Hot Hits: Aaron Copland

Inspired by a life-changing trip to Mexico City in 1932, Aaron Copland wrote El Salón Mexico after his friend Carlos Chávez (founder of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra) took him to a nightclub of the same name.

Heavily influenced by Mexican folk music and embodying the atmosphere of the 1930s Mexican dance halls, El Salón Mexico signified Copland’s evolution into creating more populist pieces. Using Latin American rhythms, Copland’s work was widely welcome in Mexico, much to his relief.

One of Aaron Copland’s first major ballets, Billy the Kid, is a homage to the American Wild West and infamous outlaw Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid. Asked by Lincoln Kirstein and Eugene Loring of Ballet Caravan to compose a “cowboy ballet”, Copland borrowed from American folk songs Git Along Little Dogies, The Old Chisholm Trail, and Goodbye Old Paint to create the sprawling, harmony-laden score that evokes an idealised Americana of vast possibility.

Agnes de Mille approached Aaron Copland to compose Rodeo after being impressed by his previous work, Billy the Kid. Initially reluctant to be typecast as a “cowboy ballet” composer, Copland was convinced by de Mille to create the ballet of five sections: Buckaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturne, Ranch House Party, Saturday Night Waltz, and Hoe-Down. With help from The Australian Ballet’s founder, Peggy van Praagh, de Mille choreographed Rodeo and, in its 1942 premiere, starred in the leading role. The production impressed audience members Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein so much that they asked her to choreograph their upcoming musical, Oklahoma!

Inspired by a speech given by Vice President Henry Wallace in 1942, Copland wrote the piece at the request of conductor Eugene Goossens. The rousing composition heavily featured the brass section of the orchestra and punctuated the majestic moments with powerful percussion. The epic orchestration was exactly what Goossens was looking for and continues to influence popular culture today.

Martha Graham’s ballet that captures the spirit of rural America. After being commissioned to write the work, Copland was forbidden from seeing it performed until the day before the premiere. Embodying the American sound he had created, Appalachian Spring would ultimately win Copland a Pulitzer Prize and is one of his most beloved and defining works.