146-580: The Aaron Copland House , also known as Rock Hill or Copland House , is the former home of composer Aaron Copland for the last 30 years of his life, and now also a creative center for American music. Located on Washington Street in Cortlandt Manor , New York, United States, and built in the 1940s, the house and its garage were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, and five years later, in 2008, they were designated
292-728: A National Historic Landmark in 2008. Copland's health deteriorated through the 1980s, and he died of Alzheimer's disease and respiratory failure on December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown, New York (now Sleepy Hollow). Following his death, his ashes were scattered over the Tanglewood Music Center near Lenox, Massachusetts. Much of his large estate was bequeathed to the creation of the Aaron Copland Fund for Composers, which bestows over $ 600,000 per year to performing groups. Copland never enrolled as
438-484: A National Historic Landmark , the only one in the country connected to a figure from the world of classical music . The grounds below Copland's home consist of a two-tiered garden ringed by natural woods, and in 2009, the National Wildlife Federation designated the property a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Copland began retreating to the country during weekends and summers in the 1930s. He found
584-586: A "usable past" in American classical composers, he looked toward jazz and popular music, something he had already started to do while in Europe. In the 1920s, Gershwin, Bessie Smith , and Louis Armstrong were in the forefront of American popular music and jazz. By the end of the decade, Copland felt his music was going in a more abstract, less jazz-oriented direction. However, as large swing bands such as those of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller became popular in
730-512: A banner of his patriotism. The investigations ceased in 1955 and were closed in 1975. The McCarthy probes did not seriously affect Copland's career and international artistic reputation, however taxing as they might have been on his time, energy, and emotional state. Nevertheless, beginning in 1950, Copland—who had been appalled at Stalin's persecution of Shostakovich and other artists—began resigning from participation in leftist groups. Copland, Pollack states, "stayed particularly concerned about
876-451: A building. Since this building method has been used for thousands of years in many parts of the world, many styles of historic framing have developed. These styles are often categorized by the type of foundation, walls, how and where the beams intersect, the use of curved timbers, and the roof framing details. A simple timber frame made of straight vertical and horizontal pieces with a common rafter roof without purlins . The term box frame
1022-636: A car, while they work. They may share the house with spouses or partners, but not children or dogs. Allen Shearer was the first composer in residence in late 1998. Other previous winners include Pierre Jalbert , Richard Danielpour , Robert Xavier Rodriguez , Robert Paterson , Judith Lang Zaimont , Andrew Norman , Derek Bermel , Du Yun , Henry Threadgill , Alvin Singleton , Dave Douglas , Christopher Theofanidis , Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann and Hannah Lash . In 1999, Copland House initiated its resident chamber ensemble Music From Copland House (MCH),
1168-415: A child to whom Copland later provided financial security, through a bequest from his estate. Vivian Perlis, who collaborated with Copland on his autobiography, writes: "Copland's method of composing was to write down fragments of musical ideas as they came to him. When he needed a piece, he would turn to these ideas (his 'gold nuggets')." If one or more of these nuggets looked promising, he would then write
1314-612: A commission from the Columbia Broadcast System . This was one of his first pieces to convey the landscape of the American West. This emphasis on the frontier carried over to his ballet Billy the Kid (1938), which along with El Salón México became his first widespread public success. Copland's ballet music established him as an authentic composer of American music much as Stravinsky's ballet scores connected
1460-568: A company which also attracted Stella Adler , Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg . Philosophically an outgrowth of Stieglitz and his ideals, the Group focused on socially relevant plays by the American authors. Through it and later his work in film, Copland met several major American playwrights, including Thornton Wilder , William Inge , Arthur Miller , and Edward Albee , and considered projects with all of them. Around 1935 Copland began to compose musical pieces for young audiences, in accordance with
1606-572: A composition impeccable. Boulanger "could always find the weak spot in a place you suspected was weak... She also could tell you why it was weak [italics Copland]." He wrote in a letter to his brother Ralph, "This intellectual Amazon is not only professor at the Conservatoire , is not only familiar with all music from Bach to Stravinsky, but is prepared for anything worse in the way of dissonance . But make no mistake ... A more charming womanly woman never lived." Copland later wrote that "it
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#17327804650151752-455: A constant in Copland's life, though their romance might have ended by 1944. Originally a violin prodigy when the composer met him in 1932, Kraft gave up music to pursue a career in photography, in part due to Copland's urging. Kraft would leave and re-enter Copland's life, often bringing much stress with him as his behavior became increasingly erratic, sometimes confrontational. Kraft fathered
1898-566: A frame of load-bearing timber, creating spaces between the timbers called panels (in German Gefach or Fächer = partitions), which are then filled-in with some kind of nonstructural material known as infill . The frame is often left exposed on the exterior of the building. Gallery of infill types: The earliest known type of infill, called opus craticum by the Romans, was a wattle and daub type construction. Opus craticum
2044-447: A light breakfast, and took care of his correspondence in the morning. After lunch he received visitors, including the many younger composers he aided over the years, a personal generosity that led to him being called "The Dean of American Composers". Dinner would come in the evening, and only at night, when he felt it was better to do so, did he actually compose. In this way he composed Connotations and Inscape , large orchestral works for
2190-488: A local architect 20 years earlier. "One look at the grounds," Copland said, "and I was sold! When I first saw the studio I said it looked like a room where a composer could write music. His datebook for November 1, 1960, the day he closed on the house, proudly proclaims "HOUSE BOUGHT!" He lived there for the rest of his life. The house's aesthetics complement Copland's music. Both have what one writer calls his "simplicity, quiet dignity and rugged elegance." It blends well into
2336-636: A member of any political party. Nevertheless, he inherited a considerable interest in civic and world events from his father. His views were generally progressive and he had strong ties with numerous colleagues and friends in the Popular Front, including Clifford Odets . Early in his life, Copland developed, in Pollack's words, "a deep admiration for the works of Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair , all socialists whose novels passionately excoriated capitalism's physical and emotional toll on
2482-486: A more consciously American idiom to evoke in his future work. Visits to Europe in 1926 and 1927 brought him into contact with the most recent developments there, including Webern's Five Pieces for Orchestra, which greatly impressed him. In August 1927, while staying in Königstein, Copland wrote Poet's Song , a setting of a text by E. E. Cummings and his first composition using Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. This
2628-482: A noted teacher and composer of American music (who had given George Gershwin three lessons). Goldmark, with whom Copland studied between 1917 and 1921, gave the young Copland a solid foundation, especially in the Germanic tradition. As Copland stated later: "This was a stroke of luck for me. I was spared the floundering that so many musicians have suffered through incompetent teaching." But Copland also commented that
