Igor Stravinsky’s Influence on Aaron Copland

An Inquiry into Stravinsky’s Effect on Copland’s Nationalism and Style of Composition

Marty Yang

Music 89S

Professor Davidson

November 14, 2012

 Yang 2

The most important thing for me, though, was that Stravinsky proved it was possible for a

twentieth-century composer to create his own tradition.

- Aaron Copland, Copland: 1900 Through 1942

Igor Stravinsky’s success as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century and most

influential musical innovators of all-time was inspirational for countless musicians. This paper

will examine Stravinsky’s influence on Aaron Copland: a prominent American composer and

conductor of the same period. The first half of the paper will discuss the impact of Stravinsky’s

strong sense of nationalism on Copland’s use of American motifs in a number of his works. This

includes a reflection on Copland and Stravinsky’s mutual use of folk music from their respective

countries in their ballets. In addition, we will consider the effect of Stravinsky’s obsession with

religious rituals on Copland’s inclusion of Jewish traditions into his American-style works. The

final part of this section will consider the relative importance of Copland and Stravinsky on

classical music in the United States. The latter portion of the paper will demonstrate the impact

of Stravinsky on Copland’s style of composition. It begins with a look into Copland’s formal

musical training in France, under the helm of Nadia Boulanger, who taught several successful

American composers. More importantly, Boulanger was one of Stravinsky’s closest friends

during his time in France and passed on some of Stravinsky’s styles to Copland. This will be

followed by an exploration of Stravinsky’s use of polyrhythms, his neo-classical style, and his

emotional detachment from the music when he composed. In particular, we will focus on how

these aforementioned stylistic methods present themselves in Copland’s works and conclude

with a review of the personal relationship between the two composers.

 Yang 3

Copland was inspired by Stravinsky’s powerful sense of pride in his Russian heritage to

incorporate diverse American motifs into his compositions as his symbol of patriotism. Some of

Stravinsky’s most influential ballets –The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring – sought

to depict the “folk and primitive-historical origins of the Russian people.” 1 Stravinsky presented

the culture of ancient Russia in a manner that could be appreciated by his modern-day audience,

without sacrificing the rich history of his country. Of Copland’s numerous works composed for

theater, his ballets emulated Stravinsky’s style most closely. They served as a platform for

Copland to expose his audience to a wide range of stories in American history. In 1934, Ruth

Page, the dancer in Copland’s Music for the Theatre that was performed at the Coolidge Festival

in Washington D.C., wrote to Copland in hopes of finding an American ballet to perform in her

upcoming season. Copland agreed to work with Page in August 1934, co-writing the first of

Copland’s four prominent ballets, Hear Ye! Hear Ye!, which was aimed at capturing the

“primitive Negro ‘jazz spirit’.” 2 The ballet, which told of the mystery behind the murder of a

night-club dancer, was interspersed with some of Copland’s jazz. This was an unexpected

deviation from some of Copland’s early pieces, including Piano Variations, Short Symphony,

and Statements, but marked a concerted effort on Copland’s part to incorporate a uniquely

American genre of music into his repertoire. Moreover, Copland used his ballet as a medium to

express his political views. In the beginning and conclusion of a scene of Hear Ye! Hear Ye!,

Copland included a parody of Star Spangled Banner as a means of representing the recurring

theme of “a distortion of American justice” 3 in his ballet. Copland’s second ballet, Billy the Kid,

was composed in 1938, four years after his grand success with Page. In a fashion analogous to

                                                           
1
Julia Smith, Aaron Copland, His Work and Contribution to American Music (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company,
Inc., 1955), 184.
2
Ibid., 185.
3
Ibid., 187.
 Yang 4

Stravinsky’s ballets, Copland used his music to express his appreciation of what Julia Smith

termed as “the virility and hardy spirit of West.” 4 The prelude of the song, entitled “The Open

Prairie”, was harmonized in open fifths and used a wood-wind setting to convey “the wide

expanse and nostalgic loneliness” 5 that is commonly associated with the prairie lifestyle. In the

“Nocturnal Card Game” – a classic American chase scene with the posse and the narrative’s

protagonist – Copland’s score included a series of low-pitched notes from the percussion

instruments in concert with the rat-a-tat from the double-tonguing of muted trumpets. Copland’s

third ballet, entitled Rodeo, was written in 1942 in collaboration with choreographer Agnes de

Mille and featured many of the same American themes as his preceding cowboy ballet, Billy the

