Aaron Copland (1900–90), one of America’s best known and most beloved composers, wrote a number of highly original works during a long and illustrious career. He also served as mentor to other American composers and advocated a distinctly American style of music. Copland composed pieces that are associated with the American spirit, often expressed in grand orchestral settings for the ballet and the concert hall. His works have even been quoted in popular culture, including television commercials; for example, Hoe-Down promotes the benefits of beef and Fanfare for the Common Man underscores the pride of serving in the armed forces.

However, a closer look at Copland’s oeuvre reveals much more than rousing musical Americana. The quality and variety are striking, especially when studied from a repertoire for which Copland is barely known—his pieces for violin and piano. The Terwilliger-Cooperstock Duo has championed these works for more than a decade, performing them throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Australia, and recording them on the Azica label—the recently released disc Aaron Copland: The Complete Works for Violin and Piano (ACD, 71205). The disc lasts just over an hour and offers a glimpse into most of the different styles Copland explored during his compositional life.

Spanning the years 1919 to 1977, the works on the recording include two early, unpublished preludes; the jazzy Nocturne and Ukelele [sic] Serenade (1926); the popular ballet transcriptions Waltz and Celebration (1938/1950) from Billy the Kid and Hoe-Down (1942/1946) from Rodeo; the substantial and mature Sonata (1943); and the modern-sounding Duo (1971/1977), arranged for violin from his work for flute.

All of his completed works, except the preludes, are published by Boosey & Hawkes (www.boosey.com).

Early Works
Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn in 1900. He was influenced by the divergent musical styles that emerged in America and Europe throughout the 20th century. As a youth, he dabbled in composition, beginning at age eight, but his first serious study began at 17 with Rubin Goldmark (who had studied with Dvorák. Goldmark coached the young composer in form, counterpoint, and harmony. His teacher’s conservatism led Copland to turn his interests to the music of Debussy, Ravel, and especially Fauré, whom Copland referred to as the “French Brahms.”

In fact, his earliest works for violin and piano were heavily influenced by the French post-Romantic and Impressionist styles. After beginning (but not completing) a Capriccio in 1916, then penning an unsophisticated Chopin-influenced piece, Copland composed two highly lyrical preludes in 1919 and 1921 (both unpublished). Their lush harmonies are reminiscent of Fauré.

In 1920 he moved to Paris to study with famed composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Copland flourished under Boulanger’s guidance and he encouraged other American composers to study with her as well. While in Paris he immersed himself in the available pool of innovation and creativity, hearing the music of Prokofiev, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Hindemith, Bartók, and Ravel.

When Copland returned to the United States he embarked on a determined effort to develop what he referred to as a “naturally American strain of so-called serious music.” In his view, there was no music more characteristically American than jazz. Ironically, it was already all the rage in Europe and figured in such works as Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale (1918) and in the Blues movement of Ravel’s Violin Sonata (1927). Copland’s jazz-inspired Music for the Theater (1925), Piano Concerto (1926), and Two Pieces: Nocturne and Ukelele Serenade (1926) for violin and piano created a sensation and put Copland on the musical map for his bold individuality.

Nocturne and Ukelele Serenade were premiered in Paris by Copland and Samuel Dushkin (1891–1976), the violinist who also premiered works of Gershwin and Stravinsky.


Dreamy Blues
Dedicated to composer Israel Citkowitz (1909–74), the bluesy Nocturne is slow and dreamy, but Copland also gives it a harmonic intensity and textural sparseness that distinguishes it from pure jazz. The unusual groupings in the piano, indicated by a time signature of 3 plus 5 over 8, with accelerando and ritardando in each bar, are not shared by the violin, which has a regular 4/4 meter. This feeling of rhythmic flexibility—a sort of written-out rubato—pervades the entire movement, in which jazz chords in the piano accompany the violin as it moves languidly along in a slow rhythm that Copland wants played as presque un triolet—almost a triplet.

After an even slower middle section, the first theme returns almost orchestrally in five different registers at once. (Note the use of three staves in the piano part at measure 39.) Here the violin climbs to an impassioned “wail” up on the E string. (This piece is a measure of a violinist’s skill of sostenuto.) From this moment of sustained intensity, the violin goes for the throaty sound high on the G string to a C#, then climbs even higher to a G# (Tzigane cadenza territory) from which it drops precipitously in a long glissando to a low C in measures 52–54—a rather striking effect, to be sure.

A short violin cadenza in double-stops recalls the theme of the slower middle section and finishes with equally throaty low harmonics on the G string (the kind played with a fifth stretch between the first and fourth fingers), leaving the piece in a feeling of repose.

Snappy Jazz
Dedicated to Samuel Dushkin, Ukelele Serenade is a “snappy number,” Copland’s term for music in a livelier jazz style. The heavily syncopated violin entrance in rather rude half-step and major-seventh double-stops—later, and particularly in the final cadence of the piece, taken by the piano—immediately sets a gleefully rambunctious stage for this piece. Quarter-tone flatted notes and slides are sprinkled generously throughout, giving it an unabashedly jazzy flavor that must have been rather shocking in its day. There is even a thrown bow (jeter l’archet) shoe-shine type stroke in a dotted rhythm section, adding to the variety of fun touches found in this work.

Early in the piece there are off-beat accents in both parts and the bass accents, which help suggest a rebarring of the piano’s left hand into 3/4. Performers should be sure to notice the rhythmic differences in bars 11 and 13, where the parts line up only on the second half of beat 2 in the latter measure. Measure 11 should be played with authority to avoid the impression of any miscounting by either player! Our general advice is to play steadily with great sense of the pulse at all times.

The imitations of the ukulele—the small Hawaiian guitar popular in the US in the 1920s, misspelled in the title—are played
first by the piano in arpeggiated chords, then in measure 91 by the violin in plucked quadruple-stops (see the excerpt). To further achieve the indicated accents, the accented chords may be plucked with a downward stroke with the arm, and the unaccented chords with an upward stroke, always with a slightly loose plucking finger to give more of a “strumming” effect. This provides the desired dynamic contrast and prevents retaking for each chord.

In measures 91 to 100, above the rhythmic ostinato of the ukulele, Copland writes a long, free melody that is neither in the same key nor the same meter as the accompaniment. (Rehearsing this section can be interesting, since for long stretches, the bars do not line up.) These bimetric and bitonal touches are clear influences of Stravinsky, and provide intriguing intensity to these sections. The violinist is also given sections of sul ponticello (measure 101), octaves, harmonics, and glissandos in both single- and double-stops. It is a challenging work for both the violin and piano, and it begs to be played with virtuosity and jazzy abandon, offering up a lot of fun for both performers and audience alike.

Either paired with the Nocturne within a program or played by itself as an encore, Ukelele Serenade is a rousing crowd pleaser and an appealing look at Copland’s more humorous side.