2774-423: A piano sketch and eventually work on them at the keyboard. The piano, Perlis writes, "was so integral to his composing that it permeated his compositional style, not only in the frequent use in the instrument but in more subtle and complex ways". His habit of turning to the keyboard tended to embarrass Copland until he learned that Stravinsky also did so. Copland would not consider the specific instrumentation for
2920-460: A piece until it was complete and notated. Nor, according to Pollack, did he generally work in linear fashion, from beginning to end of a composition. Instead, he tended to compose whole sections in no particular order and surmise their eventual sequence after all those parts were complete, much like assembling a collage. Copland himself admitted, "I don't compose. I assemble materials." Many times, he included material he had written years earlier. If
3066-554: A private hearing at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., Copland was questioned by Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn about his lecturing abroad and his affiliations with various organizations and events. In the process, McCarthy and Cohn neglected completely Copland's works, which made a virtue of American values. Outraged by the accusations, many members of the musical community held up Copland's music as
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#17327804650153212-403: A rock with metal letters spelling out "Rock Hill" and a plain white metal mailbox , to a parking area at the west. The wooded property has several landscaped areas and rock gardens scattered around it. Several species of trees uncommon to the area have been planted within. The house itself is at the highest point of the property, a rock promontory in the middle of the wooded, terraced lot. It
3358-484: A shift in emphasis from a unified musical structure to the rhetorical effect the music might have on an audience and showed Copland refining a simplified, more accessible musical language. Timber framing Timber framing ( German : Fachwerkbauweise ) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers , creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If
3504-579: A special dinner with close friends. In general, his music seemed to evoke Protestant hymns as often as it did Jewish chant. Copland characteristically found connections among various religious traditions. But if Copland was discreet about his Jewish background, he never hid it, either. Pollack states that Copland was gay and that the composer came to an early acceptance and understanding of his sexuality. Like many at that time, Copland guarded his privacy, especially in regard to his homosexuality. He provided few written details about his private life, and even after
3650-582: A structural point of view. From the 1960s onward, Copland's activities turned more from composing to conducting. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records . Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn , New York, on November 14, 1900. He was the youngest of five children in a Conservative Jewish immigrant family of Lithuanian origins. While emigrating from Russia to
3796-636: A summer school program for American musicians at the Fontainebleau School of Music , offered by the French government, encouraged Copland still further. His father wanted him to go to college, but his mother's vote in the family conference allowed him to give Paris a try. On arriving in France, he studied at Fontainebleau with pianist and pedagog Isidor Philipp and composer Paul Vidal . When Copland found Vidal too much like Goldmark, he switched at
3942-567: A surprisingly large number of people. In many ways, this shift mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik ("music for use"), as composers sought to create music that could serve a utilitarian as well as artistic purpose. This approach encompassed two trends: first, music that students could easily learn, and second, music which would have wider appeal, such as incidental music for plays, movies, radio, etc. Toward this end, Copland provided musical advice and inspiration to The Group Theatre ,
4088-620: A twelve-tone row. The other major work of Copland's first period is the Short Symphony (1933). In it, music critic and musicologist Michael Steinberg writes, the "jazz-influenced dislocations of meter that are so characteristic of Copland's music of the 1920s are more prevalent than ever". Compared to the Symphonic Ode , the orchestration is much leaner and the composition itself more concentrated. In its combination and refinement of modernist and jazz elements, Steinberg calls
4234-422: Is a one-story, L-shaped timber frame structure on a stone and mortar foundation, exposed on the north and south sides, on the latter of which it projects several feet to accommodate Copland's studio, which has a wooden deck on the east side. Vertical clapboard siding rises to an asphalt roof, vaulted with a small flat area at the northwest corner. Stone chimneys rise on either end. There is a small kitchen wing on
4380-437: Is an introspective composition with a jazz influence. Copland finished the 1940s with two film scores, one for William Wyler 's The Heiress and one for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck 's novel The Red Pony . In 1949, Copland returned to Europe, where he found French composer Pierre Boulez dominating the group of post-war avant-garde composers there. He also met with proponents of twelve-tone technique, based on
4526-467: Is another alternative where straw bales are stacked for nonload-bearing infill with various finishes applied to the interior and exterior such as stucco and plaster. This appeals to the traditionalist and the environmentalist as this is using "found" materials to build. Mudbricks also called adobe are sometimes used to fill in timber-frame structures. They can be made on site and offer exceptional fire resistance. Such buildings must be designed to accommodate
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4672-454: Is not well defined and has been used for any kind of framing (with the usual exception of cruck framing). The distinction presented here is that the roof load is carried by the exterior walls. Purlins are also found even in plain timber frames. A cruck is a pair of crooked or curved timbers which form a bent (U.S.) or crossframe (UK); the individual timbers are each called a blade. More than 4,000 cruck frame buildings have been recorded in
4818-799: Is now Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side . As a boy, he had spent one summer at a camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains , an experience he recalled fondly in his later autobiography. The experience and the memory began leading him to spend some time each summer in the countryside outside of the city. Starting in 1929 with a month in Briarcliff Manor , it grew into six months the next year, when Copland and his then-partner Gerard Sykes took up residence in another Westchester County country town, Bedford . During that stay, he finished his early Piano Variations . Later years of
4964-455: Is now confusingly applied to a Roman stone/mortar infill as well. Similar methods to wattle and daub were also used and known by various names, such as clam staff and daub, cat-and-clay, or torchis (French), to name only three. Wattle and daub was the most common infill in ancient times. The sticks were not always technically wattlework (woven), but also individual sticks installed vertically, horizontally, or at an angle into holes or grooves in
5110-510: Is readily available and log houses were favored, instead. Half-timbered construction in the Northern European vernacular building style is characteristic of medieval and early modern Denmark, England, Germany, and parts of France and Switzerland, where timber was in good supply yet stone and associated skills to dress the stonework were in short supply. In half-timbered construction, timbers that were riven (split) in half provided
5256-514: Is similar in exterior and interior styling to the main house. It has not been altered since Copland's time, and is considered a contributing resource to the property's historic character. Born in Brooklyn , Copland lived in cities for the early years of his professional life. After returning from three years in Paris in 1927, his career as a composer and critic took off. He traveled widely, but always returned to New York City, where he lived near what
