1944 ballet by Martha Graham and Aaron Copland
Appalachian Spring is an American ballet created by the choreographer Martha Graham and the composer Aaron Copland, later arranged as an orchestral work. Commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Copland composed the ballet music for Graham; the original choreography was by Graham, with costumes by Edythe Gilfond and sets by Isamu Noguchi. The ballet was well received at the 1944 premiere, earning Copland the Pulitzer Prize for Music during its 1945 United States tour. The orchestral suite composed in 1945 was played that year by many symphony orchestras; the suite is among Copland's best-known works, and the ballet remains essential in the Martha Graham Dance Company repertoire.
Graham was known for creating the "Graham technique" of dance; in the 1930s, she began commissioning scores from various composers, often related to American history and culture. Around the same time, Copland incorporated relatable and accessible musical characteristics of the Americana style to increase his music's appeal to the general public; he first implemented this in earlier ballets like "Billy the Kid" and "Rodeo". The initial scenario for "Appalachian Spring" devised by Graham was revised many times by both her and Copland; the title characters' names were changed numerous times and other characters from the early revisions were cut in the final production. Originally orchestrated for a thirteen-piece chamber orchestra, the score was arranged into various suites by Copland for different purposes; the original ballet featured eight episodes, three of which were cut in the well-known orchestral suite.
The ballet takes place in a small Appalachian settlement in 19th-century Pennsylvania. There are four main characters: the Bride, the Husbandman, the Pioneer Woman, and the Revivalist; the last is accompanied by four Followers. "Appalachian Spring" follows the Bride and the Husbandman as they get married and celebrate with the community. Themes of war are present throughout the story; it is suggested that the Husbandman leaves for war, causing worry and anxiety among the community. Shaker themes also influenced the ballet, notably in the music, where Copland incorporated a theme and variations on the common Shaker tune "Simple Gifts".
History.
Background.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Aaron Copland spent much of his time promoting American composers and music. Copland's compositions during this time turned jazzy and dissonant, a style that interested few. During the Great Depression, his left-wing political stances strengthened, motivated by addressing the concerns of ordinary people. This initiated the idea of music that was simple and accessible enough to be liked by the general public, a concept pioneered in his opera for children "The Second Hurricane" (1937) and his greatly successful ballet "El Salón México" (1936). This "ordinary music" idea is present in "Appalachian Spring"; Copland remarked in a 1980 interview that the music was "plain, singing, comparatively uncomplicated and slightly folksy. Direct and approachable". The composer solidified his populist and Americana style with ballets like "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942), both of which used cowboy songs and fit with the popular stereotypes about the Wild West. In addition, "Lincoln Portrait" (1942) and "Fanfare for the Common Man" (1942) received widespread acclaim for their American themes, distinguishing Copland's versatility as a composer.
Martha Graham was a modern dancer and choreographer best known for creating the "Graham technique" of dance. The Martha Graham Dance Company originally consisted of only women due to Graham's feminism; this played a key role in productions like "American Document" (1938), which mixed important moments in American history with Native American themes and American folklore. In the 1930s, she began commissioning scores from various composers; the scenarios often involved American history and culture.
Commission and writing.
In 1941, Graham proposed to Copland a dark ballet about the Greek mythology figure Medea; despite being a great admirer of Graham, he declined. The following year, Erick Hawkins, the chief male dancer in Graham's dance company, convinced the music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge to commission a ballet from Copland for Graham's company; Copland happily accepted the offer. Graham first proposed a scenario titled "Daughter of Colchis", which was inspired by the story of Medea but set in 19th-century New England. Copland found it "too severe", and the idea was given to another Coolidge commissionee, Carlos Chávez. In May 1943, Graham sent Copland a scenario titled "House of Victory", about a newlywed couple in a small 19th-century Pennsylvania settlement. Copland revised the scenario before composing the music, though his occupation with the score for "The North Star" caused the beginning of his work to be delayed.
Per Coolidge's commission, the orchestra was to be no bigger than twelve musicians. Copland originally planned to orchestrate it for double string quartet and piano, but later decided to add a double bass, flute, clarinet, and bassoon, a scoring similar to Chávez's work. During the 1940s, Copland spent much of his time on the West Coast scoring Hollywood films; as a result, he composed the music for "Appalachian Spring" far from Graham's East Coast-based work. Since he could not meet with Graham, he relied greatly on the various scenarios sent to him. In total, Copland was sent three scripts: the original "House of Victory", and two revisions titled "Name". In composing the music, he drew from all three scripts to devise his own scenario, which Graham planned around as she received various drafts of the score. Copland used the working title "Ballet for Martha" during the composition process.
The original scenario, "House of Victory", used characters based on common American archetypes and was set during the Civil War, but also drew from Greek mythology and French poetry. Four main characters were present: the Mother, who represents the preindustrial American; the Daughter, a brave pioneer; the Citizen, a smart civil rights advocate who marries the Daughter; and the Fugitive, who embodies the slave in the Civil War. Graham based some of the ballet on her own experiences. She grew up in small-town Pennsylvania, and later wrote that the Mother was based on her own grandmother. Other characters include the Younger Sister, Two Children, and Neighbors. In the later revisions, a new character was added: a Native American girl to represent the land, associated with the story of Pocahontas. The Native American girl was meant to act as a theatrical device, interacting with everyone in the ballet without being acknowledged, but the idea was scrapped in Copland's final composition. Additionally, Graham planned for the Mother to speak excerpts from the Book of Genesis throughout, "not in a religious sense so much as in a poetic sense"; this too was cut by the premiere.
