Aaron Copland At The River Pdf Printer
It makes me cry. Aaron Copland’s setting of “Shall We Gather at the River?,” from his Old American Songs, will do that to me, even though I’m determined, this time, that it won’t. IVONA Voice Salli (American English). The baritone Ron Loyd told me that he sang it at his mother’s funeral and only now can get through it without breaking down.
The funeral was five years ago. Aaron Copland in his studio. “Shall We Gather at the River?' Is a good song, perhaps even great, but would it be great because I cry? By itself, no. A parent cries, looking at a refrigerator-mounted stick-figure drawing, because of the artist, not the art. So we dismiss emotion as subjective and therefore inappropriate for judging art.
But should we? Well, emotion is everywhere, and untangling it from judgment is difficult.
I may love the song because I’m attached to the religious sentiments in it — except the sentiments aren’t particularly religious. “Saints,” “angels,” and “God” are in the original 1864 hymn by the Philadelphia-born Baptist minister Robert Lowry. Copland brought those over to his setting, but left out the verse with “Savior” in it. So the appeal is wide, nonsectarian, and only vaguely religious. I don’t cry at “I Bought Me a Cat,” also from Old American Songs, but do I like it less than “Shall We Gather at the River?” Maybe, but my preference may have little to do with the quality of the song. Puppy love Perhaps I cry because Copland’s music was my first classical music infatuation.
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Brahms was my first love, but Copland (along with Vaughan Williams) was puppy love. Sentiment has waned and waxed in the intervening decades, and I appreciate them more now, but I won’t deny that I’m a sucker for the sound of both composers. I didn’t realize until much later that I loved the film Lilies of the Field largely because Jerry Goldsmith’s score sounded like Copland to me — before I knew of Copland. Sidney Poitier piloting his station wagon down that dusty highway to a bouncing bass line was a precursor — for me — of Billy the Kid. I saw the movie as a child, but when I first heard Copland’s ballet (written 25 years before Lilies) in college, I immediately thought of that station wagon and let out an audible “Ohhh.” Nothing against Goldsmith, who’s brilliant. Actually, though, there’s really no Copland in the film score. Just that sound.
But should I be making so much of tears? After all, there’s music I like more than “Shall We Gather at the River?” that does not make me cry. Mozart, for instance.
I laugh at Mozart — I laugh because I’m incredulous. Truthfully, I have to watch myself at concerts where Mozart is performed because I have an almost uncontrollable desire to giggle. He writes one unbelievably supreme melody and then tosses in another one even more unbelievable. He doesn’t develop themes; he strings impossibly glorious tunes together, one after the other, which he really ought to just stop doing.
And then I laugh. Bach-struck And then there’s Bach.
With Bach, I don’t laugh or cry. No, with Bach, I give up. There is no composer more guaranteed to make me want to stop composing than Bach. The first bar, the first two beats of St. Matthew Passion and my chin hits my chest, my lips purse, my head swivels from side to side three or four times. Just.just, come on, cut it out, This Isn’t Fair.
Wait, I did cry once at Bach, at a Settlement Music School children’s recital. A little girl (not ours) sat down at the piano to play a Bach two-part invention. She haltingly worked through it, pausing here and there as she wrested the notes from her memory. All of a sudden the tears were flowing. Not hers; she didn’t seem upset at all as she discovered the ending and took her bow. I wiped my face during the applause. So emotion is everywhere; how can we dismiss it?
I think we shouldn’t. I don’t dismiss it any more than I dismiss objective judgment. Some like to dismiss objectivity, but their hearts aren’t in it. Bach isn’t better than the Beatles, they say, he’s just different.
The best argument against that is this: They don’t believe it. I’m sure there are professors teaching that there’s no objective truth. Okay, hold up their direct deposit for two days, and you’ll find that This Isn’t Fair all of a sudden achieves metaphysical certitude. Turning points and tuning points A note is in tune or out of tune.
It’s no good saying that there are dozens of ways to tune, that different tunings are enculturated, that an oscilloscope proves that nothing is perfectly in tune. Nobody knows when dusk turns into twilight (or is it the other way around?): So what? We could spend the rest of our lives arguing over when evening begins, but everyone believes in night and day. So it is with good and bad. We know them objectively, and we feel them emotionally. I heard Ron Loyd singing Copland because he was singing in my Psalm 46, for baritone, chorus, and orchestra.
At the piano rehearsal two days before the concert, I was looking over the pianist’s shoulder while she accompanied Ron in “Shall We Gather at the River?” There’s hardly anything on the page. The tune; the dotted notes; the descending bass line; a wisp of a reply over the singer, then under; that’s it. This is good, I thought. This is so good. But with that I thought of all the emotions, of stick-figures and station wagons and dust and laughing, of day and night, of saints and angels, of infatuations and funerals and of chins hitting chests, and I looked at the page with nothing there, and I looked at the baritone singing.
And still I thought, this Copland, I thought, this is good. No need to cry, not this time, this is just good. And then I cried. Author’s note: The piano's a little tinny, but the performance is live and exciting. And that gives a good flavor of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Lilies of the Field.
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Our readers respond Tom Purdom of Philadelphia, PA on October 29, 2014 Thanks, Kile, for the article and the link. I've always had a soft spot for that hymn because my highly varied childhood included sojourns in parts of the country where people really are baptized in rivers. I respond to a lot of music that has historical and other extra-musical associations, but it can only touch me if it's 'good' in the objective sense you describe. It combines a moving subject with genuine artistic quality -- a winning combination in all the arts. Article Overview There’s music I like more than Aaron Copland’s “Shall We Gather at the River? Solsuite 98 3 5 Serial Crack Download more. ” that does not make me cry, so what is the power of this piece? About Composer Kile Smith also teaches and writes on music.
His website is. Also of Interest • January 15, 2018 Ignat Solzhenitsyn's PCMS performance brought together Shostakovich and Schubert, but called to mind a few other composers.
Robert Zaller reviews. • January 12, 2018 The Philadelphia Orchestra crosses the Atlantic without leaving Broad Street as it begins its British Isles Festival. Cameron Kelsall reviews.
• January 11, 2018 PCMS organized world-class musicians for a thoroughly moving tribute to violinist Ida Levin, who died in 2016. Cameron Kelsall reviews. • January 08, 2018 Angela Meade’s PCMS debut was heavy on vocal pyrotechnics but light on musical introspection.
Cameron Kelsall reviews. Comment on this Article.
Though little studied, Aaron Copland's Old American Songs remain among his most frequently performed and best-loved pieces—and for good reason. 1 These audience-friendly, unabashedly tonal settings of familiar, folksy tunes seem in some ways the clearest manifestation of Copland's attempt to “say what [he] had to say in the simplest possible terms” and to speak directly to the American people. 2 Yet they fit uneasily in Copland's compositional trajectory and in broader histories of American music. Published in 1950 and 1954, respectively, the First and Second Sets of Old American Songs were written at a time when tonal, nationalist music had become increasingly unpopular. 3 Composers of the time were aware that folk-based compositions in particular were often fraught with political connotations: Elie Siegmeister explained that by the late 1930s, “anyone who was.