Connotations For Orchestra
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Connotations For Orchestra or sometimes simply Connotations is a piece for orchestra by Aaron Copland. The piece was commissioned by Leonard Bernstein in 1962 to commemorate the opening of Philharmonic Hall, now Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States. This piece marks a departure from Copland's populist period that began with El Salón México in 1936 and includes the works he is most famous for such as Appalachian Spring, Lincoln Portrait and Rodeo. It represents a return to his period of composition that started following his return from Europe in 1924 after studying under Nadia Boulanger and continuing until the Great Depression.
The piece is dodecaphonic (a style of composition which is among the first introduced, and certainly most well known, forms of musical Serialism).
As serial and serial-inspired music was considered more academically viable than music utilizing common practice tonality (especially in Europe), some contemporary critics felt that Copland was trying to retain his place at the apex of the American classical music scene by conforming to "academic stadards." As Copland had been one of the first American composers to import the style from Europe -- in the mid twenties -- these critics may have overlooked the possibility that his "populist period" may have represented the more jarring deviation in his compositional style.
[edit] External links
- Essay by music critic Kyle Gann [1]
- Brief Description of Connotations [2]