5402-474: Is technically called a nave . However, a nave is often called an aisle, and three-aisled barns are common in the U.S., the Netherlands , and Germany. Aisled buildings are wider than the simpler box-framed or cruck-framed buildings, and typically have purlins supporting the rafters. In northern Germany, this construction is known as variations of a Ständerhaus . Half-timbering refers to a structure with
5548-460: Is the 17-by-24-foot (5.2 by 7.3 m) studio, with carpeted hardwood flooring, the dramatic views to the south and west through the glass walls, and bookshelves with much of Copland's personal library on the east side and a collection of recorded American music. Its main furnishing is Copland's grand piano , his work desk made for him by a local farmer, a wooden chair given to the composer by Harvard University and an upholstered armchair in which he
5694-400: Is used to describe timber frames with an infill of stone rubble laid in mortar the Romans called opus incertum . A less common meaning of the term "half-timbered" is found in the fourth edition of John Henry Parker's Classic Dictionary of Architecture (1873) which distinguishes full-timbered houses from half-timbered, with half-timber houses having a ground floor in stone or logs such as
5840-558: The 1936 presidential election and his strong support of Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace during the 1948 presidential election, Copland was investigated by the FBI during the Red scare of the 1950s. He was included on an FBI list of 151 artists thought to have Communist associations and found himself blacklisted , with A Lincoln Portrait withdrawn from the 1953 inaugural concert for President Eisenhower . Called later that year to
5986-521: The Kluge House which was a log cabin with a timber-framed second floor. Traditional timber framing is the method of creating framed structures of heavy timber jointed together with various joints, commonly and originally with lap jointing , and then later pegged mortise and tenon joints. Diagonal bracing is used to prevent "racking", or movement of structural vertical beams or posts. Originally, German (and other) master carpenters would peg
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6132-482: The New York Philharmonic , and Duo for Flute and Piano , his last major work, in 1971. Shortly after moving in he wrote his last film score, for the 1961 independent film Something Wild . In his later years Rock Hill served primarily as a base for his travels, which included many appearances guest-conducting his work at performances all over the world, and receiving honorary degrees and awards. In
6278-513: The New York Symphony , where he heard the standard classical repertory, Copland continued his musical development through an expanding circle of musical friends. After graduating from high school, Copland played in dance bands. Continuing his musical education, he received further piano lessons from Victor Wittgenstein, who found his student to be "quiet, shy, well-mannered, and gracious in accepting criticism." Copland's fascination with
6424-568: The Russian Revolution and its promise for freeing the lower classes drew a rebuke from his father and uncles. In spite of that, in his early adult life, Copland would develop friendships with people who had socialist and communist leanings. Copland's passion for the latest European music, plus glowing letters from his friend Aaron Schaffer, inspired him to go to Paris for further study. An article in Musical America about
6570-585: The Short Symphony "a remarkable synthesis of the learned and the vernacular, and thus, in all its brevity [the work last just 15 minutes], a singularly 'complete' representation of its composer". However, Copland moved from this work toward more accessible works and folk sources. Copland wrote El Salón México between 1932 and 1936, which met with a popular acclaim that contrasted the relative obscurity of most of his previous works. Inspiration for this work came from Copland's vivid recollection of visiting
6716-556: The Sorbonne , attended plays, and frequented Shakespeare and Company , the English-language bookstore that was a gathering-place for expatriate American writers. Among this group in the heady cultural atmosphere of Paris in the 1920s were Paul Bowles , Ernest Hemingway , Sinclair Lewis , Gertrude Stein , and Ezra Pound , as well as artists like Pablo Picasso , Marc Chagall , and Amedeo Modigliani . Also influential on
6862-804: The Stonewall riots of 1969, showed no inclination to "come out." However, he was one of the few composers of his stature to live openly and travel with his intimates. They tended to be talented, younger men involved in the arts, and the age-gap between them and the composer widened as he grew older. Most became enduring friends after a few years and, in Pollack's words, "remained a primary source of companionship." Among Copland's love affairs were ones with photographer Victor Kraft , artist Alvin Ross, pianist Paul Moor, dancer Erik Johns, composer John Brodbin Kennedy, and painter Prentiss Taylor . Victor Kraft became
7008-473: The Symphonic Ode (1929) and Short Symphony (1933) caused Copland to rethink this approach. It was financially contradictory, particularly during the Depression. Avant-garde music had lost what cultural historian Morris Dickstein calls "its buoyant experimental edge" and the national mood toward it had changed. As biographer Howard Pollack points out, Copland observed two trends among composers in
7154-533: The Town of Cortlandt organized a grassroots effort to save it. As a result, the association was able to raise the $ 150,000 necessary for repairs. The town worked out an arrangement where it owns the house and leases it to the Copland Heritage Association (now Copland House, Inc.) for $ 1 a year. Once that was concluded, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, executor of the composer's estate, and
7300-644: The structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered , and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany, where timber-framed houses are spread all over the country. The method comes from working directly from logs and trees rather than pre-cut dimensional lumber . Hewing this with broadaxes , adzes , and draw knives and using hand-powered braces and augers (brace and bit) and other woodworking tools, artisans or framers could gradually assemble
7446-411: The "Salon Mexico" dancehall where he witnessed a more intimate view of Mexico's nightlife. Copland derived his melodic material for this piece freely from two collections of Mexican folk tunes, changing pitches and varying rhythms. The use of a folk tune with variations set in a symphonic context started a pattern he repeated in many of his most successful works right on through the 1940s. It also marked
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#17327804650157592-624: The 12th century to the 19th century, and subsequently imported to North America, where it was common into the early 19th century. In a scribe frame, timber sockets are fashioned or "tailor-made" to fit their corresponding timbers; thus, each timber piece must be numbered (or "scribed"). Square-rule carpentry was developed in New England in the 18th century. It used housed joints in main timbers to allow for interchangeable braces and girts. Today, standardized timber sizing means that timber framing can be incorporated into mass-production methods as per
7738-480: The 1930s took him to other country towns, such as Woodstock ; Ridgefield, Connecticut ; and Bernardsville, New Jersey . Every time, he found the experience had a beneficial effect on his composing. In 1947 he realized he would have to have a country place of his own, and took out a three-year rental on a Colonial-era house in the Rockland County hamlet of Palisades . He found it the perfect balance between
7884-572: The 1930s, Copland took a renewed interest in the genre. Inspired by the example of Les Six in France, Copland sought out contemporaries such as Roger Sessions , Roy Harris , Virgil Thomson , and Walter Piston , and quickly established himself as a spokesperson for composers of his generation. He also helped found the Copland-Sessions Concerts to showcase these composers' chamber works to new audiences. Copland's relationship with these men, who became known as "commando unit,"
8030-453: The 1930s: first, a continuing attempt to "simplify their musical language" and, second, a desire to "make contact" with as wide an audience as possible. Since 1927, he had been in the process of simplifying, or at least paring down, his musical language, though in such a manner as to sometimes have the effect, paradoxically, of estranging audiences and performers. By 1933 ... he began to find ways to make his starkly personal language accessible to
