Copland: Symphony No. 2 'Short Symphony'

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn in 1900. His early works gained him a reputation as a modernist. His music featured angular melodies, bold outlines, forceful and piercing orchestration, and above all, jazz rhythms. He depicted in music urban, mechanised America.

His 2nd Symphony typifies this aspect of his music from this period. Deemed almost unplayable by most American conductors of the period, it was premiered in 1934 conducted by his friend and fellow composer Carlos Chavez. It was not until 1944 before it was performed again in the US this time under Stokowski. It is a remarkable work for its time, and the influence of Stravinsky, though his Symphonies in C and in 3 movements were yet to be written.

The three ‘American Ballets’ Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring are probably his best known works. The blend of American folksong and hymnody combined with the rhythmic precision of Copland’s orchestration produce music that sounds ‘American’ in that it could not have emerged from any other country. In a sense, Copland invented the soundtrack for American life in music as countless movie and TV series soundtracks draw upon his sound world.

Quiet City is a recasting of the incidental music Copland wrote for the play by Irwin Shaw. Scored for trumpet, cor anglais and strings, it is a nocturne depicting a sleeping city. It is tremendously atmospheric music. Finally the Three Latin-American Sketches are based on tunes from Venezuela and Mexico. Started in 1959 as two Mexican Pieces, he added the Venezuelan movement in 1971.

Recording made in 1988.

Booklet notes.

Dance Panels, is probably the least familiar of the works on this CD to a general audience. It was written in 1959 at the suggestion of Jerome Robbins and is scored for six woodwinds, five brass, two percussion and strings. It was first performed in Munich in 1963. Copland wrote that “it is more abstract, and it is lyrical and slower in tempo than most of my other ballet music. It does not tell a story or paint a picture of American life.”

Copland was originally attracted by Emily Dickinson’s poem The Chariot, which contains the famous line “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.” The original cycle, was written between 1948 and 1950; in the late 1960s, Copland orchestrated eight of the songs for the version performed here.

The Short Symphony of 1933 is unquestionably a major work; it may stand as one of Copland’s most assertive and radical expressions of his own distinctive modernism. It is now usually heard in Copland’s own 1937 rearrangement of the music for sextet. Copland was always proud of the original work and referred to it as one of his ‘neglected children’. “If I expended a great deal of time and effort on the Short Symphony, it was because I was determined to write as perfected a piece as I possibly could.”

This important new CD is set to become one of the the most significant releases in the hisoric recordings field for several years. The disc collects together no fewer than four symphonic premieres conducted by the legendary Leopold Stokowski: the American premieres of the first Symphony 'Exile' of Alan Hovhaness, the New York premiere of Darius Milhaud's wartime First Symphony, the American premiere of Aaron Copland's Symphony No 2 and the world premiere of the First Symphony of Jose Serebrier, written when hewas 16 years old and who thereafter became one of Stokowski's most significant proteges. The result is a disc of more than exceptional interest - a winner through and through.

This second Naxos disc of Copland Symphonies (No. 3 is available on 8.559106) opens with Symphony No. 1, an arrangement of the 1924 Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Copland was especially fond of his Short Symphony (Symphony No. 2) on account of its complex, irregular rhythms and clear textures.

The so-called Dance Symphony, described by the composer as ‘a large symphonic work’ (hence the Symphony title), is derived from his early vampire ballet Grohg, inspired by the 1921 German expressionist film Nosferatu. Copland wrote: ‘If the first movement is thin, dainty and pointed, the second movement is songful and sustained. The third movement is characterized by violence and syncopation.’

“[Marin Alsop's] typecasting as an interpreter of the American symphonists is warranted.” Philadelphia Inquirer

When it was announced that Leonard Bernstein was the become the new conductor of the New York Philharmonic in November 1957, Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote that it was “no great surprise” but injected a note of caution: “wish him luck, because no one needs it more than the musical director of a symphony orchestra.”

It turned out to be an inspired appointment. This set demonstrates what it was in about his music making and his personality that led the New York Philharmonic’s directors to choose him. It includes extensive recorded documentation of Bernstein’s career up to the time of his nomination in New York, mostly in live performances and rehearsal segments, working on music ranging from Mozart to Messiaen.

Bernstein’s work after his appointment to the NYP is represented in this set by performances of American music given as part of his “Survey of American Music” in the 1958–9 season (Fine, Harris and Piston), along with Copland in 1957 and Diamond in 1961; the 1959 recording sessions for two of his favourite twentieth-century classics (Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Copland’s Billy the Kid) which show conductor and orchestra at their most efficient and effective; and hitherto unpublished live performances of music by Bartók, Beethoven, Chávez, and Mahler.