Kid. Copland’s fourth and final ballet, Appalachian Spring, was written over a two-year period

from 1943 to 1944. Appalachian Spring represented Copland’s pinnacle of success in the realm

of ballet, garnering the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1945. Copland’s most successful

achievement with this composition was the creation of an American baroque. 6 Copland adapted

the baroque style, popularized by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel in the 18th

century, to pay homage to the Quaker lifestyle in rural Pennsylvania. Copland maintained the

integrity of the constant movement characteristic of the baroque period, but incorporated a set of

instruments that were more prevalent in American culture at his time: pairs of woodwinds, horns,

trumpets, and trombones, as well as piano, harp, percussion, and strings 7. Throughout his

ballets, Copland employed a multitude of American motifs to display his pride in his country.

This proved to be a successful adaptation of Stravinsky’s “Russianness” and established ballet as

a prominent form of art in America in the 20th century.

                                                           
4
Ibid., 185.
5
Ibid., 188.
6
Ibid., 197.
7
Ibid., 195.
 Yang 5

Stravinsky’s interest in religious rituals motivated Copland to incorporate Jewish history

in a subset of his compositions. These works were written by Copland with the intention of

establishing Jewish traditions as an American motif. It should be noted that both Copland’s

father and mother were Jewish immigrants from Lithuanian Russia 8. The neighborhood in which

Copland was raised, southern Bedford, was inhabited by a limited Jewish population. This did

not deter Copland’s family from their attempt to retain their Jewish identity. Indeed, Copland’s

father, Harris, served as the president of the local synagogue in the Cobble Hill area, Copland’s

brother, Ralph, supervised Sunday School activities, and the Coplands celebrated a number of

Jewish holidays. 9 In spite of Copland’s upbringing, all indications suggested that he abandoned

his Jewish faith upon adulthood: he was seldom seen in attendance at synagogue service and he

declared in a letter that he wrote to his friend in 1974 that “resigned from the Jewish church.” 10

As a result, only a small proportion of Copland’s works explicitly referenced an aspect of Jewish

culture and Copland was commissioned to write many of these pieces. It turned out that Vitebsk,

the only work that Copland voluntarily composed with a Jewish theme, proved difficult for the

majority of Jewish-Americans to relate to, as the piece focused on the living conditions of a slum

situated in Eastern Europe.

Like Copland, Stravinsky turned away from religion at some point in his adolescence.

Stravinsky was baptized at birth and his parents raised him in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Stravinsky’s faith was fully restored by his early forties and he returned formally to the Orthodox

communion at Easter 1926. This date coincided closely with Stravinsky’s writing of Oedipus

rex and its subsequent production in 1927. Later in his life, Stravinsky admitted that his opera

                                                           
8
Carol J. Oja and Judith Tick ed., Aaron Copland and His World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 1.
9
Ibid., 1-2.
10
Ibid., 2.
 Yang 6

was partly written with a religious impulse. 11 Stravinsky did not feature religion prominently in

his work until 1948, shortly after the Second World War, when he finished writing The Mass.

The Mass was unusually composed in the form of a religious worship for the Catholic rite

because the playing of musical instruments was forbidden in Orthodox services. It highlighted

Stravinsky’s obsession of ritualistic songs and revived some of the same themes in his earlier

works: Symphonies d’instruments à vent and The Wedding. 12 The majority of Stravinsky’s

religious music would be written in the latter part of his life. One of these works was the

“Prayer” movement of A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer that Stravinsky finished in 1961.

He used a “combination of gongs, piano, harp, and double-bass” to support the lyrical parts of

the choral piece, which were both spoken and sung. 13 Stravinsky’s faith may have diminished

over periods of his life, but the power of his religious pieces will remain a significant part of his

legacy.

There has been considerable controversy over the impact of Stravinsky’s religiousness on

Copland’s composition. Some of his colleagues believed that he inherently possessed qualities

of a prophet, earning him the moniker of “musical Moses”. For instance, Leo Smit, one of

Copland’s friends, was quoted, “That voice, that Mosaic voice…the first time I heard the

opening of the Piano Concerto, I thought of Moses blasting away on the mountain top.” 14

Leonard Bernstein, one of the most acclaimed American conductors, encountered Copland at a

concert in 1937 and remarked, “It’s [Copland’s music was] hard as nails, as Moses was hard as

nails, with his tablets and prophesying and shattering those two tablets of the Law, and then

