Aaron Copland's Fanfare For The Common Man

I do agree that Aaron Copland’s works are examples of music with an American quality. The reason for this is because “Hoe-Down” was very energetic and was square dance music. Square dancing and square dance music is something that is of American tradition and people all over America enjoy to hear. I also agree with this statement because “Hoe-Down” has been used in movies and I am sure that so have his other best-known works. Movies make up a great deal of the American life and without good music those movies cannot reach their potential therefore the wonderful music helps give quality to both the ear and the eye because of the visuals and emotions that come with listening to the music.

In the novel Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning there contains a thesis in which the novel is centered around. This thesis is the theory that these ordinary people could commit these atrocities in the Holocaust because of the pressure from their peers and country that were participating in these appalling acts of violence and massacres of innocent people.

The purpose of history is to understand the past so that we can take wisdom from those experiences and improve the present and the future. The events that occurred during the Final Solution are so horrendous that often it is viewed as so repugnant that we label the people involved as purely evil, they are dehumanized. This is dangerous, as it doesn’t allow us to obtain wisdom, perspective, and empathy for those involved. Ordinary Men allows an opportunity to see these events from the eyes of the perpetrators and their journey that led to what seems to people today as ruthless, unscrupulous murder. When in fact these people were literally ordinary men who were introduced to unordinary circumstances which caused them to abandon their humanity. If we discredit these people as inhuman we fail to learn the lessons of human nature so we can avoid them in the future. Winston Churchill embodies the lessons learned from Ordinary Men as he said “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Ordinary Men is the disconcerting examination of how a typical unit of middle-aged reserve policemen became active participants in the slaughter of tens of thousands of Polish Jews.

Composers have been writing nationalistic works for years but not many people know that some composers are using nationalistic techniques for a completely different reason. In an article in the New York Times written by Richard Taruskin entitled “Nationalism: Colonialism in Disguise”, Taruskin explains how musicians these days are using nationalism, strong patriotic feelings toward ones’ country, as a disguise for colonialism in order to be recognized as a well-known composer such as Beethoven or Brahms. One American composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, can also be seen as somebody who uses nationalism in order to disguise his colonialist views. In this paper, I hope to prove how Gottschalk’s Bamboula is really colonialism in disguise and

Duke Ellington was a musical and political genius; he was “America’s only original musical mind.” He was not only a performer, but a composer. He learned the craft of composing by observing others instead of disciplined study. One important factor of Ellington’s music was its relation to black heritage and African American history. His symphony “Black, Brown, and Beige” displayed the African American struggle in America. Not only did Ellington use his music to portray the struggle, voice, and triumph of black Americans, he used his professionalism, originality, persuasiveness, and political performances.

Over the course of history, the arts have played an important role in aspects of people’s lives. More specifically, music is something that has been around for centuries and will continue to play a part in shaping people into who they are. There have been numerous talented composers in America, but some worth mentioning are Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin.

Without question his most famous work is his Pulitzer Prize winning “Appalachian Spring” with which he received the prestigious award in 1945. Commissioned by American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham in 1943, Copland finished the work a year later while teaching at Harvard. The song had a traditional American sound much like his previous works, “Quiet City” and “Billy the Kid” and won immediate success with audiences when it debuted in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 1944. The material of the piece is largely folk and even incorporates an old shaker song called “Simple Gifts” by Elder Joseph Brackett written in 1848. One song, a patriotic piece called “A Lincoln Portrait” was written at the beginning of World War II after Copland was commissioned to write a musical portrait of an eminent American political figure. He quoted original folk songs of the time such as the well-known “Camptown Races” and also included material from letters and speeches Lincoln had given.

Since I was young, I have always been fascinated with the “Wild West” and everything that encompassed the cowboy lifestyle. While searching for a musical piece for this assignment, I stumbled upon “Hoedown” by Aaron Copland, and immediately knew this was the correct musical piece for me. When listening to the music, you feel as if you are truly embedded into the feel of the “old west”. I chose to adapt the music to a story line of a cowboy who aspires to be a rodeo champion. As the music progresses, so does the plot and storyline of the protagonist. “Hoedown” is a unique piece for a variety of reasons. The melody unsettled and disjointed which helps elicit excitement and helps garner the eagerness in the audience to see what comes next (just as the plot of the story will). The texture of the piece is homophonic; there is a dominant melody that is accompanied by the use of chords from a variety of instruments. The instruments used in “Hoedown” include the use of an entire orchestra, but features chordophones (violins), aerophones (trumpets, flutes, and horns), idiophones (piano, xylophone, and a woodblock), and the small use of both membranophones (drums) and human voices. It is conducted in a duple meter, but the accent on certain beats in not where you would expect it to be placed. The accent is frequently placed on

Christopher Browning is an American historian whose research mainly focuses on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Browning has been teaching about this specific field for thirty years, since 1974. He has published many different notable books in regards to Nazi Germany and the events that occurred during the time of the Holocaust. Some of the books written by Browning are, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp (2010), The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (1978), and Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000). Browning is best known for his publication of his book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Ordinary Men admired all around the world by many individuals and gives a detailed story about the reserve police battalion during the 1940s.

This year, 2016, marks the 200th anniversary of Indiana as a state. As such, there was no possible way to have a patriotic symphony concert without the inclusion of the meaningful melodies of the Hoosier state. The only question that encompassed the crowd: What is an Indiana Melody? It is a combination of songs native to the state that included: ‘On the banks of the Wabash’, ‘Gary Indiana’, ‘Wabash Moon’ and the fight songs of Indiana University, Purdue and Notre Dame. This collection was delicious. Primarily due to its jazz undertones, this piece was a box bursting with excitement. With it’s of use of swing rhythms and syncopation, this piece seemed more fitting for a nightclub in Memphis during the 1920’s, rather than a 21st century Indiana State Park. For a brief moment, I, along with the rest of the audience, was transported to the 1920’s Jazz Era; swept away by the orchestra’s sweet, wistful melodies and stellar

Copland's decision to get involved in television was surely influenced by the escalating success in the industry of his friend and disciple Leonard Bernstein. Copland must have realized, like Bernstein, the potential of television to promote American music and to increase public understanding of serious music in general.

A great author named Garry Trudeau once said, " When you're young you don't feel iconoclastic - you're just kind of doing what seems natural, what moves you". What this quote means is that there are many times in a person's life where they complete actions without thinking of what the outcome or consequence will be. Therefore, in an effort to avoid completing the task of farm work, one character - McMurphy - great con artist, decides to admit himself into a mental institution. During his time there he defied and broke all rules of the institution. In many opinions, society has rules for a reason and they should not get broken; however, if one is to do so there

Charles Ives is known in our day as the “Father of American Music,” but in his day, he was known just like everyone else- an ordinary man living his life. He was born in Danbury, Connecticut on October 20, 1894 (Stanley 1) to his mother, Sarah Hotchkiss Wilcox Ives and father, George White Ives (A Life With Music, Swafford 4). His father was renowned for being the Union’s youngest bandmaster and having the best band in the Army (The Man His Life, Swafford 1). Little Charles was influenced early in his life by his father who had libertarian ideas about music (Stanley 1). Although Danbury prided itself as “the most musical town in Connecticut”, the people did not give the musical profession respect or understanding

Possibly my favorite aspect of all stories is the usage of reversal pertaining specifically to the main character. Whether good or bad reversals make a story more complex and add an aspect of uncertain future. Reversals lead to what Aristotle calls recognition in his book Poetics in which he states, “recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge,” (20). Recognition then leads to the so-called “scene of suffering” (Aristotle, 21). This part is the one which contains a particularly destructive action against the main character.