8176-662: The 1950s and early 1960s to observe the avant-garde styles of Europe, hear compositions by Soviet composers not well known in the West, and experience the new school of Polish music. While in Japan, he was taken with the work of Tōru Takemitsu and began a correspondence with him that would last over the next decade. Copland revised his text "The New Music" with comments on the styles that he encountered. He found much of what he heard dull and impersonal. Electronic music seemed to have "a depressing sameness of sound," while aleatoric music
8322-522: The 5- to 25-cm (2- to 10-in) range. The methods of fastening the frame members also differ. In conventional framing, the members are joined using nails or other mechanical fasteners, whereas timber framing uses the traditional mortise and tenon or more complex joints that are usually fastened using only wooden pegs. Modern complex structures and timber trusses often incorporate steel joinery such as gusset plates, for both structural and architectural purposes. Recently, it has become common practice to enclose
8468-479: The Boston Symphony Orchestra of the orchestral suites from Appalachian Spring and The Tender Land ; these recordings were later reissued on CD, as were most of Copland's Columbia recordings (by Sony). From 1960 until his death, Copland resided at Cortlandt Manor, New York . Known as Rock Hill , his home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 and further designated
8614-487: The Canadian Military Engineers undertook to construct airplane hangars using this timber construction system in order to conserve steel. Wood hangars were constructed throughout North America and employed various technologies including bowstring , Warren , and Pratt trusses, glued laminated arches, and lamella roof systems. Unique to this building type is the interlocking of the timber members of
8760-626: The Common Man became patriotic standards. Also important was the Third Symphony . Composed in a two-year period from 1944 to 1946, it became Copland's best-known symphony. The Clarinet Concerto (1948), scored for solo clarinet, strings, harp, and piano, was a commission piece for band-leader and clarinetist Benny Goodman and a complement to Copland's earlier jazz-influenced work, the Piano Concerto (1926). His Four Piano Blues
8906-541: The Copland House Residency Awards, began in November 1998 and is an official project of the federal Save America's Treasures program. It awards six to nine emerging or mid-career American composers the opportunity to work and reside, one at a time, at Rock Hill. Composers who apply and are approved, are afforded three-to-eight-week stays in the house, with an allowance for food and the use of
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#17327804650159052-628: The German ständerbohlenbau , timbers as in ständerblockbau , or rarely cob without any wooden support. The wall surfaces on the interior were often "ceiled" with wainscoting and plastered for warmth and appearance. Brick infill sometimes called nogging became the standard infill after the manufacturing of bricks made them more available and less expensive. Half-timbered walls may be covered by siding materials including plaster , weatherboarding , tiles , or slate shingles. The infill may be covered by other materials, including weatherboarding or tiles , or left exposed. When left exposed, both
9198-514: The German idea of Gebrauchsmusik ("music for use"), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico, formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and began composing his signature works. During the late 1940s, Copland became aware that Stravinsky and other fellow composers had begun to study Arnold Schoenberg 's use of twelve-tone (serial) techniques . After he had been exposed to
9344-711: The Mouse (1920), was a piece for piano solo based on the Jean de La Fontaine fable " The Old Cat and the Young Mouse ". In Three Moods (1921), Copland's final movement is entitled "Jazzy", which he noted "is based on two jazz melodies and ought to make the old professors sit up and take notice". The Symphony for Organ and Orchestra established Copland as a serious modern composer. Musicologist Gayle Murchison cites Copland's use melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements endemic in jazz, which he would also use in his Music for
9490-517: The Populist mores that infused his work of the 1930s and 40s. Beginning in the 1940s, intellectuals assailed Popular Front culture, to which Copland's music was linked, and labeled it, in Dickstein's words, as "hopelessly middlebrow, a dumbing down of art into toothless entertainment." They often linked their disdain for Populist art with technology, new media and mass audiences—in other words,
9636-705: The Russian composers, Copland's teacher and mentor Nadia Boulanger became his most important influence. Copland especially admired Boulanger's total grasp of all classical music, and he was encouraged to experiment and develop a "clarity of conception and elegance in proportion". Following her model, he studied all periods of classical music and all forms—from madrigals to symphonies. This breadth of vision led Copland to compose music for numerous settings—orchestra, opera, solo piano, small ensemble, art song, ballet, theater and film. Boulanger particularly emphasized "la grande ligne" (the long line), "a sense of forward motion ...
9782-487: The Theater and Piano Concerto to evoke an essentially "American" sound. he fuses these qualities with modernist elements such as octatonic and whole-tone scales, polyrhythmic ostinato figures, and dissonant counterpoint. Murchinson points out the influence of Igor Stravinsky in the work's nervous, driving rhythms and some of its harmonic language. Copland in hindsight found the work too "European" as he consciously sought
9928-494: The U.S. to make his way as a full-time composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. However, he found that composing orchestral music in a modernist style, which he had adopted while studying abroad, was a financially contradictory approach, particularly in light of the Great Depression . He shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored
10074-587: The U.S.'s only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble, which made its debut at the Opening Night of Merkin Concert Hall ’s 1999–2000 season. In September 2009, Copland House at Merestead , the organization's regular mainstage concert series, was established at the historic Merestead Estate in Mount Kisco, New York. The 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 -acre (1.0-hectare) Rock Hill property is on
10220-455: The UK. Several types of cruck frames are used; more information follows in English style below and at the main article Cruck . Aisled frames have one or more rows of interior posts. These interior posts typically carry more structural load than the posts in the exterior walls. This is the same concept of the aisle in church buildings, sometimes called a hall church , where the center aisle
10366-587: The United States, Copland's father, Harris Morris Copland, lived and worked in Scotland for two to three years to pay for his boat fare to the United States. It was there that Copland's father may have Anglicized his surname "Kaplan" to "Copland," though Copland himself believed for many years that the change had been caused by an Ellis Island immigration official when his father entered the country. Copland was, however, unaware until late in his life that
10512-513: The areas of radio, television and motion pictures, for which Copland either had or soon would write music, as well as his popular ballets. While these attacks actually began at the end of the 1930s with the writings of Clement Greenberg and Dwight Macdonald for Partisan Review , they were based in anti-Stalinist politics and would accelerate in the decades following World War II. Despite any difficulties that his suspected Communist sympathies might have posed, Copland traveled extensively during
10658-451: The assembly was held together with through-bolts. The through-bolts only held the assembly together but were not load-carrying. Shear plate connectors were used to transfer loads between timber members and metal. Shear plate connectors resembled large washers, deformed on the side facing the timber in order to grip it, and were through-fastened with long bolts or lengths of threaded rod. A leading manufacturer of these types of timber connectors
