Page 272 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Listening Cue
Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (1944) Downloads 47–49 Sections 1, 2, and 7
Genre: Ballet music
what to listen for: Section 1 (Download 47): The distinctly Copland sound caused by an orchestration that clearly separates low supporting strings from high solo woodwinds. Section 2 (Download 48): Percussive, dissonant Modernism soon made to contrast with a lyrical hymn-like tune in the trumpet. Section 7 (Download 49): The inventive use of theme- and-variations form in which the composer changes the feeling associated with the theme from irrepressibly cheerful to, at the end, triumphant.
reAD . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online. LiSTeN TO . . . this selection streaming online.
WATCH . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online.
DO . . . Listening Exercise 16.1, Copland, Appalachian Spring, online.
Figure 16.3
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)
By the end of the Second World War, American composers such as Charles Ives (1874–1954), Roy Harris (1898–1979), and Aaron Copland had taken European Modernism and given it a distinctly American voice. Consequently, American composers thereafter no longer felt obliged to forge a national style. Paraphras- ing what Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Figure 16.3) said in 2007 about the “mindset” of American composers during the last century: “There was a time, in the 1920s with the music of Copland, for example, when we were searching for an Ameri-
can voice. Then we went beyond that stage. Our musical interests are now really quite all over the map.”
The daughter of an airline pilot, Zwilich was born in Miami and educated at The Florida State University, to which she has recently returned to occupy a professorship in musical composition. Earlier, in 1960, Zwilich had moved to New York City where she played violin in the American Symphony Orchestra, studied composition at the Juilliard School, and worked for a time as an usher at Carnegie Hall. Her “big break” came in 1983, when she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in music. During 1995–1998, she was the first person of either gender to occupy the newly created Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall—
250 chapter sixteen american modernism and postmodernism
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Courtesy of The Florida State University College of Music
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