The Copland Corral

[Mirror Image]

The Tender Land, Opera in Three Acts



Though he essayed any number of musical genres with remarkable results -- chamber music, symphonies, ballets -- Aaron Copland only rarely ventured into the realm of opera in the 50-plus years of his compositional career. Copland's first such foray, the rarely heard "school opera" The Second Hurricane (1936), is of relatively little musical interest. It wasn't until the 1950s, in fact, that Copland made his first and only important contribution to the repertory with his two-act opera (revised from three acts) The Tender Land, completed in 1954.

One of the last works Copland wrote wholly in his characteristically lyrical "American" style (epitomized by works from the previous decade like Appalachian Spring and the Symphony No. 3), The Tender Land dramatizes a story that is well complemented by the spaciousness and elegant simplicity of Copland's music. Inspired by photographs in James Agee and Walker Evans' timeless account of Depression-era America, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Copland and librettist Horace Everett fashioned a drama centered around a farm girl on the verge of womanhood. On the eve of her graduation from high school, Laurie Moss is faced with life-defining choices regarding love, family ties, and independence. The theme of outsiders -- groundlessly accused of wrongdoing -- invading the peaceful world of rural America mirrors certain contemporaneous social concerns, not the least of which was the witch hunt for Communists under the direction of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Copland himself had been called to testify at the notorious congressional hearings.

The Tender Land underwent much revision both before and after its initial production at the New York City Opera on April 1, 1954. Though the work has never attained the popularity of other American operas of the same period like Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) or Carlisle Floyd's Susannah (1955), it enjoyed something of a renaissance in the 1990s with numerous productions and the first-ever recording of the entire work.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

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Since this Copland work seems to get very little attention (for whatever reason), I decided it might be high-time it received it's own little sub-section. I haven't heard the opera in it's entirety, but plan to very soon.

[vandermolen]

Heads-up, Coplandites!

Anyone here a fan of Copland's The Tender Land? I remember hearing bits and pieces from it via YT years ago and being thoroughly enchanted by it. Some gorgeous music herein if his orchestral suite is any indication.

I don't know the opera although I may well have a CD of it 
The Suite is wonderful.

[Mirror Image]

I don't know the opera although I may well have a CD of it 
The Suite is wonderful.

I love that suite from The Tender Land as well. Even if I didn't know the music's subject matter or if it had a different title altogether, the music would still bring to mind a wide-open landscape where you can see rolling hills and pastures for miles and miles.

[Mirror Image]

For those interested, this is a great documentary on Copland:

https://www.youtube.com/v/9WDYa8T83A4

[vandermolen]

Looks like a wonderful documentary having just watched the opening section with Copland and the young musicians. He comes across as a very endearing character. Thanks for posting this.

[Mirror Image]

Looks like a wonderful documentary having just watched the opening section with Copland and the young musicians. He comes across as a very endearing character. Thanks for posting this.

I hope you enjoy it, Jeffrey. I've always had tremendous respect for Copland not only as a composer of incredible music, but as the person he came across as being. Affable is an adjective that Bernstein used to describe what it was like meeting Copland for the first-time, but as you mentioned he was quite endearing, but also thoughtful, perspicuous, confident (not in an egotistical way of course), and displayed a certain humility to throw in some more adjectives.

[Mirror Image]

For those interested, here's a list of Copland's oeuvre:

http://www.coplandhouse.org/aaron-copland/list-of-works/

[snyprrr]

Connotations

I was just comparing the SONY and DG. The former is still the reigning champion, and with its vintage sound, really has that Ruggles feel to it. The latter, though derided as was much late Bernstein, came off today as crisp and clear in its pristine DG sound. It certainly didn't have the frisson of the SONY, but I heard it in a more modern light.

The word "stentorian" has universally been used to describe this hectoring, clanging mass of sizzling dissonances. It certainly does lurch forward, like some monstrous unified being, though not quite in the Xenakis mold. Still, the music defies melodies and just keeps going and going. It really does sound like the spirit of Ruggles in the blazing colors of sunlight.

[PerfectWagnerite]

That's a nice description of the work. I've only heard these movements a few times. A bit rugged at times, but there is still the lyricism, rhythm and colour of AC not far from the surface. I now can truly enjoy Copland's "modern" works of the 50s-60s. Music for a Great City seems to have the urgency of the modern era yet is true to the composer. From time to time Copland uses jazzy scoring that renders a 1920s vibe. Those were his formative years but the music sounds little like his 1920s efforts. I'm going to have to revisit his other late works. I used to think Connotations and Inscape were so wild but now I hear the master's voice through the modernism.

I only found the Slatkin and Copland recordings of this work. Any others?

Sounds a little like Ruggles though, no wonder conductors avoid it like the plague.

[pjme]

https://www.youtube.com/v/CkQ_C40hCSQ

Sixten Ehrling

https://www.youtube.com/v/3PDMKV2pdxk

Leon Botstein

Music for a great city? Afaik: no other recordings....

