'What's in a name?' asks Aaron Copland

Synopsis

It was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. The premiere took place at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, as part of the 80th birthday celebrations for music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had commissioned Copland’s score for $500 — not a bad commission back then!

Copland used an old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts,” as a principal theme for his ballet. The austere but simple elegance of Shaker art reminded him, he said, of Graham’s style of dancing, and tied in with her vague suggestions that the ballet would be about early American pioneers. Copland left the title up to Graham.

Arriving in Washington for the rehearsals, Copland wrote: “The first thing I said to Martha when I saw her was, ‘What have you called the ballet?’ She replied, ‘Appalachian Spring.’ ‘What a pretty title. Where did you get it?’ I asked, and Martha said, ‘Well, actually it’s from a poem by Hart Crane.’ I asked, ‘Does the poem have anything to do with your ballet?’ ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I just liked the title.’”

Understandably, Copland said he was always amused when people said, “Oh Mr. Copland, I can just see the Appalachian Mountains when I hear your music!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 73653

On This Day

Births

• 1894 - English composer Peter Warlock (real name, Philip Heseltine), in London

Deaths

• 1953 - Hungarian operetta composer Emmerich Kálmán, 71, in Paris

Premieres

• 1733 - Handel: opera Semiramide in London at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: Nov. 10)

• 1876 - Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 (first public performance), in Berlin, by the Joachim Quartet. This work had been privately premiered at the home of Clara Schumann by the Joachim Quartet on May 23, 1876, and subsequently performed for a small circle of friends at the Joachim home on June 4 that year.

• 1881 - Serenade for Strings, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Oct. 18)

• 1882 - Tchaikovsky: Trio (dedicated to the memory of Nicolas Rubinstein), in Moscow at a Russian Musical Society concert by Ivan Hřimaly (violin), Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (cello) and Sergei Taneyev (piano) (Julian date: Oct. 18). This was the public premiere of the Tchaikovsky Trio, but a private performance featuring the same artists had occurred on Feb. 18 (Gregorian date: Mar. 2) that same year.

• 1896 - Amy Beach: Gaelic Symphony, at the Music Hall in Boston by the Boston Symphony, Emil Paur conducting. This was an afternoon “open rehearsal” performance — the official premiere took place the following evening.

• 1929 - Wallingford Rieger: Study in Sonority, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1944 - Copland: ballet Appalachian Spring, by a 13-piece chamber orchestra, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., by the Martha Graham Ballet

• 1947 - Elie Siegemeister: Symphony No. 1, by the New York Philharmonic, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1947 - Kurt Weill: musical, Lost in the Stars, in New York City

• 1957 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (The Year 1905), in Moscow, by the USSR State Symphony, Natan Rakhlin

• 1979 - Ned Rorem: Nantucket Songs (to texts by Roethke, Wm. Carlos Williams, Edmund Waller and others) at Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, with soprano Phylllis Bryn-Julson and the composer at the piano

• 1998 - Anthony Davis: Tales (Tails) of a Signifying Monkey, by the Pittsburgh Symphony, David Zinman conducting

Others

• 1739 - Handel completes his Concerto Grosso No. 11 in London (Gregorian date: Nov. 10)

• 1822 - Schubert begins work on his Symphony No. 8, later known as the Unfinished. Not played until 37 years later.

• 1935 - First concert at The Composers’ Forum-Laboratory in New York City, sponsored by the Federal Music Project and featuring works of Roy Harris