Copland, Preamble for a Solemn Occasion
In the course of his long life, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was occasionally called on to compose “ceremonial” music. In all, he wrote five brief pieces, the most famous of which is Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) heard variously in TV productions ranging from “Omnibus” to specials on outer space.
The much lesser known Preamble for a Solemn Occasion was the result of a commission from NBC to commemorate the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. The premiere took place in December 1949 in Carnegie Hall, performed by the Boston Symphony with Sir Lawrence Olivier as narrator. Copland writes:
Preamble is a patriotic work . . . originally conceived as a hymn, which explains why the tempo is slow and stately. An introductory fanfare for brass is taken up by other instruments of the orchestra. The principal melody is announced quietly by violas and a muted horn. Preamble has occasionally been likened to Lincoln Portrait because of the narration, but the musical style is quite different. It is a more formal work and without the inclusion of any folk song material.
The text of the narration mentioned here was drawn from the U.N. charter:
We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women of all nations large and small, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.
To illustrate these ideas musically, Copland worked out his music in four sections. Copland biographer Howard Pollack explains:
The first section — declamatory, dissonant, sad — evokes the “scourge of war” and “untold sorrow” later mentioned in the narration. . . . The trumpets, supported by brass, woodwinds, and timpani, introduce a contrasting section whose noble, hymnlike, much more diatonic music reflects “faith in fundamental human rights.” The narration follows, quietly underlined by the opening music, after which the affirmative hymn brings the work to a close on a brilliant C major triad.
Barber, Adagio for Strings
In the years following his graduation from the Curtis Institute, Samuel Barber (1910-1981) spent time traveling and composing in Europe under various stipends and grants. Between 1935 and 1937, he won the Prix de Rome and two Pulitzer Travel Scholarships. Barber’s stay in Rome had a far-reaching effect on his career, for it was there in 1935 that met Arturo Toscanini. Three years later, when Toscanini became conductor of the newly formed NBC Symphony Orchestra, he premiered two new works by Barber: the First Essay and the Adagio for Strings.
Originally, the Adagio was the slow movement of Barber’s String Quartet, written in Rome in 1936. For Toscanini, Barber adapted the Adagio for full string orchestra. Its long, mellifluous lines, lyric intensity, and heartfelt sincerity had an immediate impact on audiences and critics alike. Olin Downes wrote of the premiere, “There is an arch of melody and form. The composition is most simple at the climaxes, when it develops that the simplest chord, or figure, is the one most significant.”
Barber=s Adagio has proven durable and popular in the years since it premiered. Though certain critics have grown weary of hearing the work (“an all-purpose cultural theme song” C Martin Bernheimer, Los Angeles Times), it continues to reach an ever-widening audience. The Adagio was also introduced effectively into the film scores of The Elephant Man (1980) and Platoon (1986). It has also become a staple among American funeral music, beginning notably in President Roosevelt’s 1945 memorial service. At the funeral of Princes Grace of Monaco in 1982, the music moved family and friends to tears.
Corigliano, The Red Violin:
Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra
John Corigliano (1938- ) first came to prominence in 1964, when his Violin Sonata won the chamber music prize at the Spoleto Festival. Since then, he has become “a composer who continues to surpass himself,” as Newsday has put it. With his Symphony No. 1 (1990), commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Corigliano reached a summit. This work — the composer’s response to AIDS — received the 1991 Grawemeyer Award (music’s Nobel Prize). In the same year, he was appointed to the faculty of the Juilliard School and elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. The year 1991 also saw the premiere of his immensely successful opera, The Ghosts of Versailles. The following year Musical America named Corigliano its first “Composer of the Year.” He became the 2001 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra.
In some ways, Corigliano is comparable to Aaron Copland. One aspect is his occasional forays into film music, always with spectacular results. Copland won the 1949 Academy Award for The Heiress, and Corigliano won that honor exactly 50 years later for his score to François Girard’s The Red Violin.
