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Aaron Copland
In 1974 I invited Aaron Copland to guest conduct the California State
University, Northridge Wind Ensemble. He was at this time aged 74 and had
recently become very busy traveling around as a guest conductor, conducting his
own works as well as other repertoire. During a quiet dinner together I mentioned
that I was concerned that he had stopped composing in place of becoming an active
conductor. He answered, “Well I have been a composer for 50 years and, after all it
is hard work. I am tired.” He added that he had always wanted to conduct but that
his great sponsor, Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony, forbade
him to do so. Koussevitzky told him, according to Copland, that anyone can be a
conductor but that he had a rare talent for composition and he must devote himself
to that. Such was the influence that Koussevitzky had over him, he was afraid to
accept any conducting offers. “But,” Copland exclaimed to me, “the day he died I
called my agent and told him to get me some conducting engagements!”
I also asked him about his initial impression of Nadia Boulanger’s
composition classes in Paris. He first corrected me by pointing out that she called
them “Harmony classes.” He said he had only heard about Boulanger and her class
after he was already in Paris, from some friends who encouraged him to attend with
them. He told me it took him five days of walking the streets of Paris before she
could talk himself into the idea of studying with a woman, for there had never been
an important woman composer. But once he decided to attend, he quickly became
very enthusiastic about her classes.
I asked about his process for beginning a new composition, and he agreed
that getting started was the most difficult thing. He told me about a large collection
of early American hymn-tune publications which he had and that sometimes he
would just take down a volume at random and thumb through the pages.
Sometimes his eye would fall on an interesting harmonic sequence, or a melodic idea
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and that this would be enough to get him started. Of course this brought to mind
his use of “Amazing Grace” in his Emblems for band.
This led me to ask about his An Outdoor Overture, which had been
published for both band and orchestra without indication of which was the original
version. I asked which one was the original version and Copland answered, “I have
no idea.” Then I asked, “Well, if the orchestral version is the original, did you do
the band version?” “No idea – it could be.” He mentioned this work in a letter to
Nadia Boulanger, dated Nov. 22, 1938, informing her that he had just composed an
outdoor overture “for children to play.” The Copland Collection, Library of
Congress, by the way, believes that the orchestral version was the original one,
having been performed in 1938 by the New York High School of Music and Art.
They add that the work was arranged for band in 1940.
Copland seemed to sense my disappointment that he could not remember the
details of this composition and he added that composing a work was like having a
baby. When it is happening it has your complete attention, but once it is born it
goes off into the world and when it returns years later you may not recognize it.
This seemed to be the case for his Emblems, which he conducted at CSUN.
Although the premiere had occurred only ten years before, at the first rehearsal, as
he looked at the score, he seemed not to even recall the piece. He took the score to
his hotel and two days later he was a much more effective conductor and was very
enthusiastic in his rediscovery of this composition. The man died of Alzheimer’s
disease only 15 years later and perhaps his failing memory was beginning at this
time.
Finally, I should mention that the composition El Salon Mexico came up
during our dinner conversation. He told me he never liked Mexico, but his extant
letters and frequent visits leave a somewhat different impression. The one strong
impression which remained in his mind was his discovery somewhere in Mexico of a
prostitution house. This establishment was three stories in height and each floor
was restricted to a single class: lower class, middle class and upper class customers.
Copland made it clear that this egalitarian whore house survived, if not in his music,
at least in the title of his El Salon Mexico.
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