Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra

THE CLARINET CONCERTO (STRINGS, HARP AND PIANO) by AARON COPLAND was composed for the “King of Swing,” American clarinetist Benny Goodman. Having already achieved success in the standard jazz clarinet repertoire, Goodman commissioned several new works to perform. These included Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto for clarinet and jazz orchestra and Copland's Clarinet Concerto. Both are among the most notable repertoire titles for this instrument. Copland is considered the doyen of American composers, having achieved a modern presentation of American music. A student of the legendary Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Copland studied French and history at the Sorbonne. He mastered all modern compositional techniques while retaining his affinity for folk and popular music. Copland had a long professional life and died in 1990 at the age of 90. He continued to compose actively into his 70s and then continued to conduct and lecture. Copland wrote in a variety of musical styles. His Clarinet Concerto was written during a period when he believed that music should be more approachable to listeners. In 1947, Benny Goodman reached out to Copland, two years after the composer won the Pulitzer Prize for his ballet Appalachian Spring (1944) and composed his Symphony No. 3. The concerto was completed in the fall of 1948, but Goodman requested revisions, primarily due to the complex rhythmic writing and overuse of the instrument's high register in the second movement. Although Copland edited it, Goodman did not present it until November 6, 1950, in an NBC radio broadcast with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner. Some argue that this should not be considered the world premiere since the first public performance was on November 28, 1950, at a concert in New York with Ralph McLane and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. The concerto is a brilliant example of Copland's compositional style at the time, imbued with expressive grit and the vitality of jazz. Its two movements are linked by a clarinet cadenza. The first movement is slower, lyrical, and expressive. It is structured in three-part song form (A-B-A). The cadenza features fragments of the melodic material from the second movement, which has a rondo-like character. Copland, who undertook a four-month tour of Latin America in 1947, notes in the finale that an unconscious fusion of elements obviously related to North and South American popular music (for example, a phrase from a currently popular Brazilian tune, heard by me in Rio, became embedded in the secondary material. This piece was written specifically for Benny Goodman's jazz talent. The final major coda is technically complex and ends with a spectacular clarinet glissando. The Clarinet Concerto is Aaron Copland's second and final concerto. After the piano concerto he composed in his youth, it is considered the first American clarinet concerto to be recognized by performers worldwide. In 1951, American choreographer Jerome Robbins, a prominent figure in American and world ballet, set The Pied Piper ballet to the music of the Clarinet Concerto.