The movie depicts a violin’s journey through several centuries, an instrument mysteriously haunted by the soul of its maker’s deceased wife. The plot begins in 17th century Cremona, ending in 20th century Montreal. Corigliano’s haunting, complex, lyrical, and innovative score supports this mysterious premise. While scoring the film, the composer became so involved in his work that he also composed a 17-minute concert piece, a chaconne built from his film cues. Corigliano comments:
This work grew out of thematic fragments from my film score for The Red Violin. . . . Since the story covers a number of eras, I needed to write in different styles to reflect the musical growth and development of each period. Basically, when writing for a film, there are two types of scoring: the live action theme (when the actual soloist is playing) and the underscoring. For the concert work, Chaconne, I decided to use “Anna’s Theme” (the film’s solo violin melody), manipulate it through stylistic variations, and adapt 19th-century techniques into the musical language of the 20th century.
Still, Afro-American Symphony
I knew I wanted to write a symphony; I knew that it had to be an American work; and I wanted to demonstrate how the Blues, so often considered a lowly expression, could be elevated to the highest musical level.
Those retrospective words of William Grant Still (1895-1978) explain the composer’s intention in creating what would become his most celebrated work. Although Still’s goal was surely lofty, the circumstances of its realization were not. The composer explains,
It was not until the depression struck that I went jobless long enough to let the Symphony take shape. In 1930, I rented a room in a quiet building not far from my home in New York and began work.
Before that, Still had been active as a composer and arranger with various bands and projects, notably Eubie Blake’s band in the Broadway version and road show of Shuffle Along. Interested in developing his compositional skills, Still also studied with George Chadwick and Edgard Varèse.
After Howard Hanson conducted the premiere of the Afro-American Symphony in 1931, Still’s career flourished in the areas of concert music, radio, and, later, TV. In 1934, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, permitting him to devote more attention to serious composition. After moving to Los Angeles, Still composed for such TV shows as Gunsmoke and Perry Mason. At the same time, he worked at serious music for the stage and concert hall. Among his many orchestral works, he composed a total of five symphonies.
After finishing the first of these, the Afro-American Symphony, Still placed quotations from the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) at the head of each of the four movements. Over the first movement are the following lines:
All my life long twell de night has pas’
Let de wo’k come ez it will,
So dat I fin’ you, my honey, at last,
Somewhaih des ovah de hill.
The yearning quality of the poetry is reflected in the music. The first theme, a genuine traditional “blues” stands in contrast with the second, which resembles Black spiritual melodies. The development section works out each of the themes, giving new dimensions to them before the brief restatement that concludes the movement.
The poetic lines that head the Adagio run:
It’s moughty iahsome layin’ ’roun’
Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun’
An’ oftentimes I thinks, thinks I
“Twould be a sweet t’ing des to die
An’ go ’long home.”
A blues-y principal theme informs this movement also. Still stated that after the subordinate theme, “comes an alteration of the principal theme . . . that represents the fervent prayers of a burdened people rising upward to God.” The return of the principal theme and introductory material close the movement quietly.
Over the Scherzo, the lines read,
An’ we’ll shout ouah halleluyahs
On dat mighty reck’nin day.
The spirit of those lines is reflected perfectly in the music’s jubilation, which also contains strong touches of the blues. The most significant feature of the Scherzo, however, is not the blue notes, but the featured presence of a banjo in the orchestra. As far as can be determined, Still’s symphony was the first serious orchestral work to employ that instrument. The Scherzo employs sonata principles, with formal thematic statements, development, recapitulation, and coda. This movement, which suggests a plantation party or Saturday night dance of long ago, has received such acclaim that it has been recorded separately and often appears by itself on concert programs.
The fourth movement bears this inscription:
Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul.
Thy name is writ on Glory’s scroll
In characters of fire.
High mid the clouds of Fame’s bright sky
Thy banner’s blazoned folds now fly,
And truth shall lift them higher.
This is the spirit chiefly of the opening and conclusion. The composer explains:
The Fourth Movement is largely a retrospective viewing of the earlier movements with the exception of its principal theme. It is intended to give musical expression to the lines from Paul Lawrence Dunbar, which appear on the score: “Be proud, my race, in mind and soul. . . .”