Copland recorded the work in London a little more than two weeks after the premiere, as part of his comprehensive series of recordings of his own music for American Columbia (today's Sony Classical), and twenty-five years later Leonard Slatkin recorded it with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor (today the partner of its longtime rival in constituting SonyBMG), but there have been very few other performances.
see: https://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/composition/4099

This is apparently Copland with the Boston So in 1965: https://youtu.be/CfJx-gScGPs



P.

[vandermolen]

New release:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Copland-Symphony-American-Sketches-Orchestra/dp/B071YCY3WL/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1496755194&sr=1-1&keywords=Copland+Naxos

[cilgwyn]

Aha! My website blocking software in operation. I clicked on the link........temptation averted!!

[vandermolen]

Aha! My website blocking software in operation. I clicked on the link........temptation averted!!

You have more will power that I do! 

[cilgwyn]

No willpower.......just clever software,I fear!!   The password is in the attic. There's some asbestos up there,somewhere (it has it's uses) and it's niffy for some reason (a dead bat or bird?). I haven't bought a cd or dvd for over a week!!!!!! A dislike of ladders,heights and having to put on that dust mask helps!!

PS: Don't tell your wife or she might install it on your pc!!

I stocked up with a lot of Copland cd's a few months ago,having been shocked,looking through the thread here,at how little Copland I really knew,besides the more obvious works. Amongst some other cds,I bought this one. I noticed some grumbling on Amazon about Sony filling up the final two cds in the box with piano music. They may be right? But for the price it seemed very good value so I bought it. Also,not knowing any of his piano music,I thought it might be interesting to hear a less familiar aspect of his output. Which reminds to have a proper listen to it. Perhaps next? It will be a bit different after Rutland Boughton's Bethlehem.........in June!!

 

Amongst other works I added to my collection and heard for the first time:

Dance Panels
Music for the theatre
Music for Movies
Quiet City
Our Town
Lincoln Portrait
Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson
Old American Songs

And I thought I knew Copland's music!!!

[North Star]

I quite like the piano discs with Leo Smit in that box. Big modernist works such as the Variations and Fantasy, but plenty in the populist style, too.

[vandermolen]

No willpower.......just clever software,I fear!!   The password is in the attic. There's some asbestos up there,somewhere (it has it's uses) and it's niffy for some reason (a dead bat or bird?). I haven't bought a cd or dvd for over a week!!!!!! A dislike of ladders,heights and having to put on that dust mask helps!!

PS: Don't tell your wife or she might install it on your pc!!

I stocked up with a lot of Copland cd's a few months ago,having been shocked,looking through the thread here,at how little Copland I really knew,besides the more obvious works. Amongst some other cds,I bought this one. I noticed some grumbling on Amazon about Sony filling up the final two cds in the box with piano music. They may be right? But for the price it seemed very good value so I bought it. Also,not knowing any of his piano music,I thought it might be interesting to hear a less familiar aspect of his output. Which reminds to have a proper listen to it. Perhaps next? It will be a bit different after Rutland Boughton's Bethlehem.........in June!!

 

Amongst other works I added to my collection and heard for the first time:

Dance Panels
Music for the theatre
Music for Movies
Quiet City
Our Town
Lincoln Portrait
Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson
Old American Songs

And I thought I knew Copland's music!!!

I have that boxed set too ( ). I like Copland's self-effacing performance of Symphony 3 with the New Philharmonia Orch. (I think). The LP had a great cover image I recall. My one objection to these cheapo Sony boxes is the complete lack of booklet notes - even Brilliant provide them in their boxed sets. I like the Lincoln Portrait. It is, to some extent, a piece of kitsch complete with a narration full of non-sequiturs 'Abe Lincoln was six feet tall and this is what he said.....' I still love it and have versions with probably at least  ten different narrators (I resisted the ones narrated by Margaret Thatcher and Norman Schwarzkopf). Other favourites include Danzon Cubanon a wonderfully in spiriting and catchy work and the poetic Quiet City.

[millionrainbows]

Here's a Copland choral piece I've grown quite fond of:

https://youtu.be/Tovh5FpwAho

[Rons_talking]

Here's a Copland choral piece I've grown quite fond of:

https://youtu.be/Tovh5FpwAho

I've never heard this one before. Jazzy rhythms from the 30s.

[vandermolen]

Was delighted to hear the Lincoln Portrait live at the Proms in London last night. It's first performance at the Proms sine the original one in 1943! (Adrian Boult/Burgess Meredith narrator). Last night it was the excellent Cincinnati Symphony Orchestror conducted by Louis Langree. The narrator was Charles Dance the British actor. He delivered the lines very eloquently and with great passion. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that he adopted a sort-of American accent. I felt it would have been better had he used his normal voice or, maybe better still, they had used an American narrator. Still, it was a great experience to hear it live.

[millionrainbows]

The Short Symphony is growing on me. This disc also has the smaller, original version of Appalachian Spring.



https://youtu.be/ok8oR51Y6Wg