10804-635: The average man." Even after the McCarthy hearings, he remained a committed opponent of militarism and the Cold War, which he regarded as having been instigated by the United States. He condemned it as "almost worse for art than the real thing." Throw the artist "into a mood of suspicion, ill-will, and dread that typifies the cold war attitude and he'll create nothing". While Copland had various encounters with organized religious thought, which influenced some of his early compositions, he remained agnostic. He
10950-469: The complete skeletal framing of the building. Europe is full of timber-framed structures dating back hundreds of years, including manors, castles, homes, and inns, whose architecture and techniques of construction have evolved over the centuries. In Asia, timber-framed structures are found, many of them temples. Some Roman carpentry preserved in anoxic layers of clay at Romano-British villa sites demonstrate that sophisticated Roman carpentry had all
11096-582: The composer with Russian music and came at an opportune time. He helped fill a vacuum for American choreographers to fill their dance repertory and tapped into an artistic groundswell, from the motion pictures of Busby Berkeley and Fred Astaire to the ballets of George Balanchine and Martha Graham , to both democratize and Americanize dance as an art form. In 1938, Copland helped form the American Composers Alliance to promote and publish American contemporary classical music. Copland
11242-469: The composer's contemporaries, at a time when other conductors were programming only a few of Copland's works. Soon after his return to the United States, Copland was exposed to the artistic circle of photographer Alfred Stieglitz . While Copland did not care for Stieglitz's domineering attitude, he did admire his work and took to heart Stieglitz's conviction that American artists should reflect "the ideas of American Democracy." This ideal influenced not just
11388-493: The composer, but also a generation of artists and photographers, including Paul Strand , Edward Weston , Ansel Adams , Georgia O'Keeffe , and Walker Evans . Evans's photographs inspired portions of Copland's opera The Tender Land . In his quest to take up the slogan of the Stieglitz group, "Affirm America", Copland found only the music of Carl Ruggles and Charles Ives upon which to draw. Without what Copland called
11534-402: The composers who have resided here since. There are also regular books on music and other subjects from Copland's collection. Its walls are otherwise covered in textured wallpaper from Copland's residency. At the west end of the hall is the living room. It is sided in vertical knotty pine paneling and has a large fireplace, as well as several chairs of Copland's and a dining area. To its north,
11680-650: The country life he desired and the proximity to the city he needed. After two years as a visiting professor at Harvard and then Tanglewood Music Center , Copland in 1952 bought his first house, Shady Lane Farm in Ossining . There, he wrote more of the works that defined his middle career, such as the Orchestral Variations and the opera The Tender Land . By 1960, he had outgrown it, and began looking for another country home. Victor Kraft, his partner at that time, found Rock Hill. It had been designed by
11826-413: The distance from his native country helped him see the United States more clearly. Beginning in 1923, he employed "jazzy elements" in his classical music, but by the late 1930s, he moved on to Latin and American folk tunes in his more successful pieces. Although his early focus of jazz gave way to other influences, Copland continued to make use of jazz in more subtle ways in later works. Copland's work from
11972-519: The distinctive "half-timbered", or occasionally termed, " Tudor " style, or "black-and-white". The most ancient known half-timbered building is called the House of opus craticum . It was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD in Herculaneum, Italy. Opus craticum was mentioned by Vitruvius in his books on architecture as a timber frame with wattlework infill. However, the same term
12118-418: The experience of rural living beneficial to his composing, and after a series of residences, purchased the modernist ranch-style house in the 1960s to live there full-time. Its style has been described as consistent with Copland's music. After his death in 1990, the Copland Heritage Association, now Copland House, Inc., was established to preserve the building. Its composer-in-residence program, known as
12264-653: The family name had been Kaplan, and his parents never told him this. Throughout his childhood, Copland and his family lived above his parents' Brooklyn shop, H. M. Copland's, at 628 Washington Avenue (which Aaron would later describe as "a kind of neighborhood Macy's "), on the corner of Dean Street and Washington Avenue, and most of the children helped out in the store. His father was a staunch Democrat. The family members were active in Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes , where Aaron celebrated his bar mitzvah . Not especially athletic,
12410-636: The famous street known as The Shambles exemplifies this, where jettied houses seem to almost touch above the street. Historically, the timbers would have been hewn square using a felling axe and then surface-finished with a broadaxe . If required, smaller timbers were ripsawn from the hewn baulks using pitsaws or frame saws. Today, timbers are more commonly bandsawn, and the timbers may sometimes be machine- planed on all four sides. The vertical timbers include: The horizontal timbers include: When jettying, horizontal elements can include: The sloping timbers include: Historically were two different systems of
12556-421: The feeling for inevitability, for the creating of an entire piece that could be thought of as a functioning entity". During his studies with Boulanger in Paris, Copland was excited to be so close to the new post-Impressionistic French music of Ravel , Roussel , and Satie , as well as Les Six , a group that included Milhaud , Poulenc , and Honegger . Webern , Berg , and Bartók also impressed him. Copland
12702-443: The first goal of American Gebrauchsmusik. These works included piano pieces ( The Young Pioneers ) and an opera ( The Second Hurricane ). During the Depression years, Copland traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico. He formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and would return often to Mexico for working vacations conducting engagements. During his initial visit to Mexico, Copland began composing
12848-514: The first of his signature works, El Salón México , which he completed in 1936. In it and in The Second Hurricane Copland began "experimenting", as he phrased it, with a simpler, more accessible style. This and other incidental commissions fulfilled the second goal of American Gebrauchsmusik, creating music of wide appeal. Concurrent with The Second Hurricane , Copland composed (for radio broadcast) "Prairie Journal" on
12994-614: The first people to publish the term "half-timbered" was Mary Martha Sherwood (1775–1851), who employed it in her book, The Lady of the Manor , published in several volumes from 1823 to 1829. She uses the term picturesquely: "...passing through a gate in a quickset hedge, we arrived at the porch of an old half-timbered cottage, where an aged man and woman received us." By 1842, half-timbered had found its way into The Encyclopedia of Architecture by Joseph Gwilt (1784–1863). This juxtaposition of exposed timbered beams and infilled spaces created
13140-455: The form of two books — What to Listen for in Music (1937, revised 1957) and Our New Music (1940, revised 1968 and retitled The New Music: 1900–1960 ). During this period, Copland also wrote regularly for The New York Times , The Musical Quarterly and a number of other journals. These articles would appear in 1969 as the book Copland on Music . During his time at The New School, Copland
13286-649: The framing and infill were sometimes done in a decorative manner. Germany is famous for its decorative half-timbering and the figures sometimes have names and meanings. The decorative manner of half-timbering is promoted in Germany by the German Timber-Frame Road , several planned routes people can drive to see notable examples of Fachwerk buildings. Gallery of some named figures and decorations: The collection of elements in half timbering are sometimes given specific names: According to Craven (2019),
