Musical America Discovers Itself

Vincent d'INDY (1851-1931): Suite for flute, string trio & harp (1927)

Leonard BERNSTEIN (1918-1990): Sonata for clarinet & piano (1942)

Nadia BOULANGER (1887-1979): Two Pieces for cello & piano (1914)

Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990): Piano Quartet (1950)

Anton DVOŘÁK (1841-1904): String Quintet (American) in E flat for two violins, two violas & cello Opus 97 (1893)

Concert music from the United States may not have achieved anything like the international domination of American-style pop and jazz, but its status has risen appreciably as a result of the relatively recent arrival of some outstanding composers whose leading works have become part of the world’s standard repertories. One of those composers is Aaron Copland and among his finest, most absorbing and satisfying chamber music is his Piano Quartet for keyboard, violin, viola and cello. Copland acknowledged his debt to Nadia Boulanger, a great teacher in Paris who showed him and many other American composers how to find themselves stylistically, just as Vincent d’Indy at Paris’s Schola Cantorum helped Cole Porter to become one of the most sophisticated harmonists among Broadway composers without destroying his originality. Boulanger and d’Indy make brief appearances in this program in their own right, as does Leonard Bernstein, who picked up hints from many of his predecessors; while Antonín Dvořák, the great Czech composer who spent some years as head of a New York conservatory, urged American musicians to learn from the sounds around them, including Afro-American and native American traditions, and showed them how in his sparkling and melodious Opus 97 E flat (American) String Quintet for two violins, two violas and cello.