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Music and Imagination
One of the most forthright and talented of American composers writes here of the part played by the freely imaginative mind in composing, performing, and listening to music. He urges more frequent performance and more sensitive hearing of the music of new composers. He discusses sound media, new and old, and looks toward a musical future in which the timbres and intensities developed by the electronic engineer may find their musical shape and meaning. He considers the twentieth-century revolt against classical form and tonality, and the recent disturbing political interference with the form and content of music. He analyzes American and contemporary European music and the flowering of specifically Western imagination in Villa-Lobos and Charles Ives. The final chapter is an account, partially autobiographical, of the composer who seeks to find, in an industrial society like that of the United States, justification for the life of art in the life about him. Mr. Copeland, whose spectacular success in arriving at a musical vernacular has brought him a wide audience, will acquire as many readers as he has listeners with this imaginatively written book.
- GenresMusicNonfictionArt
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
17 people are currently reading
390 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Copland
386Ìýbooks74ÌýfollowersWorks of American composer Aaron Copland include the ballets
Rodeo
(1942) and
Appalachian Spring
(1944), which won a Pulitzer Prize, any of several awards that, conferred annually for accomplishment in various fields of American journalism, literature, and music, Joseph Pulitzer established.
His musical works ranged from orchestral to choral and movie scores. For the better part of four decades, people considered Aaron Copland the premier.
From an older sister, Copland learned to play piano. He decided his career before the time he fifteen years in 1915. His first tentative steps included a correspondence course in writing harmony. In 1921, Copland traveled to Paris to attend the newly founded music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. He, the first such American, studied of the brilliant teacher, Nadia Juliette Boulanger. After three years in Paris, he returned to New York with his first major commission, writing an organ concerto for the American appearances of Boulanger. His "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra" premiered in at Carnegie Hall in 1925.
Growth of Copland mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris, he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). Neoclassicism of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky strongly influenced his "Piano Variations" (1930).
In 1936, he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. This made his music more meaningful to the large loving audience that radio and the movies created. American folklore based his most important works, including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942), during this period. Another work during this period, a series of movie scores, included "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948).
In later years, work of Copland reflected the serial techniques of the "12-tone" school of Arnold Schoenberg. People commissioned notable "Connotations" (1962) for the opening of Lincoln center.
Copland after 1970 stopped composing but through the mid-1980s continued to lecture and to conduct. He died at the Phelps memorial hospital in Tarrytown (Westchester county), New York.
His musical works ranged from orchestral to choral and movie scores. For the better part of four decades, people considered Aaron Copland the premier.
From an older sister, Copland learned to play piano. He decided his career before the time he fifteen years in 1915. His first tentative steps included a correspondence course in writing harmony. In 1921, Copland traveled to Paris to attend the newly founded music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. He, the first such American, studied of the brilliant teacher, Nadia Juliette Boulanger. After three years in Paris, he returned to New York with his first major commission, writing an organ concerto for the American appearances of Boulanger. His "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra" premiered in at Carnegie Hall in 1925.
Growth of Copland mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris, he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). Neoclassicism of Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky strongly influenced his "Piano Variations" (1930).
In 1936, he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. This made his music more meaningful to the large loving audience that radio and the movies created. American folklore based his most important works, including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942), during this period. Another work during this period, a series of movie scores, included "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948).
In later years, work of Copland reflected the serial techniques of the "12-tone" school of Arnold Schoenberg. People commissioned notable "Connotations" (1962) for the opening of Lincoln center.
