Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) Overture to Candide (1956)

Leonard Bernstein, the son of successful Russian immigrants, attended Harvard for his university education, where he learned from Walter Piston, among others.  After Harvard, he continued his composition and conducting studies with such famous figures as Randall Thompson, Fritz Reiner and Serge Koussevitsky.  His career developed along parallel lines as both a composer and conductor, leading to his appointment in 1958 as the music director of the New York Philharmonic.  His dynamic tenure there (1958-69) was notable for his great emphasis on musical education and exposing audiences to contemporary music from Europe and America.

Bernstein's comic operetta Candide, based on the novella by Voltaire, was not an immediate success.  Premiering in 1956, the operetta itself only ran for 73 performances on Broadway.  The overture, however, was immediately embraced by the New York Philharmonic and other orchestras and remains a favorite today.  In this piece, Bernstein uses unusual rhythmic patterns and time signatures to create humorous effects.  The orchestration remains sparkling throughout, and the quick tempo adds to the excitement.  Mature listeners may recognize the theme to The Dick Cavett Show towards the end of the composition.

Copland (1900-1990) Quiet City (1939)

Perhaps more than any other composer, Aaron Copland was able to define the sound of America in music.  In his early compositional period, Copland drew from the dissonant sounds found in European art music of the time, but as he became more interested in composing for ballet and theater, he looked to American and Latin American folk music for his inspiration.  In such famous works as Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, his use of wide melodic intervals and open-sounding orchestration conjure up an image of the wide spaces of the frontier.

In 1939, New York's Group Theatre contracted Copland to write incidental music for Irwin Shaw's experimental play Quiet City. Copland later said:

The script was about a young trumpet player who imagined the night thoughts of many different people in a great city and played trumpet to express his emotions and to arouse the consciences of the other characters and of the audience. After reading the play, I composed music that I hoped would evoke the inner distress of the central character.

He scored the music for solo trumpet, accompanied by saxophone, clarinet, and piano. When the play folded after two performances for lack of a backer, Copland rewrote his fragmented work into a unified concert version, scored for solo trumpet, English horn, and strings. The piece is written in a meditative and yearning vein, with the trumpet and English horn's notes floating above the strings like a dialogue between two lost souls. Like city dwellers passing in the night, these two disembodied voices note each other's existence for a moment and then move on. One has the sense of listening to a passionate conversation in a language one does not understand; their inflection conveys the emotion behind each utterance, while the meaning remains obscure.

The famous choreographer Jerome Robbins choreographed a production of Quiet City in 1986 for the New York City Ballet.

Gershwin (1898-1937) An American in Paris (1928)

George Gershwin began his musical career as a pianist and songwriter.  Though he lacked a conservatory education, he was blessed with an incredible gift for melody.  Many of his songs were composed with his brother Ira (1896-1983) as the lyricist.  At nineteen he had his first big hit, Swanee,which l ed to writing scores for many hit shows, including Strike up the Band and Girl Crazy.

An American in Paris was inspired by a visit to Paris in 1926 and composed during a subsequent visit in 1928.  This tone poem seeks to capture the exhilaration of being in an exciting European city, along with the homesickness that an American experiences when abroad.  In the tone poem, an American is walking through Paris and being assaulted by different experiences and emotions.  He portrays musically the sounds of the street using such devices as actual taxi horns (sometimes omitted in concert performances).  The most notable melody of the work is a poignant blues theme first heard by a muted trumpet.  We also hear a trombone melody representing a music hall he passes and a violin passage indicating a love interest.  In the end, optimism prevails over the blues, and he is again happy to be in Paris.

In 1951, a Hollywood musical inspired by the tone poem won the Academy Award for best picture.  The music was used in the film for a 20-minute ballet sequence featuring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.  Unfortunately, Gershwin was not around to witness the success of the film since his musical career and life had been cut short by a fatal brain tumor at the age of 39.

Irving Berlin (1888-1989) Annie Get Your Gun Overture  (1946)

Israel Isidore Berlin was born in Russia and immigrated with his parents in 1893.  The hardships of the immigrant life and death of his father in 1896 forced him to start working at the young age of 8 at such pursuits as newspaper sales and singing for money on the streets.  These early performances led to careers first as a lyricist, and then as a songwriter. Having no formal musical training, he was a self-taught pianist who relied upon arrangers and assistants to realize the vision of his compositions.

