Copland : “Hoe Down” from RODEO

“Hoe Down” from RODEO

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

By the 1940s Aaron Copland had already become known as America’s best-known composer, and with the celebration last year of his centenary his position as his country’s best-loved composer is more secure than ever. Although active as a composer for films, with a couple of operas to his credit, the most natural medium for Copland’s dramatic instincts (very much like Stravinsky) was in the field of the dance. Indeed, it was with the appearance in 1938 of BILLY THE KID that Copland began to win a wide popular following. With the composition of RODEO (1942) and APPALACHIAN SPRING (1944) Copland’s reputation was firmly established as the composer who distilled the very essence of the American spirit into his music.

Following the sensational appearance of BILLY THE KID, Copland was invited to join in a second dance project by Agnes DeMille, who herself was about to win a great career success with her choreography for OKLAHAMA in 1943. Another ballet about cowboys at first had little attraction for Copland, but the ever-persuasive DeMille won out, and at the premiere of RODEO at the old Metropolitan Opera House Copland shared in one of the great triumphs of American dance. Four episodes from the ballet were published as a concert suite shortly afterward. The brilliant concluding Hoe Down is a glorious evocation of the time-honored American barndance, complete with fancy fiddling and stomping rhythms. There is a contrasting element midway, with a perky, prancing little ditty heard in the winds, then taken up by the strings. But in the end the fast and furious energy of the main tune carries the day, bringing the dance to an exhilarating finish.

GPYO concert