Music for the Common Man : Aaron Copland during the Depression and War: Aaron Copland during the Depression and WarIn the 1930s, Aaron Copland began to write in an accessible style he described as "imposed simplicity." Works like El Salon Mexico, Billy the Kid, Lincoln Portrait, and Appalachian Spring feature a tuneful idiom that brought the composer unprecedented popular success and came to define an American sound. Yet the cultural substance of that sound--the social and political perspective that might be heard within these familiar pieces--has until now been largely overlooked. While it has long been acknowledged that Copland subscribed to leftwing ideals, Music for the Common Man is the first sustained attempt to understand some of Copland's best-known music in the context of leftwing social, political, and cultural currents of the Great Depression and Second World War. Musicologist Elizabeth Crist argues that Copland's politics never merely accorded with mainstream New Deal liberalism, wartime patriotism, and Communist Party aesthetic policy, but advanced a progressive vision of American society and culture. Copland's music can be heard to accord with the political tenets of progressivism in the 1930s and '40s, including a fundamental sensitivity toward those less fortunate, support of multiethnic pluralism, belief in social democracy, and faith that America's past could be put in service of a better future. Crist explores how his works wrestle with the political complexities and cultural contradictions of the era by investing symbols of America--the West, folk song, patriotism, or the people--with progressive social ideals. Much as been written on the relationship between politics and art in the 1930s and '40s, but very little on concert music of the era. Music for the Common Man offers fresh insights on familiar pieces and the political context in which they emerged. |
From inside the book
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Page 10
... proletarian music; and the effort to use music education as a means of creating new, more democratic audiences. Copland was involved in all of these activities and thoroughly invested in the project of making contemporary music more ...
... proletarian music; and the effort to use music education as a means of creating new, more democratic audiences. Copland was involved in all of these activities and thoroughly invested in the project of making contemporary music more ...
Page 19
... proletarian culture. By the summer of , however, the official position of the Comintern had begun to shift, largely in response to the growing threat of Nazi Germany. At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in August ...
... proletarian culture. By the summer of , however, the official position of the Comintern had begun to shift, largely in response to the growing threat of Nazi Germany. At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in August ...
Page 21
... proletarian avant- garde in the early s, a large-scale social movement in the middle of the decade, an aspect of state culture during the height of the Works Progress Administration, and an international antifascist alliance ...
... proletarian avant- garde in the early s, a large-scale social movement in the middle of the decade, an aspect of state culture during the height of the Works Progress Administration, and an international antifascist alliance ...
Page 23
... proletarian music.51 Founded in , the organization held meetings, sponsored concerts, and published radical songs.52 Copland's involvement was purported to be limited in terms of his participation in meetings—a fact that has ...
... proletarian music.51 Founded in , the organization held meetings, sponsored concerts, and published radical songs.52 Copland's involvement was purported to be limited in terms of his participation in meetings—a fact that has ...
Page 25
... proletarian movement must do so not with the feeling that he has found an easy solution, but with the full realization of what such a step means, if his work is to be of permanent value to the workers and their cause.”59 These articles ...
... proletarian movement must do so not with the feeling that he has found an easy solution, but with the full realization of what such a step means, if his work is to be of permanent value to the workers and their cause.”59 These articles ...
Contents
2 Expanding America | 43 |
3 Creating Community | 71 |
4 The Dancing of an Attitude | 111 |
5 In Wartime | 147 |
Conclusion | 193 |
Notes | 203 |
Index | 245 |
Other editions - View all
Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War Elizabeth B. Crist Limited preview - 2009 |
Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War Elizabeth B. Crist Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
Aaron Copland aesthetic Agnes de Mille aligned American Music Appalachian Spring artists audience ballet Billy the Kid Billy’s Burke Carlos Chávez CCLC Charles Seeger Chávez City Clurman Collective Comintern Communist Party composer concert conflict contemporary context Copland’s music Cowgirl Cuban Cultural Front dance Danzón defined definition democracy democratic Denby Depression different documentary effect effort El Salón México explained Fanfare figure film final find finished first frontier Gebrauchsmusik Harold Clurman Henry Howard Pollack Ibid ideal ideology individual industrial influence Koussevitzky left-wing leftist Lincoln Portrait mass melody Mexican Mexico Modern Music movement Mumford narration National notes off offers Office orchestral performance piece Pioneer political Popular Front progressive Progressivism proletarian quoted radical reflect revolutionary rhythmic rhythms Rodakiewicz Rodeo Roosevelt rural Salón México scenario score Second Hurricane Seeger seems significance social solo song Soviet style theme tion traditional tune University Press urban Waldo Frank Wallace West Workers writing wrote York