13432-522: The framing. The coating of daub has many recipes, but generally was a mixture of clay and chalk with a binder such as grass or straw and water or urine . When the manufacturing of bricks increased, brick infill replaced the less durable infills and became more common. Stone laid in mortar as an infill was used in areas where stone rubble and mortar were available. Other infills include bousillage , fired brick , unfired brick such as adobe or mudbrick , stones sometimes called pierrotage , planks as in
13578-470: The joinery industry, especially where timber is cut by precision computer numerical control machinery. A jetty is an upper floor which sometimes historically used a structural horizontal beam, supported on cantilevers, called a bressummer or 'jetty bressummer' to bear the weight of the new wall, projecting outward from the preceding floor or storey. In the city of York in the United Kingdom,
13724-414: The joints with allowance of about 1 inch (25 mm), enough room for the wood to move as it ' seasoned ', then cut the pegs, and drive the beam home fully into its socket. To cope with variable sizes and shapes of hewn (by adze or axe) and sawn timbers, two main carpentry methods were employed: scribe carpentry and square rule carpentry. Scribing or coping was used throughout Europe, especially from
13870-460: The kitchen wing has linoleum flooring and ridged wood paneling and drywall . It houses several kitchen appliances and a small table and chair set. Elsewhere on the central hallway are guest bedrooms and bathrooms. Stairs lead from the kitchen wing down to the partially finished basement. Copland and his assistants used the rooms there for archival and office purposes. Near the house is a two-story garage with an attached one-bedroom apartment. It
14016-400: The kitchen wing. Inside, the rectangular house has approximately 2,300 square feet (210 m) of floor space. It has six rooms altogether, divided by a full-length central hall. Each room has at least three windows, either double-hung sash or picture windows. On the walls is artwork from Copland's collection, primarily work of artists he was friends with. The most significant of the rooms
14162-588: The late 1940s onward included experimentation with Schoenberg's twelve-tone system, resulting in two major works, the Piano Quartet (1950) and the Piano Fantasy (1957). Copland's compositions before leaving for Paris were mainly short works for piano and art songs , inspired by Liszt and Debussy. In them, he experimented with ambiguous beginnings and endings, rapid key changes, and the frequent use of tritones. His first published work, The Cat and
14308-432: The late 1980s his health declined, and he was unable to keep to his previous schedule. He died at a hospital in nearby North Tarrytown late in 1990. By then the house was showing signs of neglect. The roof was failing, structural wood had begun to rot and the heating system was not running properly, among other problems. The Copland Heritage Association, newly formed to manage the house, decided to sell it. But residents of
14454-487: The maestro had "little sympathy for the advanced musical idioms of the day" and his "approved" composers ended with Richard Strauss . Copland's graduation piece from his studies with Goldmark was a three-movement piano sonata in a Romantic style . But he had also composed more original and daring pieces which he did not share with his teacher. In addition to regularly attending the Metropolitan Opera and
14600-423: The more intimate setting of television and could also be used in the "college trade," with more schools mounting operas than they had before World War II. The resulting opera, The Tender Land , was written in two acts but later expanded to three. As Copland feared, when the opera premiered in 1954 critics found the libretto to be weak. In spite of its flaws, the opera became one of the few American operas to enter
14746-486: The museum's Centennial exhibitions. From the 1960s onward, Copland turned increasingly to conducting. Though not enamored with the prospect, he found himself without new ideas for composition, saying, "It was exactly as if someone had simply turned off a faucet." He became a frequent guest conductor in the United States and the United Kingdom and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records . In 1960, RCA Victor released Copland's recordings with
14892-618: The music community. After a fruitful stay in Paris, Copland returned to America optimistic and enthusiastic about the future, determined to make his way as a full-time composer. He rented a studio apartment on New York City's Upper West Side in the Empire Hotel , close to Carnegie Hall and other musical venues and publishers. He remained in that area for the next 30 years, later moving to Westchester County, New York . Copland lived frugally and survived financially with help from two $ 2,500 Guggenheim Fellowships in 1925 and 1926 (each of
15038-459: The necessary techniques for this construction. The earliest surviving (French) half-timbered buildings date from the 12th century. Important resources for the study and appreciation of historic building methods are open-air museums . The topping out ceremony is a builders' rite , an ancient tradition thought to have originated in Scandinavia by 700 AD. In the U.S., a bough or small tree
15184-409: The new music were the French intellectuals Marcel Proust , Paul Valéry , Jean-Paul Sartre , and André Gide ; the latter cited by Copland as being his personal favorite and most read. Travels to Italy, Austria, and Germany rounded out Copland's musical education. During his stay in Paris, Copland began writing musical critiques, the first on Gabriel Fauré , which helped spread his fame and stature in
15330-401: The northeast corner. Fenestration consists primarily of picture windows arranged around the exterior. The projecting studio on the south side has glass walls on the south and west. On the west end, slate steps rise to a slate terrace , where the main entrance is located. A second stone stair rises from the parking area on the northwest to a wood staircase which ends at a secondary entrance on
15476-706: The number of knots, the moisture content, the temperature, the grain direction, the number of holes, and other factors. There are design specifications for sawn lumber, glulam members, prefabricated I-joists , composite lumber , and various connection types. In the United States, structural frames are then designed according to the Allowable Stress Design method or the Load Reduced Factor Design method (the latter being preferred). The techniques used in timber framing date back to Neolithic times, and have been used in many parts of
15622-480: The panels span considerable distances and add rigidity to the basic timber frame. An alternate construction method is with concrete flooring with extensive use of glass. This allows a solid construction combined with open architecture. Some firms have specialized in industrial prefabrication of such residential and light commercial structures such as Huf Haus as low-energy houses or – dependent on location – zero-energy buildings . Straw-bale construction
15768-419: The poor thermal insulating properties of mudbrick, however, and usually have deep eaves or a veranda on four sides for weather protection. Timber design or wood design is a subcategory of structural engineering that focuses on the engineering of wood structures. Timber is classified by tree species (e.g., southern pine, douglas fir, etc.) and its strength is graded using numerous coefficients that correspond to
15914-529: The position of posts and studs: Ridge-post framing is a structurally simple and ancient post and lintel framing where the posts extend all the way to the ridge beams. Germans call this Firstsäule or Hochstud . In the 1930s a system of timber framing referred to as the "modern timber connector method" was developed. It was characterized by the use of timber members assembled into trusses and other framing systems and fastened using various types of metal timber connectors. This type of timber construction
16060-474: The role of the artist in society". He decried the lack of artistic freedom in the Soviet Union, and in his 1954 Norton lecture he asserted that loss of freedom under Soviet Communism deprived artists of "the immemorial right of the artist to be wrong." He began to vote Democratic, first for Stevenson and then for Kennedy. Potentially more damaging for Copland was a sea-change in artistic tastes, away from
