Note: all texts are in English.
For listings of individual songs, please see Alphabetical Index of Songs
Dirge in the Woods (1954) 3'
text: George Meredith
Four Early Songs
As a young man, Copland had an intellectual friend, Aaron Schaffer, who was a poet. Copland set three of his poems to music: Night, A Summer Vacation, and My Heart is in the East. Among Copland's earliest pieces, these short songs are traditional in style with occasional touches of Debussy and Ravel, the "modern" music of the times. The fourth song in the grouping is a two-page setting of a poem by John Duncan, titled Alone. It was discovered in Copland's files by Vivian Perlis and premiered by Jan DeGaetani.
Four Early Songs
Night (1918) text: Aaron Schaffer
A Summer Vacation (1918) text: Aaron Schaffer
My Heart is in the East (1918) text: Aaron Schaffer
Alone (1922) text: John Duncan (Arabic, translated by E. Powys Mathers to English)
Laurie’s Song
From Copland's opera The Tender Land, this aria is set for high voice and piano and reflects the youth and character of Laurie, the principal character, who is about to graduate from high school and yearns to explore life and love in the world beyond her farm family and surroundings.
Laurie’s Song
from The Tender Land (1952-1954, rev. 1955)
Old American Songs, Set I
Baritone William Warfield sang the premiere performance of Copland's folk song arrangements at Town Hall in 1951. He said, "The songs were a tremendous success. Aaron was an excellent pianist and, of course, knowing the flavor of them so well, it was a tremendous experience working with him."
The Boatmen's Dance, a minstrel show tune by Daniel Decatur Emmett, composer of "Dixie," is a lively tune with imitation banjo playing in the accompaniment. The Dodger is a satirical political song found by Copland in a collection by John and Alan Lomax. It dates from the political campaign of 1884 when Grover Cleveland defeated James G. Blaine. Long Time Ago is a setting of a lyrical nostalgic ballad discovered by the composer in the Harris Collection at Brown University. Simple Gifts is the Shaker song used in Appalachian Spring arranged in a straightforward style closer to the
original folk version. I Bought Me a Cat, a children's nonsense song, repeats a refrain adding a farm animal as it proceeds. The
harmony and accompaniment simulate barnyard
sounds.
Old American Songs, Set I (1950) 12'
medium voice and piano
text: traditional
Old American Songs, Set II
Copland wrote, "Everyone seemed to enjoy singing and hearing the first set of folk song settings so much that I decided to arrange a second group of five." The second five songs were also drawn from diverse sources: The Little Horses is a lullaby from the South based on a version from a Lomax collection. Zion's Walls, a revivalist song with words and music credited to John G. McCurry, was used again by Copland in his opera, The Tender Land. The Golden Willow Tree is a variant of a well-known Anglo-American ballad which Copland first heard for banjo and voice on a recording at the Library of Congress. At the River is an arrangement of the beloved 1865 hymn tune by Robert Lowry. It has been sung on many occasions, including the memorial concerts for Copland and for Leonard Bernstein. Ching-a-Ring Chaw was originally a minstrel song with a text in dialect that Copland felt had to be rewritten. He explained, "I did not want to take any chance of it being construed as racist."
Old American Songs, Set II (1952) 13'
medium voice and piano
text: traditional
Old Poem
When Copland went to Paris in 1921, he took this early song along. He described it as "one of the first of my pieces to show the beginnings of a musical personality, at least in terms of rhythmic feeling, frequent meter changes, and sense of form."
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Pastorale
The two-page song is dated April 1921 on the manuscript, two months before Copland left for France. Copland performed the song during his first year in Paris, probably with a fellow student.
Poet’s Song
Copland spent the summer of 1927 in Germany. He
composed this song, which reflects an early curiosity about serialism. The song, a setting of an e. e. cummings poem, is based on a tone row.
Song Album
Includes the following works:
Laurie’s Song (from The Tender Land)
Pastorale (1921)
Poet’s Song (1927)
Vocalise (1928)
Simple Gifts (from Old American Songs, Set I)
Why do they shut me out of Heaven?
(from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson)
Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
"I had no intention of composing a song cycle," wrote Copland. His interest in the Dickinson poems began with The Chariot and he gradually added others. The cycle is Copland's longest work for solo voice. Copland explained, "Each song is meant to be complete in itself, but I prefer them to be sung as a cycle. They seem to have a cumulative effect." Each poem is dedicated to a composer friend: David Diamond, Elliott Carter, Ingolf Dahl, Alexei Haieff, Marcelle de Manziarly, Juan Orrrego-Salas, Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, Camargo Guernieri, Alberto Ginastera, Lukas Foss, and Arthur Berger.
Nature, the gentlest mother includes trills and flutterings reminiscent of bird sounds in the introduction.
There came a wind like a bugle features a melody that has been likened to a bugle call.
Why do they shut me out of Heaven? is characteristic of the cycle in the wide vocal range required of the singer. Copland wrote, "I gave a great deal of thought as to how my essentially instrumental style could be adapted for the voice."
The world feels dusty was the first song Copland
finished. He wrote, "When I had twelve of them, they
all seemed to run to their right places."
Heart, we will forget him is a love song that has been likened in style to Mahler.
Dear March, come in! was one of Copland's favorites, "as it breezes along." He was well satisfied with the songs. As he said, "Encouraged, I could fall in love with all of them!"
Sleep is supposed to be was admired by Phyllis Curtin who sang the cycle with Copland accompanying at the piano. "It is the pattern of Emily's remarkable speech that Aaron understood absolutely," said the singer.
When they come back was played by Copland's friend Irving Fine for the conductor Serge Koussevitzky. Fine reported, "Koussevitzky liked certain songs, this and other slow ones."
I felt a funeral in my brain is a setting of one of the
many poems in which Emily Dickinson was preoccupied with death. The songs do not quote folk material and since they are more difficult than Copland's earlier vocal music, it has taken more time for them to be admired as they are today.
I've heard an organ talk sometimes was admired by
Virgil Thomson for "the wide melodic skips, which are in themselves highly effective in a declamatory sense and strikingly expressive."
Going to Heaven! has proven a favorite of several singers, among them Alice Howland, who gave the premiere performance of the song cycle at Columbia University.
The Chariot is the only song that does not derive from the first line of the poem. It was this Dickinson poem that sparked Copland's intense interest in her writings. He wrote, "The first lines absolutely threw me: Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality."
Vocalise
The challenge of trying something new always appealed to Copland. He accepted a commission from a Professor at the Paris Conservatoire for a vocalise-etude. The song without text was premiered by Ethel Codd Luening with the composer at the keyboard.
Voice and Guitar
Old American Songs (arr. Gregg Nestor)
I Bought Me a Cat, At the River, Simple Gifts,
and Ching-a-ring Chaw
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