The
Tender Land by
Aaron Copland
Pacific University, McCready Hall 2043 College Way, 359-2918
7:30 pm Wednesday, April 21
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., 226-0973
8 pm Friday, April 23
$9-$14.50
The Culture
Wars, in many respects a recent phenomenon in American life,
have raged on the musical front since the beginning of the
century. They continue today, as upholders of so-called the
"traditional" values of tonality and tunefulness rail against
the forces of abstruseness and dissonance. One of the more
remarkable ironies of the struggle is that the most prominent
composer associated with the former camp, a man whose music
seems to embody the homespun wholesomeness of the heartland,
was a gay Jewish socialist born to Russian immigrants in Brooklyn,
N.Y.
That man is Aaron Copland, arguably the most recognized
American composer in the classical tradition. Though his
compositions range wide--from jazz-inflected pieces to work
in his own adaptation of the 12-tone system--he is best
known to his countrymen for a handful of pieces including
Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Lincoln Portrait
and Fanfare for the Common Man. His use of bright,
airy orchestration, open chords and quotes from folk tunes
exemplify a certain kind of American music--simple, sincere,
expansive and energetic.
There's an unofficial Copland festival going on in Portland
this month; it may have something to do with the cheery
ingenuousness that accompanies the arrival of spring. The
Oregon Symphony's Nerve Endings series closed its season
with an all-Copland program two weeks ago, and other ensembles
are presenting some of his choral and instrumental works
(see the classical music listings for details). The Coplandiana
reaches a climax this week in two concert performances of
The Tender Land, his only full-length opera, by Murry
Sidlin and the Third Angle new music ensemble.
This presentation of The Tender Land is one of the
more important events of the 1998-99 season for a variety
of reasons, not the least of which is Sidlin's participation.
Sidlin, currently the resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony,
has been instrumental in revitalizing the opera after its
initial failure in the eyes of audiences, critics and Copland
himself. He had been working with the composer while in
residence at the National Symphony in the mid-1970s when
he came across the work and found its major flaw to be the
original orchestration, which seemed out of scale for what
was essentially a chamber opera. Copland gave him the go-ahead
to rework the orchestration for the same 13 instruments
that first played Appalachian Spring. The new version
premiered in 1987, and The Tender Land has since
been widely regarded as one of the few great American operas.
Third Angle, under Sidlin's direction, has also helped
to bring the opera back to the public's attention. Two years
ago the ensemble made the premiere recording of a suite
from the downsized work, along with the original version
of Appalachian Spring, on the KOCH International
label. The group's even-handed approach emphasized the clarity
of the reduced orchestration while demonstrating that piano,
flute, clarinet, bassoon and a handful of strings is still
a potent combination; a chamber ensemble is capable of achieving
great sensitivity and a wide range of colorings without
sacrificing Copland's exuberance and expansive sweep. After
the performances, Third Angle will make the premiere recording
of the entire opera, also on KOCH.
A final reason not to miss this Tender Land is the
cast, a group of Northwest all-stars that includes Janice
Johnson, Milagro Vargas, Christine Meadows, Scott Tuomi
and Richard Zeller. These are all excellent singers, and
I would go so far as to call two of them phenomenal. Richard
Zeller is a stellar musician with a warm and expressive
sound, which he supports exquisitely. (It's a good thing
he does, because it's big enough that, were it to tip over
on you, it could really do some damage.) Vargas has one
of those voices--all caramel with superb control--that makes
otherwise rational people clasp their hands to their chests
and roll their eyes heavenward in rapture.
The Tender Land should challenge some assumptions
about Copland. True, the story is quintessential Americana,
centering on themes of love and community in the heartland
during the Depression, and the libretto is sometimes painfully
hokey-sounding to modern urban ears. But however it is imbued
with a feeling of country simplicity, it is also marked
with ruefulness and the pain of isolation. The music as
well, with its liberal sprinkling of folk fragments, is
undeniably Copland, but listeners should take advantage
of its unfamiliarity to really listen to what goes into
it. Copland picked up where Charles Ives left off in expressing
a native idiom in music, and like Ives, he transformed the
native elements he used by filtering them through a modern
consciousness and a grounding in the European musical past.
There's a tension between tradition and modernity in The
Tender Land, and in Copland's music generally, that
makes it the archetypical classical music of the American
century.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 21,
1999
|
