July 4th, 2013 ~ Appalachian Spring

Appalachian Spring

Some thoughts on Independence Day and some favorite music. (Facebook Posting on July 4^th 2013)

Woke up early today, wanted to sit on my deck and watch the sun come up over the Cascade Mountains and begin to see daylight illuminate into my corner of this great country. If I am lucky and it is sunny I get to see the natural beauty of Washington State’s Mt. Rainier and the urban beauty of downtown Seattle’s skyscrapers. I love this juxtaposition.

It was cloudy, but regardless, it was time to raise the flag on this 237^th Independence Day.

Oslo’s attentive stand was probably more my hopeful mind mirroring my memory of helping my Dad hang the flag on national holidays over our front door to my childhood home on Long Island, or assisting my Uncle Boyd at the flagpole of our family’s cottage on Seneca Lake in upstate New York. But more likely Oslo was thinking about treats or when he’d get his morning breakfast and not the pledge of allegiance, but regardless, I was glad to have him as part of my own little patriotic tradition.

I thought about playing the National Anthem, or a patriotic John Phillips Sousa March, really loud to wake up the neighborhood, since the fireworks tonight will drive Oslo crazy… payback? But I decided that was unwise. Maybe I needed to quickly jump to ITunes and download Lee Greenwood’s country classic I’m Proud to be an American. Heck, the Battle Hymn of the Republic would play nicely with the 150^th Anniversary of Gettysburg. If I really wanted American, how about some Gershwin and Jazz.  Or something showy from Broadway by Richard Rodgers or Stephen Sondheim. How about Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the 4^th of July! My head was swirling with options, the thousands of pop composers and pop singers whose versions of our nation’s musical heritage are known to us all. Where’s Kate Smith and God Bless America? What about Scott Joplin (quick walk over to my piano and see if I can still get through eight bars without getting my fingers caught up under my hand) a syncopated ragtime piece could be patriotic.

Instead, I wanted to pause and be a bit more introspective, it was cloudy, but still beautiful… I wanted to think about my country. So I’m going this morning with Aaron Copland’s 1944 Ballet, Appalachian Spring.  It has been one of my favorite pieces of music for over 30 years. Written at a time when war was looming all around our country. I love the simple melodies reminding me of the beauty of our natural surroundings, I love thinking about it being played for the first time almost 70 years ago as a Ballet commissioned, choreographed and danced by Martha Graham. It was very modern, avant-garde.

I love the American folk themes woven throughout the work, including the Shaker’s Hymn, Simple Gifts. I love that Copland, a boy born in Brooklyn of Jewish Lithuanian descent in 1900, took the already 96 year old melody of Elder Joseph Bracket, a Shaker in Maine, and made his melody and his words come to life and to dance…

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

You can feel the yearning of day to begin in the early music, of spring waking up in the melodies, optimism and hope and for me, a country yearning to be at it’s most beautiful. I love the sharp contrasting conflict, scrappy disharmonies, discordant melodies, it reminds me of urban life, the growth of industry, changing directions and civil unrest, and the struggles and attempts to get it right when at first you don’t, it is all there in the music, heck it might even remind me of politicians in Congress or the Senate.  It is bold and victorious when it needs to be and easy and peaceful when it needs to be. I love listening to the silence when it is over, before I yearn to hear it again. It reminds me so much of our country’s greatness and our gradual recognition of the ever changing face of humanity. And somehow, makes it all seem hopeful and that we somehow will work through it all. And that was what I wanted to think about as I started celebrating our Nation’s birth and Nation’s history.

Copland won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1945 for his arrangement of this Ballet for orchestra. It is a great piece of American music by a great gay American composer.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

Happy Independence Day.

Proud today and always of my country.