The final scenario featured eight episodes:
The "House of Victory" script included an extra episode after the "Interlude" presenting scenes from "Uncle Tom's Cabin", strengthening the ballet's connection to the Civil War; but, upon Copland's persuasion, Graham cut the episode from the revisions. In addition, the original script used a different final scene, where the Daughter and the Citizen reunite in the home. The second script ended with "the town settling down for the night" and the Daughter standing at the fence just before the curtain falls. The third script put forth "The Lord's Day" as it would stand in the final scenario.
Graham received half of the score in January 1944 and began work on the choreography. Copland completed the condensed score in June 1944, and the orchestration was finished in August. The premiere was originally set to take place at the Library of Congress on October 30, 1943, which was Coolidge's birthday. By May 1943, Copland had not begun composing the ballet, and given the further problems introduced by World War II, the premiere was postponed to early 1944. Despite a new December 1943 deadline for the music, a completed score was still not in view, and the premiere was pushed to late 1944.
Production.
Shortly before the premiere, Graham decided upon the title "Appalachian Spring". It was taken from the cycle of poems "The Bridge" by Hart Crane, an American poet also seeking to create unique American art; one of the poems, titled "Powhatan's Daughter", contained the line "O Appalachian Spring!" Crane's work was a great inspiration to Graham while she wrote the various scripts.
To construct the set, Graham hired Isamu Noguchi, a sculptor and common collaborator with the company. While planning, she took Noguchi to the Museum of Modern Art and showed him Alberto Giacometti's sculpture "The Palace at 4 a.m." as a reference for what she wanted: something depicting the inside and outside of a house without actually dividing it, a sort of blurred mix. Noguchi's use of an outline of a house served as a metaphor for the general idea of the work being about "the bone structure of a people's living". The set featured the outline of a house, part of a porch with a ledge, a rocking chair, a small fence, and a tree stump (serving as the Revivalist's pulpit). Edythe Gilfond created the costumes and Jean Rosenthal designed the lighting.
Many changes were made to the scenario after the score was finished. The Younger Sister, the Two Children, and the Neighbors were all cut, and the rest of the cast was renamed: the Daughter to the Bride; the Citizen to the Husbandman; the Mother to the Pioneer Woman; and the Fugitive to the Revivalist. Four Followers of the Revivalist were added to the cast for a total of nine dancers in the ballet. The choreography often deviated from both the final scenario and Copland's annotations in the score; for example, the closing love duet between the Bride and the Husbandman became a dance between the Revivalist and his four Followers. Regardless, Copland was not irritated by this, later commenting, "That kind of decision is the choreographer's, and it doesn't bother me a bit, especially when it works." The cast at the premiere starred Graham as the Bride, Hawkins as the Husbandman, May O'Donnell as the Pioneer Woman, and Merce Cunningham as the Revivalist. Yuriko, Pearl Lang, Nina Fonaroff, and Marjorie Mazia danced the Revivalist's followers.
Graham's performance was young and lively, which critics praised. On the contrary, Hawkins was stiffer and exhibited the masculinity of the role, but later performers were more supple with movements. Cunningham, who choreographed his own solo during "Fear of the Night", was instructed to display great anger; Graham later described the role to a new dancer as being "ninety-nine percent sex and one percent religion: a real popular spellbinder, a magnetic man who had power over women." Graham's vision for the four Followers was spontaneity; they would remain perfectly still until their time came, and when they did dance, it would be with energy and focus. Agnes de Mille, fellow choreographer and close friend of Graham's, pointed out that many subsequent productions featured cute and perky Followers, but that this was not Graham's original intention. Much of the contrast between female and male characters was intentional. While the female characters remained bouncy and light, the male characters were stiff and took up much space.
The press described the choreography as simple and precise. Despite being set during such a scenario, the choreography does not explicitly depict a wedding; rather, the dance expresses the emotions of individual characters. This non-literal plot allowed for free emotional interpretation by the audience. The Bride's movements featured quick patterns that stayed within an imaginary box around her. This contrasted with the Revivalist's strict posture and the flowing movements of the Pioneer Woman. One reviewer pointed out the solitude of the characters and its manifestation in their movements, writing, "The separateness of still figures... which their poses emphasize, suggests that people who live in these hills are accustomed to spending much of their time alone."
Initial run and reception.
"Appalachian Spring" premiered on October 30, 1944, at the Coolidge Auditorium, conducted by Louis Horst, the music director of the company. The premiere was the closing concert of a four-day chamber music festival honoring Coolidge's 80th birthday. Copland had not attended any of the rehearsals at Graham's request, first seeing the full performance a day before the premiere. The ballet was well-received by critics and the public. "The New York Times" critic John Martin wrote of the music, "Aaron Copland has written a score of fresh and singing beauty. It is, on its surface, a piece of early Americana, but in reality it is a celebration of the human spirit." The "Dance Observer" critic Robert Sabin wrote