20th cent

2. WILLIAM GRANT STILL
(May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978)
An American composer, who composed
more than 150 works, including five symphonies and eight operas.
Often referred to as "Dean of Afro-American Composers" or "Harlem
Renaissance Man”. The first American composer to have an opera
produced by the New York City Opera. Born in Mississippi, he grew
up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he began to study violin.

3. At the age of 16, he enrolled at Wilberforce University
(Ohio) as a premedical student; but he devoted himself to
musical activities, such as playing violin in the university,
string quartet, and decided to abandon medicine for
music.

4. During the earliest stages of his career, he was involved in
popular music as a performing musician on oboe and cello and as
an arranger. He was first drawn to New York by W. C. Handy with
an offer in 1919 to work in the Pace & Handy Publishing
Company, one of the earliest
black-owned and operated
publishing companies, and
to play in Handy's band.

5. In 1917, he enrolled at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music to
continue his formal music training, but he soon left to serve in the navy in
World War I…
After his navy service and a brief return to studies at Oberlin College, Still
moved to New York, where he lived a double life as a popular musician
and as a composer of concert works.

6. He made band arrangements and played in the orchestras of such all-black
musical shows as Shuffle Along (1921) in which he played the oboe.

7. He also studied privately with two important composers in
opposing musical camps: the conservative George
Whitefield Chadwick (an American composer)and the
modernist Edgard Varèse (a French-born composer who
spent the greater part of his career in the United States and
known as "Father of Electronic Music").

8. A turning point in Still’s career came in 1931, with the highly
successful premiere of his Afro-American Symphony by the
Rochester Philharmonic. Within the next two decades, this
symphony was performed by 38 orchestras in the United States
and Europe.
Still composed the Afro-American Symphony over 3 months,
during which he had no steady work. Sketches for the
symphony, including a layout of its four movements, are found in
a journal which Still was using to collect material for an opera
called Rashana, which he never finished.

9. It is a symphonic piece for full orchestra,
including celeste, harp, and tenor banjo. It combines a fairly
traditional symphonic form with blues progressions and
rhythms that were characteristic of popular African-American
music at the time. This combination expressed Still's
integration of black culture into the classical forms. Still used
quotes from four dialect poems by early 20th-century African-
American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar as
epigraphs for each symphonic movement.

10. I. Moderato assai
The first movement, moderato assai (very moderate), contains a
typical twelve-bar blues progression. Still titled this movement
'Longing‘.

11. II. Adagio
The second movement, adagio (meaning broadly and slow),
titled "Sorrow" in Still's "Rashana" notebook, contains related
themes from the first movement, but in a spiritual style. The
movement is more chromatic than the first and employs
less functional chord progressions.

12. III. Animato
The third movement, Animato was assigned the title "Humor" by
Still in "Rashana." The key center for this movement is again A-flat.
The movement has two major themes, each with two
prevailing variations. In measure eight, theme 1A, "Hallelujah,"
begins (shown below).

13. IV. Lento, con risoluzione
The fourth movement, lento, con risoluzione, or as Still
titled it in "Rashana," "Aspiration," begins with a hymn-
like section, and continues on in a modal fashion,
eventually ending with an upbeat and lively finale.

14. In 1934, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (Guggenheim
Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John
Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional
capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts". )
Still was the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra—the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, in 1936.
He was also the first to have an opera staged by a leading company when the New York City Opera
performed Troubled Island, about the Haitian slave rebellion in 1949. His opera featuring a libretto by
Harlem Renaissance poet and writer Langston Hughes (an American poet, social activist, novelist,
playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He is best known as a leader of the Harlem
Renaissance in New York City.)

16. In 1955, when he led the New Orleans Philharmonic, he was the
first African-American to conduct a major orchestra in the Deep
South.
In 1981, three years after Still's death, his opera A Bayou
Legend, written in 1941, was broadcast on national television.

18. AARON COPLAND
(November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990)
…was an American composer,
composition teacher, writer,
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."

19. At the age of 15 he decided to become a composer. He studied with a
competent but conservative teacher who discouraged contact with “modern”
music. This only made the forbidden fruit more attractive.
In 1921, Copland went to France, where he was
the first American to study composition with
Nadia Boulanger. (a French composer, conductor,
and teacher. She is notable for having taught
many of the leading composers and musicians of
the 20th century. She also performed occasionally
as a pianist and organist.) This extraordinary
woman was sympathetic to modern trends.

