Copland: Piano Sonata / Piano Fantasy / Piano Variations

Description

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)Piano Sonata Piano FantasyOther than for orchestra, solo piano music is themost extensive area in the output of Aaron Copland.It also covers the largest timespan, from ScherzoHumoristique: The Cat and the Mouse of 1920,written towards the end of Copland's study withRubin Goldmark, to Proclamation, which, begunin 1973 and realised nine years later, was to remainhis last original composition. Although featuringnumerous occasional pieces and miniatures, threeworks occupy crucial positions in the context ofhis composing. Together they give a tellingoverview of the intensely serious side of a figurewhose more 'popular' music inevitably typifieshim to the wider public.Having spent the latter 1920s pursuing a fusion ofjazz idioms with the neo-classical techniquesrefined during his period of study in Paris withNadia Boulanger, Copland changed tack at theend of the decade, adopting a formidably abstractand concentrated approach. Nowhere is thisbetter demonstrated than in the Piano Variations,composed during January-October 1930 and firstperformed by the composer, himself a fine pianist,at a League of Composers Concert in New York on4th January the following year. There the music'suncompromising austerity polarised the reactionsof critics and audience alike. Much of its rigour andconcision is determined by the theme, a five-notemotif first heard in the eleven-bar idea that opensthe work and which, as Copland pointed out, isactually the first variation. The twenty variationsfollow each other with minimal disruption, contrastsbetween them being absorbed into the musical flowas it follows an inevitable and intensifying trajectory.Much is made of the differing emphasis on fourandfive-note figures, as also with the frequentchanges of time signature, while the massive chordswhich end the work ideally need the third, sustainingpedal if their impact is to be fully conveyed.Copland's shift to a more populist and approachableidiom in the mid-1930s, in line with the moreinclusive social and cultural outlook adopted in theUnited States during that period, quickly led to hisbecoming the leading American composer of hisgeneration, typified by such pieces as the orchestralshowpiece El Salon Mexico (1936), the ballet Billythe Kid (1938) and the tone poem Quiet City (1939).In 1939, however, he began a work which is verydifferent in its musical preoccupations, one whichtook him almost two years to complete, and whichstands appreciably apart from the music of thisperiod. First given by the composer in BuenosAires on 21st October 1941, and dedicated tothe playwright Clifford Odets, the Piano Sonatais among Copland's most inward and personalstatements.The three movements of the sonata follow theslow-fast-slow format often favoured in the twentiethcentury. The Molto moderato first movementopens with two commanding 'motto' ideas - theinitial descending motif spawning a lyrical themewhich acts as the second subject in what isbasically a sonata-form desig