The American Stravinsky: The Style and Aesthetics of Copland's New American Music, the Early Works, 1921-1938

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University of Michigan Press, Feb 21, 2012 - Biography & Autobiography - 285 pages
One of the country's most enduringly successful composers, Aaron Copland created a distinctively American style and aesthetic in works for a diversity of genres and mediums, including ballet, opera, and film. Also active as a critic, mentor, advocate, and concert organizer, he played a decisive role in the growth of serious music in the Americas in the twentieth century.



In The American Stravinsky, Gayle Murchison closely analyzes selected works to discern the specific compositional techniques Copland used, and to understand the degree to which they derived from European models, particularly the influence of Igor Stravinsky. Murchison examines how Copland both Americanized these models and made them his own, thereby finding his own compositional voice. Murchison also discusses Copland's aesthetics of music and his ideas about its purpose and social function.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Scherzo humoristique Cat and Mouse Coplands American Petrushka and His Debt to Stravinsky
9
Boulanger and Compositional Maturity
35
Popular Music and Jazz Authentic or Ersatz?
55
Paris and Jazz French Neoclassicism and the New Modern American Music
72
Back in the United States Popular Music Jazz and the New American Music
95
European Influence beyond Stravinsky and Les Six Hába and Schoenberg
124
Toward a New National Music during the 1930s Coplands Populism Accessible Style and Folk and Popular Music
148
Coplands Journey Left
160
Folk Music and the Popular Front El Salón México
190
Billy the Kid
208
A Vision for American Music
230
Notes
235
Bibliography
259
Index
277
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About the author (2012)

Gayle Murchison is Associate Professor of Music and Africana Studies at the College of William and Mary.

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