20. Both Boulanger’s teaching and the stimulating atmosphere of Paris – where
the expatriates Picasso (a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist,
stage designer, poet and playwright), Stravinsky (a Russian-born composer,
pianist, and conductor), and Ernest Hemingway (an American novelist, short
story writer, and journalist), among others, felt at home – were to have a lasting
influence on Copland’s music.
Pablo Picasso Stravinsky Ernest Hemingway

21. In his Music for the Theater (1925), a work for small orchestra, elements
of blues and ragtime are combined with an approach to rhythm and
harmony that is like Stravinsky’s.
The resulting Music for the Theatre was a five-movement suite exploring
several different moods while trying very consciously to create a new
national sound.
I. Prologue II. Dance III. Interlude
IV. Burlesque V. Epilogue

22. During the early 1930s he composed serious, highly
dissonant works that were accessible only to sophisticated
listeners. His composition of the time, such as the highly
regarded piano variations (1930), convey starkness,
power, percussiveness and intense concentration.
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24. Copland drew on American folklore for his ballets Billy the Kid”
(1938) (The story follows the life of the infamous outlaw Billy the
Kid. It begins with the sweeping song "The Open Prairie" and shows
many pioneers trekking westward. The action shifts to a small
frontier town, in which a young Billy and his mother are present. The
mother is killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight and Billy stabs his
mother's killer, then goes on the run.

25. The next scene shows episodes in Billy's later life. He is living in the
desert, is hunted and captured by a posse (in which the ensuing gun
battle features prominent percussive effects) and taken to jail. Billy
manages to escape after stealing a gun from the warden during a
game of cards and returns to his hideout, where he thinks he is safe,
but sheriff Pat Garrett catches up and shoots him to death. The ballet
ends with the 'open prairie' theme and pioneers once again travelling
West.)
Play Video

27. Rodeo (1942) (Rodeo is a ballet scored by Aaron Copland and
choreographed by Agnes de Mille, which premiered in 1942.
Subtitled "The Courting at Burnt Ranch", the ballet consists of five
sections: "Buckaroo Holiday", "Corral Nocturne", "Ranch House
Party," "Saturday Night Waltz", and "Hoe-Down". )
Play Video

29. and Appalachian Spring (1944). His use of jazz, revival hymns,
cowboys songs, and other folk tunes helped make Copland’s name
synonymous with American music.
APPALACHIAN SPRING (1943-1944) originated as ballet score for
Martha Graham, the great modern dancer and choreographer.
In 1942, Martha Graham and Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge commissioned Copland to write a ballet with "an American
theme".
Play Video

31. But in 1945, Copland was commissioned by conductor Artur
Rodzinski (a Polish conductor of opera and symphonic
music) to rearrange the ballet as an orchestral suite,
preserving most of the music. Copland cut about 10 minutes
from the original 13-instrument score to make the suite. From
the preface in the original Boosey & Hawkes publication of
the suite:
Artur Rodzinski
The original scoring called for a chamber ensemble of thirteen
instruments. The present arrangement for symphony orchestra was made
by the composer in the Spring of 1945. It is a condensed version of the
ballet, retaining all essential features but omitting those sections in which
the interest is primarily choreographic.

32. The Orchestral Suite from 1945 was first recorded by Serge
Koussevitzky with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In
1954, Eugene Ormandy asked Copland to expand the
orchestration for the full score of the ballet. In 1972, Boosey &
Hawkes published a version of the suite fusing the structure of it
with the scoring of the original ballet: double string
quartet, bass, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and piano. Thus there are
four versions of Appalachian Spring, dating from 1944 (13-player
complete), 1945 (orchestral suite), 1954 (orchestral complete)
and 1972 (13-player suite).

33. Copland's inspiration arrived in the form of an Edward Deming
Andrews book, The Gift to be Simple - Songs, Dances and Rituals of
the American Shakers, J.J. Augustin; Republished by Dover. Copland
stated that the book's title composition jumped into him immediately
upon receipt. Originally, Copland did not have a title for the work,
referring to it simply as "Ballet for Martha"—a title as simple and
direct as the Shaker tune 'Tis the Gift to be Simple quoted in the
music. Shortly before the premiere, Graham suggested Appalachian
Spring, a phrase from a Hart Crane poem, "The Dance" from a
collection of poems in his book "The Bridge."