                                                           
11
Stephen Walsh. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed
October 17, 2012, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818.
12
Stephen Walsh. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed
October 17, 2012, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818pg8.
13
Stephen Walsh. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed
October 17, 2012, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818pg10.
14
Oja and Tick ed., Aaron Copland and His World, 3.
 Yang 7

trying again.” 15 Meanwhile, other factions of academia believed that Copland was unaware of

his own prophetic tendencies and that they were simply incompatible with his personality. In

fact, Bernstein was evidently ambivalent when he added that he had a “connection in [his] mind

between Moses and Aaron,” which led him to be “shocked to meet this young-looking, smiling,

giggling fellow.” 16

As far as Copland’s music itself, a series of implicit references to Judaism generated

considerable controversy in the musical community. Some scholars argued that Copland’s solo

piano pieces were a reflection of his interest in Stravinsky’s incorporation of religious rituals in

composition. These pieces for the piano – most notably, the Piano Variations (1930), the Piano

Sonata (1941), and the Piano Fantasy (1957) – spanned his career as a composer in its entirety.

Pollack described such works as embedded with “powerful declamations marked by speechlike

rhythms, brittle attacks, and leaping melodies, with only the sparest (if any) harmonies,” 17 which

rendered Copland’s music “closer to prophetic rhetoric…than to any concert music tradition.” 18

An additional common thread in prophetic messages of the Jewish faith was the universal fear of

God’s wrath, in combination with the anticipation of ultimately reaching the Kingdom of God.

Copland intended to portray this sense of uneasiness in his rendition of Piano Fantasy with the

following directives at the start of passages: “restless, hesitant,” “hurried and tense,” “agitated,”

“uncertain,” “violent,” “furiously,” and “insistent.” 19 This effect was successfully matched by

the construct of Piano Fantasy, in which one could find “halting and shifting metrical contexts”

juxtaposed with “barely moving, often very dissonant harmonies.” Sarcasm was a third

mechanism used by prophets to deliver their message to their audience. Much of Copland’s

                                                           
15
Ibid., 4.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 5.
18
Ibid., 6.
19
Ibid., 7.
 Yang 8

music was written to satirize a component of American culture and this represented the most

direct link between his religious and American motifs. In particular, Copland’s Billy the Kid was

composed as a means of mocking social outcasts in America in the latter half of the 19th century

by a “grotesquely ironic depiction.” 20 It is evident that Stravinsky and Copland used vastly

different approaches to integrate religion into their works. This divergence could be attributed

largely to the varied audiences to which they attempted to captivate: Stravinsky wrote in honor

of the Russian Orthodox Church, while Copland attempted to “remain profoundly national and at

the same time profoundly Jewish.” 21 Ultimately, Copland’s success in this respect was twofold.

Much like Stravinsky embedded religious rituals into his Russian works, Copland transformed

Jewish themes into a common American motif and found “a place for the ‘Hebraic’ amid”

American culture. More significantly, this helped to propel Copland to his status as the

definitive Jewish composer of classical music in American history.

While Copland is generally regarded as a follower of Stravinsky’s influence, there was

some contention in the musical community that both composers were comparably influential in

the United States. The realm of classical music was largely dominated by European and Russian

composers, but there was a growing belief that American composers would rise in prominence

over the course of the 20th century. This view was shared by Sergei Koussevitzky, a prominent

conductor in Russia who immigrated to the United States in 1924 to serve as the conductor of the

prestigious Boston Symphony Orchestra. In a statement that he issued to the New York Times,

he believed that the proliferation of classical music in America was “the most intense musical

development of any country in the world.” 22 Koussevitzky went so far as to remark that

“Americans have the active temperament which, contrary to the opinions of many, has been the
                                                           
20
Ibid., 8.
21
Ibid., 12.
22
Smith. Aaron Copland, 111.
 Yang 9

salvation of America’s artistic development.” 23 Copland was widely regarded as the most

important American composer in this period of significant advancement and his success was

attributed in large part to his fond admiration of Stravinsky’s “Russianness.” Koussevitzky

reiterated this assertion, claiming that Stravinsky was “the most outstanding influence in modern

music in America” and Copland, along with Roger Sessions and John Alden Carpenter, as

America’s most “promising composers.” 24 It should be noted that some texts regard Stravinsky

as an American composer, in spite of his Russian origin, because he spent the majority of his

adulthood in the city of Los Angeles, after living in both France and Switzerland. Certain

scholars were more critical of Copland’s reliance on Stravinsky. In the 1927 International

Festival of Contemporary Music at Frankfort, Germany, Copland’s suite, Music for the Theatre,

had been chosen to represent the United States. Adolph Weissmann, a leading music critic of his

country, published his Modern Music, in which he complimented Copland’s “remarkable use of

his jazz, but maintained that “the dependence on Stravinsky [was] obvious.” 25 On the other end

of the spectrum, there was Lukas Foss, the official pianist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Foss was particularly impressed by Copland’s The Second Hurricane and Billy the Kid and

believed that Copland’s influence on young composers in America was “equal to both that of

Stravinsky and [Béla] Bartok.” 26 Nevertheless, most of the evidence points to the fact that the

two were not of equal importance, with Stravinsky guiding Copland to become one of the most

prosperous American composers of all-time.

