3.18.2010

Thursday Text/Tunes: Appalachian Spring

Last week we attended the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The final piece of the night was Copland's suite from Appalachian Spring. It was a ballet piece that was later expanded to a full orchestra piece. It was still just as beautiful in its simple form. Here's how Copland described the ballet:

A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last [nineteenth] century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At te end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.

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