off a faucet”. By the 1970s, Copland had completely stopped composing. Comparisons were made to Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) and Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) as they too, ceased composing at what was considered to be the peak of their careers. He lectured at Harvard University about American music around the world and in 1951 he became the first American composer to deliver the Norton Lectures at Harvard. He also taught in Tanglewood and the New School for Social Research. His years of devoted teaching earned him more fans and followers of his music and ideas.

Regarding his conducting career, Copland tended to conduct his own music mainly but also conducted other american music. He traveled around the world conducting his music and as a result, spreading his music which also increased awareness and popularity of American music. He continued conducting until the mid 1980s which was when he decided to fully retire. Copland conducted his last symphony in 1983.

Not only did he succeed as a composer, conductor and teacher, he also wrote multiple books and articles. His books include What to Listen for In Music (1939), Music and Imagination (1952), Copland on Music (1960), and The New Music, 1900–60 (1968). He also wrote an autobiography with the help of Vivian Perlis. This autobiography came in two volumes: Copland(1900 Through 1942), which was written in 1984 and Copland Since 1943, which was written in 1989. Along with these, Coplnad also became a reviewer of compositions for multiple publications.

He won multiple awards and over thirty honorary degrees for his many works and devotion to American music. In 1945, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his ballet The Appalachian Spring. In 1964, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1970, he was awarded with the Henry Howland Memorial Prize by Yale University. He received the Gold Baton from the American Symphony Orchestra League in 1978. He also received the Kennedy Centre Award in 1979 for his “lifetime of significant contribution to American culture in the performing arts”. The Queen’s College at City University New York, created the Aaron Copland School of Music in his honour.

Unfortunately, during the 1980s Copland was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. In the beginning of his time with the disease, he found it rather frustrating. His mind began deteriorating completely towards the end of the decade and by 1990 he had contracted pneumonia which resulted in him dying from respiratory failure on December 2nd 1990, nearly three weeks after his ninetieth birthday. He died in North Tarrytown, New York and his ashes were spread in Tanglewood

However, Coplands influence on American music did not die with him. His devoted work shaped the genre into the distinct sound it is today. Copland spent many summers mentoring Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein went on to compose music for musicals such as West Side Story and also became the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He also composed the music for the operetta Candide (1956). Many more of Copland’s other mentee’s wrote musicals in his memory.

It is evident that Aaron Copland had an impressively long and successful career as a composer, conductor, teacher and author. His success rewarded him with many awards, the unofficial title of “The Dean of American Music” and the respect of many generations of musicians. He achieved his success by finding his voice with his music which inevitably inspired the next generation of young composers to find their voices as well. He changed his style constantly throughout his career to mirror the forever changing world around him. This worked to his advantage as he was able to adapt to new trends. The 1920s was the beginning of his lengthy career. It was the time of jazz and European influences for Copland.

The 1930s saw the transition into a more abstract style of composing and Neoclassicism. From there, he adapted his style to suit radio and so simplified his music. Began writing film scores and ballets. The 1950s was towards the end of his composing years. He began composing vocal music. From the 1970s he stopped composing and focused on conducting and teaching until the 1980’s. He remains an inspiration to many young composers to this day, nearly thirty years after his passing. His legacy lives on through the composers he mentored and inspired with many musicals being written in his honour. He gave American music a distinctive sound and made it popular around the world.

Works Cited

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