At this point, we transition to an investigation of Stravinsky’s impact on Copland’s style

of composition. We will discuss the various ways in which this influence manifested itself: the

                                                           
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid,. 111-112.
25
Ibid., 98.
26
Ibid., 288.
 Yang 10

use of complex rhythmic structures, the use of dissonance to mimic Stravinsky’s neo-classical

style, and the desire to remain detached from the composition that one is working on. We begin

this section by considering the indirect impact of Stravinsky on Copland through the young

composer’s education with Boulanger. Copland was not particularly interested in studying

harmony at the Fontainebleau School of Music, but upon the advice of an older student at the

school, he decided to attend the harmony class of Boulanger. 27 Boulanger was not only an

advocate of Stravinsky’s music: she was a close colleague and lifelong friend of the famous

Russian composer. When Boulanger began to instruct a young Copland, she immediately

recognized his tremendous talent as a composer and musician. Boulanger was adamant in her

hope that she would “never disturb him, because then is no more to be a teacher, is to be a

tyrant.” 28 In Boulanger’s own opinion, her role as Copland’s instructor was not to mold him

into Stravinsky or, for that matter, any other composer. Instead, for all of Boulanger’s most

gifted pupils, she insisted on the importance of introspective reflection and a “respect [for] the

personality of the student.” 29 That being said, some of Boulanger’s own students felt that she

inevitably imparted a marked Stravinsky influence on her students. Jean Françaix, for instance,

argued that Stravinsky was “her close friend and the world’s greatest composer, so she tended to

lead her students toward the Stravinsky style.” 30 In addition to her lessons, Boulanger would

host déchiffrage classes for her students on Wednesday afternoons. It was during these sessions

that Copland had the chance to interact closely with many renowned composers over tea,

including Stravinsky, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Roussel. 31 Copland was able to establish a personal

relationship with Stravinsky, which he maintained into his later years when both composers lived

                                                           
27
Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis, Copland: 1900 Thorugh 1942 (New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1984), 48.
28
Ibid., 68.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid., 72.
31
Ibid., 67.
 Yang 11

in the United States. Copland was in a particularly enviable position as a student of Boulanger’s:

she would receive a copy of Stravinsky’s newest works, before they were played in public, and

share them with Copland for his reference. As a result, Boulanger proved instrumental in the

musical development of Copland. She provided him with “the decisive musical experience of

[his] life,” 32 enabling Copland to interact with Stravinsky on a personal basis and listen to some

of the famous Russian composer’s music before it was played in public.

Stravinsky’s powerful innovations in the use of rhythm, in tandem with those of Chávez,

had a profound impact on Copland’s stylistic choices. 33 In 1926, Copland wrote his two-part

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra to be played at the Boston Symphony with Serge

Koussevitzky. According to Howard Pollack, a professor and connoisseur of classical music,

both the prelude and the fast movement were derived exclusively from Stravinsky’s Rite of

Spring. The Rite of Spring was Stravinsky’s most controversial ballet, leading to a spirited riot

in the audience when it was initially performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913.

Pollack wrote that the Piano Concerto “employs a full range of Stravinskyian techniques,

including…complex polyrhythms that make the work challenging for players and an earful for

listeners.” 34 That being said, some members of the press held an opposing view, claiming that

the positive reception of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 and Concerto in F in

1925 was the dominant influence on the style of Copland’s concerto. The parallelism in the lives

of Copland and Gershwin is compelling: both composers were born in Brooklyn, New York, had

Jewish parents who immigrated to the United States, and were educated by Boulanger in France.

