Biography of Aaron Copland

Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next half century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. Copland's sheer popularity and iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuates the familiar words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers. Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible. In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory. He went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Viñes and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky, Milhaud, Fauré, and Mahler, but others such as author André Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924 Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965. After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote American music. By the mid-1930s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public. While Copland gradually became less prolific from the mid-1950s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra. Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s, Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in understanding the growth of American music in the twentieth century.

Biography of New Philharmonia Orchestra

The New Philharmonia Orchestra had an unusual history, as one might suspect from the 13-year span listed in the headnote. Yet, these vital dates are quite misleading: the orchestra did not actually come into being in 1964 as a new ensemble and then disband in 1977, never to be heard from again. The orchestra was originally founded by Walter Legge in 1945, but under the name Philharmonia Orchestra. Legge was an executive with EMI Records and controlled the ensemble in its first two decades. When he realized in 1964 he would likely be unable to run the orchestra as he desired, owing to a reduced recording schedule and other circumstances beyond his reach, he suggested disbandment. In response, members of the Philharmonia re-formed the orchestra that year, adopted the name New Philharmonia Orchestra, and decided to retain their conductor, the renowned 79-year-old Otto Klemperer. In effect, the ensemble remained the same world-class group it had been in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but without the guidance and control of Legge. A trust fund was established to aid the NPO and the London Orchestral Concert Board offered financial support for concerts at home. The New Philharmonia also began recording with labels other than EMI and thus, drawing from these various sources of income, garnered sufficient monies not only to meet expenses but fund a tour of South America in 1965. In general, the ensemble retained its high ranking throughout the 1960s as being what many considered the finest orchestra in the United Kingdom. In 1971, Klemperer retired and the young American conductor Lorin Maazel was named his successor. Maazel's more energetic style and greater intensity did not fit in well with the sensibilities of orchestra members and as a result, performance standards declined. Riccardo Muti succeeded him in 1973 and quickly became a popular figure with both audience and critics alike. He expanded the repertory and drew more consistent playing from the ensemble. In 1977, the orchestra decided to revert to its founding name, the Philharmonia, or Philharmonia Orchestra. During its 13 years, the NPO made many memorable recordings, including Klemperer's accounts of Mozart's Symphony No. 29 and Così fan tutte overture, Maazel's A German Requiem by Brahms, and Muti's rendition of Verdi's Macbeth.