In December 1941, conductor André Kostelanetz commissioned Aaron Copland to write a musical portrait of a great American statesman. Copland first considered George Washington, but decided that the First President was too stiff and formal. He finally settled on Lincoln because he saw him as epitomizing American ideals of simplicity, democracy and individual responsibility.
Copland picked out sections from Lincoln’s letters and speeches and interspersed them with short biographical details. In his autobiography he stated “My purpose was to draw a simple but impressive (musical) frame around the words of Lincoln himself.” He gave the text to a narrator, rather than a singer, and set out to write music that would speak directly to a large audience, in a folksy style similar to his “American” ballets. He did, in fact, incorporate two popular ditties. The first a quote from “Springfield Mountain,” a comic and lively song that he transformed into a majestic theme by stretching the fourth note of each four-note group; the second, a much altered quote from Stephen Foster’s “The Camptown Races.” "Springfield Mountain" symbolizes Lincoln's rural roots and "Camptown Races" perhaps the degradation of Arfican-Americans even after emancipation. The overall tone of the piece, however is more serious and dignified, reflecting the burden of holding together a nation that dominated Lincoln's presidency. It is that theme that Copland accentuates at the very beginning of the piece with its muted trumpets that project a combination of the dignity and loss of the war dead.
Copland dedicated the work to André Kostelanetz, who premiered it in Cincinnati in May 1942. It was an instant success and has remained popular, especially during times of patriotic upswings. Actors, orators and politicians have always enjoyed narrating Lincoln’s words – especially politicians. One acerbic critic once named it “Concerto for Politician and Orchestra.”
Ludwig van Beethoven
1770-1827
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 9 in d minor, Op. 125
As slovenly as Beethoven was in his personal life, he stored and maintained his musical ideas in sketchbooks, continually jotting down ideas that might come in handy later on. Perusing these sketchbooks today, we gain insight into both his creative process and method of working. While Beethoven did not have the quick and ready inspiration of a Schubert or a Mendelssohn, two characteristics contributed to his greatness: he had the tenacity to work and rework his material many times, often over many years; and he knew when he got it right.
Ideas about the Ninth Symphony first appeared in Beethoven’s sketchbook in 1817-18, initially as material for a pair of symphonies, one of which was to have a choral finale with text from Greek mythology. He did not begin sustained work on the symphony until 1822, finally finishing it in February 1824.
During this period, Beethoven was embroiled in turmoil in his personal life. When his brother Johann, who had married a woman against Beethoven’s advice, became ill, his wife Therese shamelessly carried on with her lover. His on-again-off-again friendship with Anton Schindler, who eventually became his private secretary and first biographer, was currently off. It should be noted, however, that for all Beethoven’s irascibility and mood swings, he was often a shrewd judge of character and he did not trust Schindler, who in the end made off with the composer’s sketchbooks and conversation books, selling some and forging others.
Professionally, Beethoven was both clearly over his head in commitments and also beset by debts. He was putting the finishing touches for publication of the Missa Solemnis while trying to manipulate a secret bidding war for it among three publishers, each of whom were expecting the work. He used a bait-and-switch maneuver involving a Mass in D (that was never written), as an excuse to each publisher for not delivering the Missa Solemnis. He had also undertaken several other commissions, some of which remained incomplete or never started.
One unfulfilled commission spurred the completion of the Ninth Symphony. Always an admirer of the British, Beethoven had sent inquiries to the Philharmonic Society of London and had received a positive reply with the promise of £50 for a new symphony. He would have liked to visit London, perhaps to experience the accolades showered on his former mentor, Franz Joseph Haydn, but the visit never materialized and the commission was never fulfilled. It was, nevertheless, an incentive to finish the Symphony. The score was completed in February 1824, and Beethoven, disgusted with the musical taste of the Viennese, was planning to premiere the work in Berlin instead. But it had been ten years since he had given a public concert of his work in Vienna, and his friends and admirers signed a petition begging him not to disappoint his public any longer. Although he eventually gave in, it took three months of haggling with the Imperial Pooh-Bahs and reluctant singers to finally schedule the concert for May 7 at the Kärntnertor Theater. Artistically the Symphony was a wild success but – because of the huge forces required and the large copying costs – a financial near-disaster.
From the mysterious descending open fifths of the first movement, the symphony must have amazed its first hearers. The powerful first theme based on the descending fifth gradually emerges and develops in classical sonata form. The contrasting second theme, like many of the composer's themes, is made up of several distinct motives that he later develops separately. A long dramatic coda with an ominous ostinato in the cellos and basses concludes the movement, setting up musical tension that will not be released until the choral finale.
The second movement, molto vivace, is a massive scherzo that opens Molto vivace with hammer-blow descending octaves, an oblique reference to the descending fifths in the first movement. This motive is immediately picked up by the violins as the first bar of the principal theme, which is introduced as a fugue. The driving ostinato rhythmic motif underlies the scherzo section and the timpani periodically bang out the signature octaves and motivic rhythm. A playful trio brings respite, but the insistent scherzo returns with a short coda and a final hint at the trio.
The slow third movement is a free-form transformation of two themes, its gentle intensity in marked contrast to the powerful, driving music that preceded and will follow it. If anyone ever doubted that Beethoven was a romantic, this movement will dispel the doubt, especially with the heartfelt second theme.
For a long time Beethoven had been unsure about what to do for the Finale. Material for a purely instrumental one ended up in 1825 as part of the string quartet Op.132. Once he fixed on a choral finale, he had difficulties settling on its two main components: the melody and the text. The sketchbooks reveal that he had a surprisingly difficult time developing what ultimately became such a simple straightforward tune. In its first manifestation the tune appeared in a song, “Gegenliebe” (WoO 118) from 1794 and, in a closer version to the melody ultimately settled on, main theme of the Choral Fantasia, Op.80, of 1808, &
It was not until November 1823, only three months before he finished the symphony, that Beethoven decided to use Friedrich Schiller’s “An die Freude” (Ode to Joy). He had toyed with the idea of setting the Ode since 1793, when he considered it for a song. Again, in 1812, he incorporated part of it into a choral overture, a project he abandoned. Now, he took the opportunity to combine his desire and set the poem into the new choral symphony.
The long introduction to the Finale begins with a surprise, a recitative for the cellos and basses that quotes the themes from the first three movements and a snatch of the main theme in between the phrases of the recitative. But these serve merely as “false starts.”
After the introduction by the full orchestra, Beethoven uses his own words as a baritone recitative, initially played by the lower strings at the beginning of the movement, to introduce Schiller’s poem. As poems go it is not much, and Schiller himself did not care for it. Beethoven, by his music, coupled with judicious rearrangement and especially deletions in the text, transformed it into the cultural icon it has become. Musically, the movement is a set of variations, one for each stanza of the poem. Among the historically notable variations is the Turkish march in imitation of the Jannissary bands of Ottoman soldiers, who were a constant threat to the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However constrained in form the variations may have been, Beethoven introduces a new theme, which the composer combines with the main melody into a double fugue. At the climax of the movement, Beethoven abandons the variations for a lengthy dramatic coda in which the text of the poem is restated by soloists and chorus and musical material is freely developed.Beethoven handles the coda as an operatic finale, recalling the heady celebration that concluded his opera Fidelio in 1806.
