DVOŘÁK’S PROPHECY – A New Narrative for American Classical Music

Film 4: Aaron Copland: American Populist

A PostClassical Ensemble ‘More than Music’ film
Written and produced by Joseph Horowitz
Visual presentation by Peter Bogdanoff

Buffeted by social and political currents, Copland can seem unmoored: a cork in a stream. He was politicised by the Depression – and by the example of Mexico, whose artists galvanised national identity and progressive thought. He wrote a prize-winning workers’ song and addressed a Communist picnic in Minnesota. Twenty years later, the Red Scare targeted him as a traitor. Can his odyssey be read as a parable illuminating the fate of the American artist? This film features a re-enactment of Copland’s grilling by Senator Joseph McCarthy (played by Edward Gero). It also highlights the most consequential Copland score we don’t know: his ingenious music for Lewis Mumford’s 1939 World’s Fair film The City, itself a complex product of the Popular Front. We reconsider the valedictory Piano Fantasy, in which Copland refreshed his modernist roots – a galvanising performance by Benjamin Pasternack, who also recalls a telling encounter with the composer. Our other commentators include the American historians Michael Kazin and Joseph McCartin, who ponder the tangled legacy of American populism of the left and right. – J.H.

Music:
Aaron Copland

with
Benjamin Pasternack
PostClassical Ensemble
Angel Gil-Ordóñez
Francis Guinan
Joseph Horowitz
Michael Kazin
Beth Levy
Joseph McCartin
Lorenzo Candelaria
Edward Gero
Murray Horwitz

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Audio language: English
Running time: 78 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)