LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Copland: Music
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The jazzy young dandy that Copland was in his 20s found expression in two early pieces. The zippy piano scherzo ``The Cat and the Mouse'' got a dexterous performance by Peter Grunberg, and the Prologue to Copland's ``Music for the Theatre'' -- a sort of jam-packed overture to a hypothetical stage revue -- exerted its hyperkinetic charm.
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Copland was an important contributor to the film score genre. Several of the themes he created are encapsulated in the suite, Music for Movies, and his score for the film of Steinbeck's novel, The Red Pony, one of Copland's favourite scores, was given a suite of its own.
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Copland's early works Grohg and Music for the Theatre show jazz influence. But he was soon to shed this in favour of strictly classical yet modernist works. With the great depression of the 1930s, when millions of Americans were unable to find work, the appeal of abstract music began to wain. So beginning in 1938, Copand produced a series of ballets that were to be widely heard and musically influential: Billy the Kid (a ballet about a legendary western outlaw, complete with cowboy songs, commissioned in 1938 by Kirstein for Eugene Loring), Rodeo (another Wild West ballet, about a cowgirl's search for a man) and Appalachian Spring (commissioned by the choreographer Martha Graham). When World War II began, the Cincinnati Symphony needed a patriotic American hero, and Copland -- by now one of the most famous composers in America -- wrote A Lincoln Portrait. For the same orchestra, he created his noble Fanfare for the Common Man.
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Perhaps not surprisingly, Copland began his journey through the filter of American myth. His ballet music for Billy the Kid drew craft from his previous work; the inspiration stemmed from his enthusiastic embrace of a historical landscape rendered better imaginatively. Copland showed ingenuity in his ability to seamlessly incorporate pre-existing folk material (in this case, cowboy songs) into music with sophistication. Unlike other notable modern composers who utilized folk materials either by imitating or merely orchestrating them, Copland absorbed them into the total texture of his work. It was something to which he returned in his subsequent ballets Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1943-44), as well as in some charming orchestral miniatures like John Henry (1940).
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In 1953 Copland was brought before Congress for questioning on his Communist leanings during what was known as the "Red Scare". Copland had spoken out in favour of the Communist Party during the presidential election in 1936. The accusation caused outrage in the musical community and "The Lincoln Portrait" was removed from President Eisenhowers inauguration concert. Copland denied ever being a communist and nothing to the contrary was ever proven by the investigation which ceased 2 years later in 1955.
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Having defended the Communist Party USA during the 1936 presidential election, Copland was investigated by the FBI during the red scare of the 1950s. In 1953, his music was pulled from President Eisenhower's inaugural concert due to the political climate; that same year Copland testified before U.S. Congress that he was never a Communist. The investigation went inactive in 1955 and was closed in 1975. Copland's membership in the party was never proven.
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