A Little Something Extra

In this weekend's concerts, the ISO is performing John Adams' Lollapalooza, Saint-Saens' Second Piano Concerto (featuring Ingrid Fliter), Debussy's La Mer, and a piece never before performed by the ISO: Aaron Copland's Second Symphony. It's not very often that this occurs, so I have included Marianne's thoughts from the program book on Copland's "Short Symphony."

Marianne Williams Tobias has authored the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's program notes for more than 20 years.

When I entered Harvard University in the late 1950’s, my first two reading assignments were Gargantua and Pantagruel (by the 16th century French writer, François Rabelais) and What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copland, written in 1939 and a new edition rendered in 1957. The first I have long forgotten; the second is, for me, a musical bible.

In this relatively short set of 15 lectures, Copland encapsulates both the key to listening to music (letting composers speak for themselves) and his incredibly talented didactic side offering encouragement and help in understanding the art of music. He offers encouragement: “If you have any feelings of inferiority about your musical reactions, try to rid yourselves of them!” Such advice would pertain very much to the work at hand.

In the early stages of his music writing, Copland was fascinated by the immediate sounds of the “new music” he heard, especially during his years of study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. At that time, Igor Stravinsky was his favorite “modern” composer, and he reveled in Stravinsky dissonance, “jagged and uncouth rhythmic effects;” he reveled in Sergei Prokofiev’s “fresh, clean-cut, articulate style.” Living amidst the Parisian intelligentsia, he was thrilled by the avant-garde music of Les Six and with the the European infatuation with American jazz. In 1925, he returned to America, excited about the “future of music” and almost totally broke. For several years, he survived on grants, patronage and careful budgeting. Even later in life, these thrift habits continued, long after he had made significant wealth.

In 1933, the composer tried his hand at his second symphony (one of only three numbered symphonies), nicknamed “the Short Symphony” or “the Little Symphony” by Carlos Chávez, who premiered the work with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mexico.  It was a difficult work. Serge Koussevitzky called it “impossible to play.” In 1937, the composer made an arrangement “in an act of desperation” for sextet, re-barring some of the rhythmic challenges. In the 1980s, Copland wrote, “One would think that most of the terrors of the symphony and the sextet would have worn off by now for players as well as listeners. One learns to have patience.” 

Chavez noted, “It is impossible to tell you in a few words how much I enjoy the Little Symphony …  the way each and every note comes out from the other as the only natural and logical possible one is simply unprecedented in the whole history of music.”  

The second symphony has an intellectual nature and contains sassy, “in your face” dissonance.   There are three movements, played in approximately 15 minutes, hence the sobriquet “short.”  Numbers one and three are bright and crisp and feature sparkling dissonances with unexpected accents. For both, the tempos are fast and are directed to be played with precision and precise rhythms. The middle movement offers a slower pace within a meditative mood and less chiseled melodic content. Jennifer deLapp has noted that for the 1930s, the symphony offered a decidedly modernist and avant-garde type of writing with an abundance of winds.

The reception of the second symphony was cool at best, and the culture of the United States at that time was not receptive to this kind of musical statement. DeLapp has noted that the growth of “middle brow” culture and anti-intellectualism all played into the lack of enthusiasm.  The “Short Symphony” did not appear in the U.S. until 1944 in a broadcast of the NBC Symphony conducted by Leopold Stokowski. U.S. critics found the work not only difficult but uncompromising. Critic Arthur Berger wrote, “The work confines itself to the altitude of the most relevant and precise terms” that is contained “feelings in their essence.”

Now, in 2011, the second symphony is not particularly shocking, but rather a specimen of what was considered “musical progress” in its day. The work was swimming against the tide, and predictably has had limited exposure and popularity. Sensing this, in the middle and late 1930s, Copland’s musical aesthetic turned to the popularization of his music, wishing to “reach out” to general audiences, writing with more consonance, using quotes of popular songs and simplifying his voice. His choice was conscious and pragmatic: “It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.” He stayed loyal to the “Short Symphony.” In the late 1960s, he said, “On other occasions, I have written fifteen minutes of music in two weeks; if I expended so much time and effort on the “Short Symphony,” it was because I wanted to write as perfect a piece as I possibly could.” (Interview with Philip Ramey, jacket notes to Columbia MX 7223, 1969)

SYMPHONY NO. 2, “SHORT SYMPHONY”
AARON COPLAND
Born November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York
Died December 2, 1990, in Westchester, New York