Orchestral music represented overindulgence, opulence and the notion that biggeris most certainly better.
Composers started to rebel against the Late Romantic musical style.
Number of composers developed new ways of creating music, looking backwards for inspiration, developing mew musical languages and styles that challenged the basis of music itself.
Music became increasingly influenced by other popular and traditional music that surrounded them in every day life.
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About Aaron Copland
Born 14 November 1900 in Brooklyn, New York.
Copland started to write melodies from the age of 11 and this is when he first began music theory and composition lessons.
He was very interested in western classical music and wanted tto learn about composition in Europe.
He moved to Paris when he was 20 and had composition lessons with Nadia Boulanger whowas a very famous female composer.
He attended The American Conservatory Fontaine bleau as one of the students in its first year of opening.
Copland returned home and formed the 'League of Composers' in the USA. It was a group of like minded composers who would push forward with a musical style that aimed to bring together western classical style and populist culture.
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About Aaron Copland
In 1929, the Great Depression in America begain and after a period of poverty-induced soul searching, Coplanddeduced that his heart was in left-wing politics and the populist movement. Its beliefs spurred on the style of many of his subsequent works.
Copland was determined to use his music in a way that would speak to the American people and so undertook to become deliberately influenced by music that was around him everyday. He experimented with these influences.
In the twenties, music collectors had made a number of recordings of American folk tunes and Copland used some of these folk tunes in his music.
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Background to the study pieces.
The two study pieces are from a larger piece composed by Copland, a ballet that received its first performance in 1942. The ballet uses typical American social scenes to play out the story of a cowgirl who is a tomboy and finds it difficult to find love.
Saturday Night Waltz is a movement from the ballet and so is Hoedown. These are the set pieces for this set work.
Copland has used a number of American folk tunes within Rodeo and some of these feature within our set works e.g. Bonaparte's retreat and Miss McLeod's Reel.
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