Copland after 1970 stopped composing but through the mid-1980s continued to lecture and to conduct. He died at the Phelps memorial hospital in Tarrytown (Westchester county), New York.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 28, 2021
Embarrassingly, I was supposed to have read this book for a pass-fail ½ credit weekly class in college—over fifty years ago. I could only find three lines, in three different chapters, that I underlined. No marginal comments. I don’t believe I read it with any seriousness of intent. And still I got a pass for the class.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that if I had read the book all the way through I would have understood it. Reading it now, after having long-ago earned my degree of music, having listened to serious music as the “gifted� listener Copland lifts up, having acquired a lifetime of humanities-related experiences, many of his ideas make sense. But was it perhaps too much to ask an eighteen-year-old to read such a book and formulate decent questions for a classroom discussion with a group made up of freshmen through seniors? I’m not sure.
In part, the book now, of course, seems a bit dated. Copland is commenting and writing exactly mid-twentieth century, now seventy years ago. The music he is writing about has now taken its proper place in American music history. The composing of American serious music has moved on beyond even what John Cage and other composers of his period accomplished. On the other hand, precisely because of when Copland writes this book, we now have a bit of history concerning that period of time. He makes interesting judgments about European music juxtaposed with American. And I am able to make informed critiques of my own, for example, when Copland states that though dramatic performances have moved him to tears, seldom to music events. I can’t disagree with him more. To listen to Saint Saëns’s Third Symphony and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and not be moved to tears seems a sacrilege. Now, if it were at all possible, I would like to take that Humanities class again. Now I would have something to say.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that if I had read the book all the way through I would have understood it. Reading it now, after having long-ago earned my degree of music, having listened to serious music as the “gifted� listener Copland lifts up, having acquired a lifetime of humanities-related experiences, many of his ideas make sense. But was it perhaps too much to ask an eighteen-year-old to read such a book and formulate decent questions for a classroom discussion with a group made up of freshmen through seniors? I’m not sure.
In part, the book now, of course, seems a bit dated. Copland is commenting and writing exactly mid-twentieth century, now seventy years ago. The music he is writing about has now taken its proper place in American music history. The composing of American serious music has moved on beyond even what John Cage and other composers of his period accomplished. On the other hand, precisely because of when Copland writes this book, we now have a bit of history concerning that period of time. He makes interesting judgments about European music juxtaposed with American. And I am able to make informed critiques of my own, for example, when Copland states that though dramatic performances have moved him to tears, seldom to music events. I can’t disagree with him more. To listen to Saint Saëns’s Third Symphony and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and not be moved to tears seems a sacrilege. Now, if it were at all possible, I would like to take that Humanities class again. Now I would have something to say.
June 19, 2020
The first few pages, when he talks about Sartre, the relation between time and music and how music is different than the other forms of art, gives you so much to think about, and you immediately know what to expect from the book. I read it years ago, then months ago, then again a few days ago. It is not a great book, the narration is not consistent and it's hard to understand, but it's a must read for everybody who loves music and the philosophy of it. It just gives you so much to think about.
June 21, 2012
Mostly a good book. I think the title is very misleading, however, as I don't think this book helped my musical imagination very much. There were some quotable lines, and good points, but nothing ground-breaking.
August 30, 2020
Interesting portrait of the mid-century mind but little more. Shallow reflections frequently marred by language that strike the reader, in 2020, as sexist, racist, and snobbish. Copland was in fact quite sexist but not the rest, so it took a little looking past the language to appreciate what he was saying in the sense he intended. The best part was some light autobiography towards the end.
December 1, 2024
this felt more like a preachy soapbox music history lesson than an actual exploration of music & imagination, although there were a few quotes that did resonate with me. i suppose it feels historical because this is from 70+ years ago 😂 i would have really liked more of a look to the future than at the past.
June 21, 2020
This is a personal book that comments on creativity and imagination in music, but also contemporary musical history. It is useful for both those new to classical music and experienced listeners.
January 7, 2011
A clever writer, gifted teacher, and brilliant musician!
June 5, 2015
A good book regarding the authors influences, and experiences of his life.
June 12, 2018
Copland’s comments on composing, listening to, and judging music are worthwhile, and his chapter on orchestration and timbral color (“The Sonorous Image�) is exceptional.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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