34. Because he composed the music without the benefit of knowing
what the title was going to be, Copland was often amused when
people told him he captured the beauty of the Appalachians in his
music, a fact he alluded to in an interview with NPR's Fred
Calland. Little known is that the word "spring" denotes a source of
water in the Crane poem; however the poem is a journey to meet
springtime.
But Copland uses only one actual folk tune in the score – a Shaker
melody entitled Simple Gifts.

35. The orchestral suite is divided into eight sections. Copland describes each
scene thus:
1. Very slowly. Introduction of the characters, one by one, in a suffused light.
2. Fast/Allegro. Sudden burst of unison strings in A major arpeggios starts the action.
A sentiment both elated and religious gives the keynote to this scene.
3. Moderate/Moderato. Duo for the Bride and her Intended – scene of tenderness and
passion.
4. Quite fast. The Revivalist and his flock. Folksy feeling – suggestions of square
dances and country fiddlers.
5. Still faster/Subito Allegro. Solo dance of the Bride – presentiment of motherhood.
Extremes of joy and fear and wonder.

36. 6. Very slowly (as at first). Transition scene to music reminiscent of the introduction.
7. Calm and flowing/Doppio Movimento. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer
husband. There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, was
taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews, and published under
the title "The Gift to Be Simple." The melody borrowed and used almost literally is called "Simple
Gifts."
8. Moderate. Coda/Moderato - Coda. The Bride takes her place among her neighbors. At the end
the couple are left "quiet and strong in their new house." Muted strings intone a hushed prayer
like chorale passage. The close is reminiscent of the opening music.

37. ALBERTO GINASTERA
(April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983)
one of the most prominent Latin American composers of the 20th
century. Born in Buenos Aires to Argentinean parents. He was attracted
to percussive sounds even as a young child.

38. His music began to attract international attention in the 1950s,
and by the 1960s he was so well regarded the three of his
operas –
Don Rodrigo (1964) (SAMPLE MUSIC),
Bomarzo (1967) (SAMPLE MUSIC)
Beatrix Cenci (SAMPLE MUSIC)
(1971), all including scenes of explicit sex and violence – were
performed in the United States.

39. In 1971, after divorcing his wife, Ginastera married the
Argentinean cellist Aurora Natola. “His life changed after his
marriage…; he broke through his shell, and renewed everything,
even his music,” recalled Piazzolla.

40. In 1973, Ginastera’s music reached millions of listeners
when a movement from his first piano concerto was
adapted into the hit song Toccata by the progressive rock
group Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Play Video

42. Ginastera’s music employs forceful rhythms, powerful
percussions and dense orchestra textures. His early works
(1934-1947), such as Danza Argentinas (1937) and Estancia
Suite (1941), are nationalistic and incorporate Argentinean folk
material, including popular dances.

43. ESTANCIA SUITE, Op. 8a (1941)
The ballet Estancia – Spanish for an Argentine ranch –
was commissioned by Lincoln Kirstein,
director of the American Ballet Caravan,
to be premiered in a planned program
of Latin American ballets in New York.

44. Ginastera described his ballet Estancia as presenting
“various aspects of ranch activities during day, from dawn to
dawn.”
Estancia has a distinct national flavor because of its setting
on an Argentinean ranch, and its use of musical idioms
associated with the gaucho or horseman of the plain. The
plot deals with “a country girl who despises a man from the
city. She finally admires him when he proves that he can
perform the roughest and most difficult tasks of the country.”

45. The Estancia Suite uses a large orchestra and has 4
movements:
1. Los trabajadors (The Land Workers) – rapid, loud,
syncopated, and energetic with violent accents on the bass drum
2. Danza del Trigo (Wheat Dance) - calm and lyrical, opening
with a flute solo accompanied by soft pizzicato strings and harp
that suggest the strumming of the gaucho’s guitar
3. Los Peones de Hacienda (The Cattlemen) – the wild,
propulsive third movement features rapid shifts of meter that
recall Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
4. Danza Final (Final Dance): Malambo ( is an all-male dance form.
... While percussive footwork is seen in several other dance forms,
Spanish Flamenco, Tap, and Indian Kathak, the footwork of
theMalambo is the dance itself. It is a one of a kind dance form and
truly Argentine) -