WMV Music Web Log

I worked on the Copland Quartet last night - written in 1950, the opening theme combines "Three Blind Mice" with "Rock of Ages", an interesting meditation on post-holocaust Judaism. (It is my impression that the "three blind mice" tune has been used as an anti-semitic taunt, but I have not yet been able to document this). In any event, the Quartet seems to be a kind of musical counterpart to Art Spiegelman's "Maus". The middle movement is really funny - it is very shtetl, yiddish comedy, lower east side 1950s. Copland seems to have had a European side, and it was very Jewish. His American face is what we normally see, and he probably had good reasons for this. It's actually not just that it sounds "American": it's that the music sounds WASP. Only "Vitebsk", the Quartet, and maybe the Sextet show this other Jewish face, as far as I know. Although I admire the mastery of his scores, and am moved by works like his violin sonata and "The Tender Land," it irritates me that he has sanitized some of his music, eliminating all the Jewish dirt from his creative process. Oh well; I didn't know Copland was a Jew until I put together a program of Jewish composers about five years ago.

I am also working on a program of songs by African-American composers with bass Gary Poster. These composers are mining a tremendously rich cultural tradition, and it is exciting to get to know them. As Americans, we can draw on a broader set of sources. I met with John Kamman and Grace Chung the other night to talk about further steps in our Evolutions project, to forge a synthesis of American chamber music and jazz. We came up with some new ideas - we'll see what happens. I want to learn to appreciate the emotional/musical mechanics of jazz standards enough to arrange one for chamber ensemble, and also to effectively apply jazz improvisatory style to German lied. Why not?