16206-728: The roof trusses and supporting columns and their connection points. The timber members are held apart by "fillers" (blocks of timber). This leaves air spaces between the timber members which improves air circulation and drying around the members which improves resistance to moisture borne decay. Timber members in this type of framing system were connected with ferrous timber connectors of various types. Loads between timber members were transmitted using split-rings (larger loads), toothed rings (lighter loads), or spiked grid connectors. Split-ring connectors were metal rings sandwiched between adjacent timber members to connect them together. The rings were fit into circular grooves on in both timber members then
16352-420: The sensitive young man became an avid reader and often read Horatio Alger stories on his front steps. Copland's father had no musical interest. His mother, Sarah Mittenthal Copland, sang, played the piano, and arranged for music lessons for her children. Copland had four older siblings: two older brothers, Ralph and Leon, and two older sisters, Laurine and Josephine. Of his siblings, his oldest brother Ralph
16498-408: The situation dictated, as it did with his film scores, Copland could work quickly. Otherwise, he tended to write slowly whenever possible. Even with this deliberation, Copland considered composition, in his words, "the product of the emotions", which included "self-expression" and "self-discovery". While Copland's earliest musical inclinations as a teenager ran toward Chopin , Debussy , Verdi and
16644-468: The south side of Washington Street in the Town of Cortlandt , one mile (1.5 kilometers) east of the hamlet of Crugers on the Hudson River . Amalfi Drive circles around the rear. Its driveway is opposite Laura Court. The surrounding neighborhood is residential, with larger, newer houses on large lots amid the gently rolling, wooded terrain. A curving driveway leads up from Washington Street, where
16790-609: The standard classical fare. Copland's first public music performance was at a Wanamaker's recital. By the age of 15, after attending a concert by Polish composer-pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski , Copland decided to become a composer. At age 16, Copland heard his first symphony at the Brooklyn Academy of Music . After attempts to further his music study from a correspondence course , Copland took formal lessons in harmony , theory , and composition from Rubin Goldmark ,
16936-640: The standard repertory. In 1957, 1958, and 1976, Copland was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival , a classical and contemporary music festival in Ojai, California . For the occasion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial , Copland composed Ceremonial Fanfare for Brass Ensemble to accompany the exhibition "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries." Leonard Bernstein , Piston, William Schuman , and Thomson also composed pieces for
17082-449: The suggestion of a fellow student to Nadia Boulanger , then aged 34. He had initial reservations: "No one to my knowledge had ever before thought of studying with a woman." She interviewed him, and recalled later: "One could tell his talent immediately." Boulanger had as many as 40 students at once and employed a formal regimen that Copland had to follow. Copland found her incisive mind much to his liking and found her ability to critique
17228-413: The summer went to various camps. Most of his early exposure to music was at Jewish weddings and ceremonies, and occasional family musicales. Copland began writing songs at the age of eight and a half. His earliest notated music, about seven bars he wrote when age 11, was for an opera scenario he created and called Zenatello . From 1913 to 1917 he took piano lessons with Leopold Wolfsohn, who taught him
17374-425: The surrounding natural environment, with its prominent exterior wood (painted dark green) and stone. The stone foundation seems to blend seamlessly into the natural rock ledge underneath. The large picture windows connect the interior of the house to the surrounding woods. His only significant change was the 1962 addition of the guest apartment on the garage. Copland maintained a regular daily schedule. He awoke, had
17520-504: The term: was used informally to mean timber-framed construction in the Middle Ages. For economy, cylindrical logs were cut in half, so one log could be used for two (or more) posts. The shaved side was traditionally on the exterior and everyone knew it to be half the timber. The term half-timbering is not as old as the German name Fachwerk or the French name colombage , but it is the standard English name for this style. One of
17666-600: The timber structure entirely in manufactured panels such as structural insulated panels (SIPs). Although the timbers can only be seen from inside the building when so enclosed, construction is less complex and insulation is greater than in traditional timber building. SIPs are "an insulating foam core sandwiched between two structural facings, typically oriented strand board" according to the Structural Insulated Panel Association. SIPs reduce dependency on bracing and auxiliary members, because
17812-702: The town worked out the details of the composer-in-residence program. Under the program, American composers who apply and are approved get three-to-eight-week stays in the house, with an allowance for food and the use of a car, while they work. They may share the house with spouses or partners, but not children or dogs. Allen Shearer was the first composer in residence in late 1998. Others have included Richard Danielpour , Derek Bermel , Robert Paterson , Michael Brown , Michael Gilbertson , Joel Hoffman , and Judith Lang Zaimont . Aaron Copland Aaron Copland ( / ˈ k oʊ p l ə n d / , KOHP -lənd ; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990)
17958-421: The two equivalent to $ 43,435 in 2023). Lecture-recitals, awards, appointments, and small commissions, plus some teaching, writing, and personal loans, kept him afloat in the subsequent years through World War II. Also important, especially during the Depression, were wealthy patrons who underwrote performances, helped pay for publication of works and promoted musical events and composers. Among those mentors
18104-797: The works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as "populist" and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style. Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring , Billy the Kid and Rodeo , his Fanfare for the Common Man and Third Symphony . In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores. After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark , Copland traveled to Paris, where he first studied with Isidor Philipp and Paul Vidal , then with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger . He studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste. Determined upon his return to
18250-460: The works of Arnold Schoenberg, and found himself interested in adapting serial methods to his own musical voice. In 1950, Copland received a U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission scholarship to study in Rome, which he did the following year. Around this time, he also composed his Piano Quartet, adopting Schoenberg's twelve-tone method of composition, and Old American Songs (1950), the first set of which
18396-430: The works of French composer Pierre Boulez , he incorporated serial techniques into his Piano Quartet (1950), Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations for orchestra (1961) and Inscape for orchestra (1967). Unlike Schoenberg, Copland used his tone rows in much the same fashion as his tonal material—as sources for melodies and harmonies, rather than as complete statements in their own right, except for crucial events from
18542-616: The world during various periods such as ancient Japan, continental Europe, and Neolithic Denmark, England, France, Germany, Spain, parts of the Roman Empire , and Scotland. The timber-framing technique has historically been popular in climate zones which favour deciduous hardwood trees, such as oak . Its northernmost areas are Baltic countries and southern Sweden. Timber framing is rare in Russia, Finland, northern Sweden, and Norway, where tall and straight lumber, such as pine and spruce,
18688-536: Was Serge Koussevitzky , the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and known as a champion of "new music". Koussevitsky would prove to be very influential in Copland's life, and was perhaps the second most important figure in Copland's career after Boulanger. Beginning with the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924), Koussevitzky would perform more of Copland's music than that of any
