Post by erik on Dec 12, 2020 17:09:30 GMT -5
The saga of the notorious New Mexico outlaw William Bonney, alias Billy The Kid, has been the subject of many biographies and films; and in 1939, America's greatest living composer Aaron Copland made an Old West ballet out of it. His score is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.
Copland: BILLY THE KID (COMPLETE BALLET)
Along with George Armstrong Custer’s fatal blow against the Sioux in the Battle of Little Big Horn, and the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, the saga of one William Bonney, who was born Henry Antrim, is the most famous major episode of the Old West. Bonney, who because of his youth, came to be known as Billy The Kid, riding for John Chisum during the infamous Lincoln County Cattle War in 1878 New Mexico, but turning outlaw when the war ended, and gaining a reputation for being a ruthless gunman, a reputation cut short when his former friend, Pat Garrett, the sheriff of Lincoln County, shot and killed him just after midnight on July 15, 1881 in Pete Maxwell’s house at Fort Sumner. That this great Old West episode found its way into the popular American imagination, and subsequently into legend and myth, is not at all surprising. That it could be done as a ballet, however, took people by surprise in 1938, fifty-seven years after the Kid’s death, when Ballet Caravan dared to stage it, with help from the Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland. Copland was amused at the notion, finding it initially strange that he, a Jewish composer from the Big Apple, could possibly write a score redolent of the Old West. Nevertheless, he managed to put his genius for the American Sound into this great saga, utilizing the melodies of a number of Old West folk ballads, including “Old Paint”. The Ballet Caravan premiered the ballet in 1938 in Chicago to great success, leading to two more huge ballet commissions for Copland, in the form of “Rodeo” (another Western-themed ballet), and “Appalachian Spring”. Though Copland assembled an orchestral suite from the ballet for concert use, it took until 1985, when the complete ballet score made it onto CD, when the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recorded it under its music director Leonard Slatkin.
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra/LEONARD SLATKIN (EMI)
Included:
RODEO (COMPLETE BALLET)
Copland: BILLY THE KID (COMPLETE BALLET)
Along with George Armstrong Custer’s fatal blow against the Sioux in the Battle of Little Big Horn, and the Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, the saga of one William Bonney, who was born Henry Antrim, is the most famous major episode of the Old West. Bonney, who because of his youth, came to be known as Billy The Kid, riding for John Chisum during the infamous Lincoln County Cattle War in 1878 New Mexico, but turning outlaw when the war ended, and gaining a reputation for being a ruthless gunman, a reputation cut short when his former friend, Pat Garrett, the sheriff of Lincoln County, shot and killed him just after midnight on July 15, 1881 in Pete Maxwell’s house at Fort Sumner. That this great Old West episode found its way into the popular American imagination, and subsequently into legend and myth, is not at all surprising. That it could be done as a ballet, however, took people by surprise in 1938, fifty-seven years after the Kid’s death, when Ballet Caravan dared to stage it, with help from the Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland. Copland was amused at the notion, finding it initially strange that he, a Jewish composer from the Big Apple, could possibly write a score redolent of the Old West. Nevertheless, he managed to put his genius for the American Sound into this great saga, utilizing the melodies of a number of Old West folk ballads, including “Old Paint”. The Ballet Caravan premiered the ballet in 1938 in Chicago to great success, leading to two more huge ballet commissions for Copland, in the form of “Rodeo” (another Western-themed ballet), and “Appalachian Spring”. Though Copland assembled an orchestral suite from the ballet for concert use, it took until 1985, when the complete ballet score made it onto CD, when the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recorded it under its music director Leonard Slatkin.
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra/LEONARD SLATKIN (EMI)
Included:
RODEO (COMPLETE BALLET)
. This ballet and his subsequent ones also resonated with some musicals I think-- Oklahoma and Carousal certainly and elsewhere. Copland has many sides of course: but this 'Americana' side is one of the best and strongest.