Can Adams really be said to be Copland's successor as dean of American composers?
John Adams is in residence at the Yale School of Music this week.
His stay concludes with a Yale Philharmonia concert Friday night at Woolsey Hall that he will conduct, featuring his own piece, “Absolute Jest,” for string quartet and orchestra. The Brentano String Quartet, newly installed as Yale’s Quartet in Residence, will be featured.
The concert will be repeated the following day at Avery Fisher Hall in New York.
On the radio the other day, in a segment promoting the residency, I heard somebody call Adams the “dean of American composers.”
I guess this makes sense, if by dean we mean the composer who has enjoyed the most successful career of his generation, and whose music regular people have occasionally heard, or at least heard of.
Still, it’s a little jarring because, as with most people of my generation, the term dean automatically conjures up only one name: Aaron Copland.
It got me thinking about how music works in the wider culture these days, and about how much has changed since I and my fellow junior high students were made to listen to Copland’s “Billy the Kid” ballet suite in our weekly -- and mandatory -- Music Appreciation class. (For the record: public school, modest middle class neighborhood.)
When our music teacher called Mr. Copland the dean of American composers, it seemed right even to us dumb kids, because the composer was a recognizable figure whose face you saw in the news and even on TV once in a while and whose music you heard everywhere. “Fanfare for the Common Man” seemed to accompany every serious documentary or outdoor ceremony; “Appalachian Spring” was the theme music for not one but two local radio shows; “Rodeo,” though it hadn’t yet made it into those commercials for the beef industry, was in the air a lot.
The man himself projected a kind of homespun, avuncular personality, which we got occasional glimpses of because network television still offered fairly regular doses of classical music and its practitioners.
It goes without saying that Copland’s sexuality and his politics, which I’m sure would have discomfited many of the citizens who cheerfully accepted his deanly status, were concealed from view. And it must be added that Copland’s more cerebral music – the Piano Concerto, the “Organ Symphony,” etc. -- was no more appreciated in those days than it is now, which is to say not very much.
But the man, and at least his so-called populist music, was part of the national fabric, somehow.
Which brings us back to John Adams.
I’m a great admirer of Adams’ music. I think “Harmonium” is one of the great pieces of our time. I’m strangely fond of his large orchestral work called “Naïve and Sentimental Music,” which has not proven to be one of his bigger hits, but which in time may become one.
I’m never sorry to see “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” or “The Chairman Dances” turn up on an orchestral program, and I am obviously not alone – they are his two most-performed works. (Not coincidentally, I suppose, they are his two shortest.)
“Nixon in China” is certainly an important piece, although its prospects as a repertoire staple are doubtful. And “The Death of Klinghoffer” is proving, at least at the Met, that an opera can be an explosive political flashpoint, even if nobody seems to want to sit through it and determine exactly why it's so explosive.
So can Adams really be said to be Copland’s successor as dean?
The man is 67, has won all the available prizes, has written his memoirs. If people want to confer the title, I guess I’m in.
But let's at least acknowledge that being dean today is a lot different from when the needle could be dropped in the middle of an LP of “Billy the Kid” and a roomful of 12-year-olds would say, “Oh, yeah, here comes the gunfight.”
A Broadway Rarity
“On Your Toes” is an unusual work, with an unusual history. The musical, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Larry Hart and choreography by George Balanchine, opened in 1936.
It had a respectable run of almost a year. But since then it has had a bumpy ride. A movie version came out three years later. The movie versions of most musicals are inferior to their stage incarnations. But the “On Your Toes” movie set a new standard of infidelity to the original, in that it basically jettisoned the show’s songs altogether. It also, unwisely, cast Eddie Albert (later of “Green Acres” infamy) as the male lead.
The show has had a couple of New York revivals, though none since the early '80s.
The Hartt School will give four performances of “On Your Toes” beginning Wednesday, October 22, and running through Sunday, October 26. There is no Saturday performance because of the school’s annual fundraising gala.
Some of us who have lived around here a long time have been trying to remember a previous production – any production – of this show in the region, or even the state. None of us can recall one.
It’s understandable that companies and even schools shy away from “On Your Toes.” It requires a substantial cast of regular musical comedy performers with above-average tap skills, but almost uniquely, it also requires a significant corps of legit ballet dancers who can execute its two lengthy dance sequences, notably the jazzy, independently famous 17-minute “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” (This sparkling creation has been endlessly reimagined, and was, for instance, the inspiration for a 1964 rock instrumental 45 by the Ventures, of “Walk Don’t Run” fame.)
Rising to the challenge, the Hartt production will feature a company of more than 100, including an orchestra of 50.
I’m looking forward to seeing it. In a lifetime of going to concerts and shows, I have never seen a live production of it, and I will wager the same holds true for most of you.
For a sneak video of a recent rehearsal, watch below:
I’ve Heard That Song Before, Unfortunately
The lockout at the Atlanta Symphony, now approaching the two-month mark, is the latest in our seemingly endless march of headache-inducing orchestral labor/management disputes. Among other things, the lockout has elicited an unusual statement from a group of prominent American composers.
One notable feature of this battle is that the management side – which demanded and got significant concessions from the musicians just two years ago -- seems unusually determined to approach the conflict with maximum obtuseness.
The main management figure is one Douglas Hertz, chairman of the Woodruff Arts Center, which oversees the orchestra’s operations.
In a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, speaking of the musicians and their reluctance to accept additional salary cuts and further reductions in the size of the ensemble, Hertz put forward this gem of tactful, well-considered labor diplomacy: “It makes you wonder, you know, are we supporting a bunch of crazy people?” he said.
Hertz was later asked whether he regretted that remark. “Why? It does make me wonder,” he said. “I’m not calling them crazy. I’m just wondering if they’re crazy.”
One of the online commenters posted a reply: “I'm not calling Doug Hertz incompetent. I'm just wondering if he's incompetent.”
Steve Metcalf was The Hartford Courant’s fulltime classical music critic and reporter for over 20 years, beginning in 1982. He is currently the curator of the Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series at The Hartt School. He can be reached at spmetcalf55@gmail.com.