18834-571: Was jazz . Although familiar with jazz back in America—having listened to it and also played it in bands—he fully realized its potential while traveling in Austria: "The impression of jazz one receives in a foreign country is totally unlike the impression of such music heard in one's own country ... when I heard jazz played in Vienna, it was like hearing it for the first time." He also found that
18980-772: Was "insatiable" in seeking out the newest European music, whether in concerts, score reading or heated debate. These "moderns" were discarding the old laws of composition and experimenting with new forms, harmonies and rhythms, and including the use of jazz and quarter-tone music. Milhaud was Copland's inspiration for some of his earlier "jazzy" works. He was also exposed to Schoenberg and admired his earlier atonal pieces, thinking Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire above all others. Copland named Igor Stravinsky as his "hero" and his favorite 20th-century composer. Copland especially admired Stravinsky's "jagged and uncouth rhythmic effects", "bold use of dissonance", and "hard, dry, crackling sonority". Another inspiration for much of Copland's music
19126-492: Was "standing in the fork in the high road, the two branches of which lead respectively to popular and artistic success". Even some of the composer's friends, such as composer Arthur Berger , were confused about Copland's simpler style. One, composer David Diamond , went so far as to lecture Copland: "By having sold out to the mongrel commercialists half-way already, the danger is going to be wider for you, and I beg you dear Aaron, don't sell out [entirely] yet." Copland's response
19272-462: Was active as a presenter and curator, using The New School as a key location to present a wide range of composers and artists from the United States as well as across the globe. Copland's compositions in the early 1920s reflected the modernist attitude that prevailed among intellectuals, that the arts need be accessible to only a cadre of the enlightened, and that the masses would come to appreciate their efforts over time. However, mounting troubles with
19418-413: Was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for
19564-401: Was aware of the potential pitfalls of that genre, which included weak libretti and demanding production values, he had also been thinking about writing an opera since the 1940s. Among the subjects he had considered were Theodore Dreiser 's An American Tragedy and Frank Norris 's McTeague He finally settled on James Agee 's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , which seemed appropriate for
19710-469: Was close with Zionism during the Popular Front movement, when it was endorsed by the left. Pollack writes: Like many contemporaries, Copland regarded Judaism alternately in terms of religion, culture, and race; but he showed relatively little involvement in any aspect of his Jewish heritage. At the same time, he had ties to Christianity, identifying with such profoundly Christian writers as Gerard Manley Hopkins and often spending Christmas Day at home with
19856-519: Was followed by the Symphonic Ode (1929) and the Piano Variations (1930), both of which rely on the exhaustive development of a single short motif. This procedure, which provided Copland with more formal flexibility and a greater emotional range than in his earlier music, is similar to Schoenberg's idea of "continuous variation" and, according to Copland's own admission, was influenced by the twelve-tone method, though neither work actually uses
20002-469: Was for those "who enjoy teetering on the edge of chaos." As he summarized, "I've spent most of my life trying to get the right note in the right place. Just throwing it open to chance seems to go against my natural instincts." In 1952, Copland received a commission from the League of Composers , funded by a grant from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein , to write an opera for television. While Copland
20148-654: Was one of both support and rivalry, and he played a key role in keeping them together until after World War II. He also was generous with his time, with nearly every American young composer he met during his life, later earning the title "Dean of American Music." With the knowledge he had gained from his studies in Paris, Copland came into demand as a lecturer and writer on contemporary European classical music. From 1927 to 1930 and from 1935 to 1938, he taught classes at The New School for Social Research in New York City. Eventually, his New School lectures would appear in
20294-618: Was premiered by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten , the second by William Warfield . During the 1951–52 academic year, Copland gave a series of lectures under the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard University . These lectures were published as the book Music and Imagination . Because of his leftist views, which had included his support of the Communist Party USA ticket during
20440-462: Was president of the organization from 1939 to 1945. In 1939, Copland completed his first two Hollywood film scores, for Of Mice and Men and Our Town , and composed the radio score "John Henry", based on the folk ballad . While these works and others like them that would follow were accepted by the listening public at large, detractors accused Copland of pandering to the masses. Music critic Paul Rosenfeld , for one, warned in 1939 that Copland
20586-586: Was sometimes photographed. Across the hallway is the 12-by-16-foot (3.7 by 4.9 m) master bedroom . It has a queen-size bed with two adjoining tables and lamps and plaster walls. In bookshelves under the windows are Copland's collections of music journals, dating back to the September 1924 issue of The Musical Quarterly , which had Copland's first published article. The adjacent similarly sized library has full-height bookshelves, some of which are large enough to hold full scores of compositions by Copland and
20732-647: Was that his writing as he did and in as many genres was his response to how the Depression had affected society, as well as to new media and the audiences made available by these new media. As he himself phrased it, "The composer who is frightened of losing his artistic integrity through contact with a mass audience is no longer aware of the meaning of the word art." The 1940s were arguably Copland's most productive years, and some of his works from this period would cement his worldwide fame. His ballet scores for Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944) were huge successes. His pieces Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for
20878-502: Was the Timber Engineering Company, or TECO, of Washington, DC. The proprietary name of their split-ring connectors was the "TECO Wedge-Fit". Timber-framed structures differ from conventional wood-framed buildings in several ways. Timber framing uses fewer, larger wooden members, commonly timbers in the range of 15 to 30 cm (6 to 12 in), while common wood framing uses many more timbers with dimensions usually in
21024-487: Was the most advanced musically; he was proficient on the violin. His sister Laurine had the strongest connection with Aaron; she gave him his first piano lessons, promoted his musical education, and supported him in his musical career. A student at the Metropolitan Opera School and a frequent opera-goer, Laurine also brought home libretti for Aaron to study. Copland attended Boys High School and in
21170-482: Was used for various building types including warehouses, factories, garages, barns, stores/markets, recreational buildings, barracks, bridges, and trestles. The use of these structures was promoted because of their low construction costs, easy adaptability, and performance in fire as compared to unprotected steel truss construction. During World War II, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and
21316-569: Was wonderful for me to find a teacher with such openness of mind, while at the same time she held firm ideas of right and wrong in musical matters. The confidence she had in my talents and her belief in me were at the very least flattering and more – they were crucial to my development at this time of my career." Though he had planned on only one year abroad, he studied with her for three years, finding that her eclectic approach inspired his own broad musical taste. Along with his studies with Boulanger, Copland took classes in French language and history at
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