Copland

[Serial_Apologist]

An entertaining and informative week for me - but not one that really altered my basic attitude to this Music from how I described it in #28: great delight from the more familiar, "populist" works (none of which I'd listened to in years) - and a real sense of dullness in response to the more "serious" works. I did get a little more from Connotations and the Music for a Great City than I remember from [past experience - but that might be after the experience of the Lincoln Portrait from the end of Thursday's programme: Copland channelling his inner McGonagall. But twelve-tone writing didn't come naturally to him (contrast the contemporary Symphonies of Humphrey Searle) and there's always a feeling of "stick those three leftover notes in the second bassoon where no one will be able to hear them" in these works.

So sad (for me) - he was such a decent bloke, I really wish that I could be as enthusiastic across the range of his output as I am about a few of his works.

That sums up my feelings about Copland really well. "The road to good intentions is paved with hell", or something like that - and it seems to apply widely nowadays.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ommmmmmmmmmmm.

[cloughie]

...and there's always a feeling of "stick those three leftover notes in the second bassoon where no one will be able to hear them" in these works.

That sounds a bit like the modus operandum of male voice choir arrangers - only in their case it is ‘give all the notes no-one else wants to the second tenors’.
Copland was good at knocking out some good tunes - I have always found Lincoln Portrait less than a pleasant listening experience and I don’t think any number of hearings will change that!

[ahinton]

Just to add, too, that this afternoon's performance of Appalachian Spring reminded me of just what a lovely and well-crafted work it is. And the gently self-deprecating humour of the excerpt of the recorded interview with Copland showed just what a really nice guy he was.

Perhaps it was the better for having been written in part on the Carters' dining room table!...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps it was the better for having been written in part on the Carters' dining room table!...

I didn't know that (Between main course and suite, was it?)

[ahinton]

I didn't know that (Between main course and suite, was it?)

I don't have that much detail, I fear, but...

[Lat-Literal]

An entertaining and informative week for me - but not one that really altered my basic attitude to this Music from how I described it in #28: great delight from the more familiar, "populist" works (none of which I'd listened to in years) - and a real sense of dullness in response to the more "serious" works. I did get a little more from Connotations and the Music for a Great City than I remember from [past experience - but that might be after the experience of the Lincoln Portrait from the end of Thursday's programme: Copland channelling his inner McGonagall. But twelve-tone writing didn't come naturally to him (contrast the contemporary Symphonies of Humphrey Searle) and there's always a feeling of "stick those three leftover notes in the second bassoon where no one will be able to hear them" in these works.

So sad (for me) - he was such a decent bloke, I really wish that I could be as enthusiastic across the range of his output as I am about a few of his works.

As a Wengerite, such things colour my view so I am at the opposite end of the spectrum here to vinteuil.

It means that I am more open to the music and more tolerant of the parts of it I dislike.

[rauschwerk]

'Mr Copland Comes to Town'

Saw this 1964 BBC documentary in Aldeburgh yesterday. Directors were Humphrey Burton and Barrie Gavin, both of whom were there to introduce their work. I wish TV music documentaries were still like this! It covered Copland's visit to London to conduct the premiere of his Music for a Great City, commissioned by the LSO. Substantial excepts from the rehearsals, and none of this nonsense about playing music for 10 seconds then fading it under speech. A really absorbing hour. Copland conducted with enormous enthusiasm and was very complimentary about the orchestra.

Such a male-dominated world back then! The only woman who appeared was the editor of Tonight. Kenneth Allsop's questions for that show seemed extraordinarily patronising. And the incessant smoking!!!

[BBMmk2]

'Mr Copland Comes to Town'

Saw this 1964 BBC documentary in Aldeburgh yesterday. Directors were Humphrey Burton and Barrie Gavin, both of whom were there to introduce their work. I wish TV music documentaries were still like this! It covered Copland's visit to London to conduct the premiere of his Music for a Great City, commissioned by the LSO. Substantial excepts from the rehearsals, and none of this nonsense about playing music for 10 seconds then fading it under speech. A really absorbing hour. Copland conducted with enormous enthusiasm and was very complimentary about the orchestra.

Such a male-dominated world back then! The only woman who appeared was the editor of Tonight. Kenneth Allsop's questions for that show seemed extraordinarily patronising. And the incessant smoking!!!

The styles of presentation has changed for the worse I think. As we have seen recently.