Copland’s use of polyrhythms extended beyond the Piano Concerto for Piano and Orchestra into

                                                           
32
Ibid., 62.
33
Ibid., 287.
34
Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, Inc., 1999), 134-135.
 Yang 12

his Piano Variations of 1930. This work was a piano solo of approximately ten minutes and

consisted of twenty variations on an E-C-E flat-C sharp “motto.” 35 Variations XIV through XIX

marked a return to this four-note motif and “reveal[ed] varied facets of rhythmic development.” 36

In this section, Copland interchanged between a variety of rhythmic structures, which mirrored

one of the fundamental qualities of Stravinsky’s avant-garde style. The addition of polyrhythms

to Copland’s arsenal took place during his education with Boulanger. At this time, Copland

collaborated with Harold Clurman on the writing of a ballet entitled Le Nécromancien, after both

of them viewed a showing of Nosferatu in Paris in 1922. The most horrifying scene of the movie

consisted of Grohg, a magician, hurling a young girl at corpses who he revived, after she refused

to kiss him. According to Copland’s autobiography, he took advantage of the gruesome scenery

of the ballet to experiment with “modern rhythms and dissonances.” 37 In the final scene of the

ballet, the climax in the action was accentuated by Copland’s “alternating 5/4, 3/4, and 3/8

measures.” 38 When Boulanger encountered Copland’s ballet, she was rather intrigued. Instead

of discouraging Copland from the use of these bizarre rhythmic patterns, she remarked that

Copland possessed a sense of rhythm that was distinct from the majority of European composers

at the time. Copland and Boulanger even played parts of Le Nécromancien in tandem at the

piano. The rhythmic structures of Copland and Stravinsky share several qualities and illustrate

the impact that Stravinsky had on Copland’s style of composition.

While Copland was “affected by the whole rhythmic side of [Stravinsky’s] music,” 39

Stravinsky’s influence on Copland’s style of composition extended well beyond their mutual

fascination with diverse rhythms. In fact, Copland sought to emulate Stravinsky’s entire “neo-

                                                           
35
Smith. Aaron Copland, 129.
36
Ibid., 132.
37
Copland and Perlis. Copland: 1900 Through 1942, 84.
38
Ibid., 86.
39
Oja and Tick ed., Aaron Copland and His World, 257.
 Yang 13

Romantic” style, which differentiated Stravinsky’s work from that of his peers in the Romantic

period. To distinguish himself from Wagner and others of this period, Stravinsky used “melodic

repetition” to achieve “dryness” to his music. 40 The repetition of short motifs that spanned no

more than two or three measures was a common technique in Russian folk music. Stravinsky

reinterpreted this technique to create a “continual turning of the motivic figures around a few

diatonic notes in cyclic repetition, produc[ing] a sense of variety within unity.” 41 Stravinsky’s

well-known The Rite of Spring had a rhapsodic folk tune with four contrasting rhythmic

segments. While each of these segments was written in the same pitch, Stravinsky structured

their rhythms differently to impose “a sense of ambiguity within the characteristically-balanced,

rounded-off quaternary outline.” 42 This became a hallmark of Copland’s style and manifested

itself in all of Copland’s cowboy and Shaker ballets. Copland put an American twist on

Stravinsky’s innovation by incorporating many common techniques of jazz music into his Music

for the Theatre, which he wrote in 1925, upon his return to the United States from France. These

stylistic elements included “blues thirds and bitonal progressions”, as well as “syncopated,

irregular multimetric schemes.” 43 Copland’s following work, the Concerto for Piano and

Orchestra, was even more Stravinsky-like with an astounding use of dissonant tones in the

second movement. Stravinsky’s anti-Romantic influence on Copland, as termed by Elliott

Antokoletz, was significant in Copland’s style of composition because it was able to modernize

his music. This propelled Copland to become one of the leaders of the avant-garde movement

that captivated the musical world for much of the 20th century.

                                                           
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid.
 Yang 14

Stravinsky insisted on the need for the composer to be detached for his or her music.

Copland adopted this train of thought into his style of composition, so much so that he believed

that music was trending strongly toward “the expression in terms of an enriched musical

language of a new spirit of objectivity.” 44 He admired the ability of Stravinsky and Chávez to

pursue a musical idea, without allowing their predisposed feelings or perceptions to interfere

with the creative process. Others in the musical community believed that Copland acquired his

sense of objectivity from his time in France. When Copland was a student at the Fontainebleau,

objectivity was a key tenet of the Symbolist movement that dominated France. For those who

subscribed to this mode of thinking, the goal of the musician was “not simply to portray

exceptional experience, but to portray it in an exceptional way.” 45 As such, in order to maintain

objectivity, Stravinsky insisted on composing exclusively at the piano. Copland took after

Stravinsky, making a habit of listening to his musical ideas in action. Whenever Copland was

pleased with a musical thought, he would write down this “gold nugget” and save it for use in a

future composition. As John Kirkpatrick, an English musician, pointed out, “it is not difficult to

make piano reductions or two-piano arrangements of [Copland’s] orchestral works, because they

can be derived almost directly from his own piano sketches.” 46 In much the same way as

Stravinsky, Copland believed that spontaneity and capriciousness were requisites of maintaining

objectivity in musical composition. In effect, Stravinsky prompted Copland to compose in an

emotionally detached manner and to listen to each and every musical idea on the piano shortly

after it was synthesized.