During World War I, Berlin enrolled in the U.S. Army, where he staged a large-scale musical revue featuring some of his most famous songs, including God Bless America and Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning. After the war, Berlin's career continued to develop, spanning the period from Tin Pan Alley to the Broadway and then Hollywood musical.  A political and musical conservative, he gave up songwriting in the early 60s in response to a world that was interested in a new style of music.

Berlin's most successful Broadway musical was Annie Get Your Gun (1946), produced by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Loosely based on the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley (1860-1926), the music and lyrics were written by Berlin, with a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The musical featured Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley and Ray Middleton as Frank Butler, and several of the tunes went on to become huge hits, including The Girl that I Marry, I Got the Sun in the Morning, There's No Business Like Show Business, They Say It's Wonderful, and Anything You Can Do. The musical had an initial run of 1,147 performances and was revived in 1966 and 1999.

Jule Styne (1905-1994) Selections from Gypsy (1959)

This 1959 musical, featuring a book by Arthur Laurents and music by Jule Styne, was a huge hit on Broadway.  Based loosely on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, it was actually a portrait of a domineering stage mother, portrayed on stage by the incomparable Ethel Merman.  One reason for the immense popularity of the show is that it depicted the world of the burlesque theater in a humorous vein without becoming too graphic.

This medley from Gypsy, orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett, features the popular songs All I Need is the Girl, Everything's Coming up Roses, Let Me Entertain You, Mr. Goldstone, Small World, Some People, Together Wherever We Go, and You'll Never Get Away from Me.

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975) March of Two Left Feet (1970) Belle of the Ball (1951)

Leroy Anderson received his first musical lessons from his mother, an organist.  At Harvard University, he developed his musical talents by studying with George Enescu and Walter Piston, among others.  While living in Boston, his musical arrangements came to the attention of Arthur Fiedler, who encouraged his compositional efforts.

During World War II, his talent in German and Scandinavian languages allowed him to serve as Chief of the Scandinavian Desk of Military Intelligence at the Pentagon.  An offer to serve as a diplomatic attaché after the war didn't tempt him, as his love for music was too great.  His popularity as a conductor and composed reached its height during the 1950s.  One of his compositions, Blue Tango, actually remained at the top of the Hit Parade for 22 weeks in 1952.  Other favorite Anderson works include Sleigh Ride, Bugler's Holiday, The Typewriter, and The Syncopated Clock.

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897)

John Philip Sousa was also known as the March King due to his prolific output in this genre.  Born in Washington, D.C. to a musical family, his father was a trombonist with the U.S. Marine Band.  Young John showed an early interest in music and at eleven organized his own dance orchestra.  Hearing that his boy wanted to run off with a circus band, his father enlisted him into the Marine Corps as a musical apprentice at age 13, where he remained for seven years.

After a four-year break from the military during which time he played as a violinist and conducted, Sousa returned to the U.S. Marine Band as its conductor.  During his twelve years there, he greatly improved the quality of the band and wrote many new marches for it.  After resigning his commission in 1892, Sousa started his own band.  Sousa's Band toured the world between 1892 and 1931 and was incredibly popular with European and American audiences.

Some of his most notable marches include:  Semper Fidelis (the Marine Corps March), Liberty Bell (the Monty Python Theme), Washington Post, Hands Across the Sea, and, of course, Stars and Stripes Forever, the National March of the United States.  A hallmark trait of Sousa's marches was to avoid the standard da capo, or return to opening section, after the trio.  Instead, he first presented the trio material with reduced orchestration and then repeated the trio with full brass standing or walking to the front of the stage, which was a highly dramatic and memorable effect.

 

Sources:

Ewen, David.  The World of Twentieth Century Music.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1968.
Laufe, Abe.  Broadway's Greatest Musicals.  New York:  Funk & Wagnall's, 1969.
Sherer, Barrymore Laurence.  A History of American Classical Music.  Naperville, IL:  Sourcebooks, Inc., 2007.
Wikipedia

 

Program notes © 2008 Jennifer Butler, except Quiet City, © 2007 Mary Eichbauer