Quiet City, Aaron Copland

In 1939 Aaron Copland wrote incidental music for the Irwin Shaw play Quiet City. Commissioned for the Group Theater by Harold Clurman and directed by Elia Kazan, the play closed after only two try-out performances. Copland later used some of the music for a one-movement composition, changing the original instrumentation from trumpet, clarinet, saxophone and piano to trumpet, English horn and string orchestra. The piece was premiered on January 28, 1941 by conductor David Saidenberg and his Saidenberg Little Symphony at Town Hall.

According to Copland, the piece was originally "an attempt to mirror the troubled main character of Shaw's play", and that "Quiet City seems to have become a musical entity, superseding the original reasons for its composition". Copland's biographer Vivian Perlis has said that it "reflects the introspective Copland, who liked to compose during the late night hours and enjoyed the idea of quiet streets before a city awakens for a new day".

I hope that the solitude found in so many of Edward Hopper's paintings, as well as in many of these vintage photographs of New York City, complements Copland's music for the viewer as well as it does for me.

[zuzannawisniewska]

Whoever is reading this, we don't know each other and probably never will, but I wish you all the best in life and all the happiness in the world ...

[Stephanie-eyyr]

Listening to Copeland turns the whole world around me into a Norman Rockwell painting and allows me to be part of the landscape if only for five minutes in my mind

[bizzgig]

A lot of people don't know that Copland was a true cat lover, and that while he was writing this piece his cat walked across the piano and knocked the music off the stand. When Copland bent over to pick up the sheets the music was upside down and he immediately saw the opening notes to the Rodeo ballet, which he fully composed two years later. Indisputable evidence that cats are smarter than dogs.

[bettewoodland]

Is it not ironic that Copland, who as a Jew suffered the anti Semitism and prejudice of the day -judged an alien and unAmerican - wrote music that expresses the very essence of America, it's dignity and, well, it's greatness. Greatness.

[alanhill]

I used to walk the lonely early morning city streets after I worked graveyard shifts in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. As a kid, I used to sit in big office suites while my uncle performed his nightly and early morning janitor sitting and staring out over the sparkling crystal-ball of NYC from dusk to dawn. Thank you, Richard Lewis, for posting this evocation and solace for an old and grateful heart.

[jslasher]

Possibly my favourite Copland work. It never fails to impress because it is so evocative of time and place.

[TheIsreal]

I love to just lay back and listen to Aaron Copeland. All my troubles just melt away. Musical Poetry.

[jamescasey]

...I am a child of The City embraced and memorialized by Messrs. Copland and Hopper...As lovely a pairing as a Dragonfly and Water...Was born at Saint Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village...We lived in Brooklyn...In a Brownstone on 13th Street; within expectoration distance of Prospect Park...The City, at First Light, yawns, stretches and reaches its strong arm skyward...One can hear this, if one knows it is there...Have marved, over many decades, at the astonishing number of creative people who were of The City...I would venture to say that Brooklyn might well have been home to the most...This presentation (I would be remiss for forgetting a tip 'o the cap to Mr. Lewis for his marvelous work)...succinctly presents the beautiful, haunting and enticing heart of The City...There is simply no other musicial piece nor work of hand that would come close to the task...Goethe commented that Music is liqud architecture and Architecture is frozen Music..His words, of long ago, run through this presentation...Would but could The City have remained as one sees (and hears) it here...I have seen a good portion of the World...This includes being a 19 year old Army Infantry Lieutenant and commanding a Rifle Platoon in Vietnam...After being badly wound and spending 14 months in Walter Reed Army Hospital, I returned to The City of my Youth...There were, not suprisingly, many changes...The architecture I loved (late 19th & early 20th Century were waiting there...The sounds and smells on the breeze could only have been in New York...Only Copland, in astonishing fashion, has been able to give Music that fits and respects the entity of The City...Hoppeer, with the delicacy of ballet, has been able to present the color, pulse and people of Once Upon A Time in The City...To experience Lower Manhattan, at First Light, on a Sunday morning is joyful...Thomas Sterns Elliot wrote that "...Love is most nearly itself when the here and now cease to matter..."...I have always carried this Copeland/Hopper Light within me through my Life...I feel humbled and fortunate to have had it...I have a number of family members at peace in The City...If possible, take a walk through Woodlawn Cemetery and Calvary Cemetery...They reflect what one sees here...We live in an upside/down, inside/out Mad Hatter's World...In less than two years, many wonderous things have slipped into darkness...Not unlike the destruction of so many ancient sites in Syria...Mr. Lewis's presentation is much like cool water on parched lips and a gentle breeze on a hot brow...It is, in and of itself, art...Speaking only for myself, I need/require Art in my Life...Be thee all safe...Never stop pursuing Happiness...Beauty is always close...You must find it...It does not find you...Pax to all points of the Compass...James Patrick Casey, Esq.
"...Let us go then...You and I...When the evening is spread out against the sky..."(Thomas Sterns Elliot)...

[carlhale]

Copland would rise early in the morning in NYC to compose, before the great city came to life and the hustle and bustle of the daily grind began. The solitary peace and wanderings of those early morning hours pervade this piece, Copland's beckoning anthem to a city that needed tranquil solitude and the happy freedom of being alone, but not lonely. There is an exquisite affirmative quality from the strings as the trumpet heralds a new day, a new dawn, light slanting across the buildings and bridges, calling to men and women to rise to the city, its streets and sidewalks where the dance of life occurs for every soul. It says "come out, come now, come here, " to the living metropolis, celebrate your own breathing among humankind, but seek the higher calling beyond this world, beyond steel and striving and becoming, toward God in heaven above. It really is a transcendent calling beyond the city and the world of cities. It says, "higher, higher."

[simonwhelan]

This tune reminds me of my old dad - Respect Peter. Brings tears to my eyes. Early morning off to work as a lorry driver before the city had risen. It seems so pertinent that Copland had real respect for the working class & their role in society.

[AwaTu]

Aaron Copland & Edward Hopper; a perfect pairing of two of my very favorite artists, working together in a stunning expression of Americana ...Beautifully done, my Friend!

[zuzannawisniewska]

I'm 59 and I've loved Aaron Goplan since childhood. I also cry when I read the comments here. You are all wonderful! This is my favorite Complad work ... from Fort Worth, Texas

[mrhilma]

Cor Anglais and trumpet taking the lead. An inspired combination calling to one another. Great to hear and thanks for posting it.

[carldouglasmiller]

I generally hate any graphic accompaniment posted with YouTube music presentations. This instance is an exception. Your choice of photos and Hopper paintings is inspired and a wonderful complement to the music. Thank you so much.

[josephfahner]

When I hear this piece I imagine the closing scene of the movie " Dead End" and words of Thoreau that " most men lead lives of quiet desperation".

[LibertyorDeath]

There is a beautiful sense of curiosity embedded in Copland's music as if the notes are wondering the streets, facing the struggles of life, writing their own story. A story of curiosity, learning, despair, destruction, loss, rebuilding, hope and circling around the entire experience of the human condition enough times to both frighten and comfort you, lingering long enough to encapsulate the resilience of the human spirit.

[WalterTrachim]

This piece of music inspired me to pick the trumpet back up after almost 35 years away from it

[ThomasLock-nr]

This trumpet player LOVES this work! Wish I'd known it in my younger days.

[bornagain]

I really enjoy Copland's third symphony-it takes several hearings to comprehend its emotional impact.

[davidhoadley]

I'll just assume that the people who voted "thumbs-down" on the brilliance that is Copland and this epitome of American music had their finger slip.