Although there was substantial evidence that Stravinsky played a major role in the

development of Copland as a composer, Copland was occasionally critical in his view of

                                                           
44
Ibid., 57.
45
Ibid., 59.
46
Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis, Copland: Since 1943 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 255.
 Yang 15

Stravinsky. Prior to meeting Stravinsky for the first time, Copland was already an admirer of his

work and accomplishments. As Copland recounted in his autobiography, he “still retain[ed] a

vivid memory of the first time [he] laid eyes on Igor Stravinsky.” Copland added, “[he] was

much too overawed to dream of speaking with [Stravinsky], but as soon as he passed, [Copland]

found [him]self wheeling around and following after him as if drawn by a magnet.” 47 After their

initial interactions at Boulanger’s house, Copland moved back to the United States and

Stravinsky remained in France for several years. It was unclear how often Copland and

Stravinsky corresponded with each other during this time, which coincided with Copland’s rapid

ascendancy to prominence. Stravinsky moved to the United States at the outset of the Second

World War and eventually settled in the Hollywood area. After Stravinsky invited Copland to

dinner, Copland wrote a scathing letter on his impressions of Stravinsky to Arthur Berger.

Copland recounted that Stravinsky “copies himself unashamedly, and therefore one rarely comes

upon a really fresh page – for him, I mean.” 48 Earlier in the letter, Copland compared

Stravinsky to Henry James, claiming that he possessed the “same ‘exile’ psychology, same

exquisite perfect, same hold on certain temperaments, same lack of immediacy of contact with

the world around him.” 49 Copland’s criticism of Stravinsky took the musical community by

surprise because Copland reiterated that Stravinsky was his musical hero on multiple occasions.

In recapitulation, Stravinsky’s influence on Copland was twofold. Copland’s ascendancy

to the pinnacle of classical music in America can be traced his treatment of folk music and

Jewish themes as motifs that were distinctly American in nature. These were influenced by the

distinct Russian identity of Stravinsky’s folk-style ballets, Stravinsky’s use of religious rituals in

his works, and Copland’s musical education under the direction of Boulanger. From a stylistic
                                                           
47
Copland and Perlis. Copland: 1900 Through 1942, 72.
48
Smith. Aaron Copland, 234.
49
Oja and Tick ed., Aaron Copland and His World, 36.
 Yang 16

standpoint, Copland applied a variety of Stravinskyian techniques into his own composition:

constant fluctuations in meter, use of chromatic progressions as a vehicle to create dissonance,

and an objective approach to composition. It should be mentioned that Stravinsky was not

Copland’s sole musical inspiration. Other composers of influence in Copland’s life included

Debussy, Scriabin, Mahler, Milhaud, Harris, Chávez, Blitzstein, and Thomson. In fact, one of

Copland’s most admirable traits as a composer was to “respond to a variety of stimuli without

sacrificing his own authentic, inimitable voice.” 50 Ultimately, Stravinsky’s greatest influence on

Copland was instilling in him that “it was possible for a twentieth-century composer to create his

own tradition.” 51 In the footsteps of Stravinsky, Copland blossomed not only into one of the

greatest composers of his generation, but into the quintessential figure of classical music in the

United States.

                                                           
50
Ibid.
51
 Copland and Perlis. Copland: 1900 Through 1942, 73.
 Yang 17

Bibliography

Copland, Aaron and Vivian Perlis. Copland: 1900 Through 1942. New York: St.

Martin’s/Marek, 1984.

Copland, Aaron and Vivian Perlis. Copland: Since 1943. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Oja, Carol and Judith Tick, ed., Aaron Copland and His World. Princeton: Princeton University

Press. 2005.

Pollack, Howard. Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man. New York: Henry

Holt and Company, Inc., 1999.

Smith, Julia. Aaron Copland: His Work and Contribution to American Music. New York: E.P.

Dutton & Company, Inc., 1955.

Walsh, Stephen. "Stravinsky, Igor." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford

University Press, accessed October 17, 2012,

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52818.