Aaron Copland
An Outdoor Overture
The late 1930’s may have been a rough time for Americans, but it was a fertile time for composer Aaron Copland, who was at the height of his “populist” phase. After periods composing in the jazz and then avant garde idioms, he had set out to consciously simplify his music, using folk themes and writing music for more utilitarian purposes, such as film scores or music for schools. In 1936 he wrote an opera, The Second Hurricane, to be sung by children in school performances (along with a chorus for their parents!). Alexander Richter, director of music for the High School of Music and Art in New York City, heard a performance of Hurricane, and when he began a campaign to get more new music written for use in schools, he contacted Copland and asked him to be a part of it. The campaign, called “American Music for American Youth,” would feature music that was “optimistic in tone, which would have a definite appeal to the adolescent youth of this country.”
Copland agreed to the project and created An Outdoor Overture, scoring both a band and an orchestral version of the piece. The work was premiered at Richter’s school in December, 1938, the same year that Copland completed Billy the Kid. The two pieces share some distinct similarities, especially in the opening fanfare of the Overture. This fanfare, and an extended trumpet solo, are contrasted with a march-like theme and a lyrical melody for strings, all of which are cleverly woven into the final, joyous conclusion. Copland’s contemporary, composer Elliott Carter, wrote that the work “…contains some of the finest and most personal music. Its opening is as lofty and beautiful as any passage that has been written by a contemporary composer.”