Copland Dance Symphony

 Day 36

Copland Dance Symphony

London Symphony Orchestra

Aaron Copland

Over the years I have played most of the famous Copland pieces and heard a few of the others but there is still much to discover. He is a really tricky composer to play - in many ways his rhythms are harder to grasp than those of Stravinsky, even in the Rite of Spring. They look deceptively simple on the page but he is very adept in missing out, or adding, a quaver here and there to knock you off your stride. I've never seen any of the ballets on stage but there is fascinating performance of Appalachian Springhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM5-CsI713g on YouTube with Martha Graham and what I take to be the original choreography. Very different to what you might imagine if you only know the music as a concert piece.

The Dance Symphony is an early work (1922-25). It derives from a ballet Grohg, based on a horror film. The ballet was never performed and the score was lost until it was rediscovered in the 1990s, but Copland took three of the movements from the piece to form this symphony in order to enter in into a competition for young composers. He shared the first prize and later in life was rather shamefaced about how he had 'cheated' by using existing material rather than composing something new for the competition.

You sense that in this early work Copland was very interested in pushing boundaries. The first movement - lively and playful - is a fairly typical piece of 1920s Neo classicism but the middle movement is surprisingly intense and dissonant and has some fierce climaxes which must have created quite an impression on first hearing - I did think however that it was a little too long for its material. The real interest is in the last movement - very jazz influenced with blaring trumpets and some exceptionally complicated rhythms - he even marks in the score at a few points how the conductor should beat in a different rhythm to that noted in the orchestral parts. I would have thought that was very confusing for the players but perhaps it works. Certainly the rhythmic complications in this movement are very demanding and I do wonder how the original performers coped with all of the twists and turns, particularly at the fast tempo that Copland demands.  I sense that the LSO players in this recording from the 1960s were on the edges of their seats concentrating like mad.

The Dance Symphony is never going occupy the same place in the repertory as the famous ballets but it was certainly well worth hearing. I'll probably go back to that last movement soon to try and work out exactly what he was doing with the rhythm.