The Short Symphony, or Symphony No. 2, is a symphony written by the American composer Aaron Copland from 1931 to 1933. The name derives from the symphony's short length of only 15 minutes. The work is dedicated to Copland's friend, the Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez. The symphony's first movement is in sonata-allegro form, and its slow second movement follows an adapted ternary form. The third movement resembles the sonata-allegro but has indications of cyclic form. The composition contains complex rhythms and polyharmonies, and it incorporates the composer's emerging interest in serialism as well as influences from Mexican music and German cinema. The symphony includes scoring for a heckelphone and a piano while omitting trombones and a percussion section. Copland later arranged the symphony as a sextet.
The symphony was not widely performed during Copland's lifetime, largely due to the piece's challenging rhythmic variations. After Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski both declined to conduct the premiere, Chávez agreed to deliver it in 1934 in Mexico City. The symphony eventually received its U.S. premiere in 1944, with subsequent concert performances in the 1950s. The piece's first recording was made in 1969 with Copland conducting. Though Copland thought of the Short Symphony as "one of the best things I ever wrote", some critics found it to be fragmented and cacophonous. Others agreed with Copland's assessment, describing the symphony as a masterpiece and a significant work in both Copland's career and the development of modernist music.
History
From 1926 to 1928, Copland arranged his Organ Symphony into his First Symphony, and in 1929, arranged music from his ballet score Grohg into the ballet suite Dance Symphony. Though both of these "symphonies" preceded the Short Symphony, Copland did not think of the Dance Symphony as a real symphony. Thus, the Short Symphony is considered to be Copland's second symphony—with the composer himself having referred to it as such.
Copland began work on the Short Symphony in 1931. By 1932, Copland was sketching, composing, and revising the symphony in parallel with another composition, Statements for Orchestra. While staying at the Yaddo estate during the summer of 1932, Copland wrote to the pianist John Kirkpatrick that the composition of the Short Symphony had been disrupted because he was simultaneously working on Statements for Orchestra.
At the urging of his friend and fellow composer Carlos Chávez, Copland made his first trip to Mexico in the fall of 1932. In Mexico, Copland continued working on his two orchestral pieces and was impressed by the country's people and music. The trip inspired Copland to incorporate traditional Mexican elements into the finale of the Short Symphony, as well as begin the symphonic piece El Salón México. Work on the Short Symphony extended into the next year; Copland explained the delay in a 1969 radio program, saying that he "was intent on writing as perfected a piece of music as I possibly could". The symphony was completed in 1933 before the completions of Statements for Orchestra and El Salón México, thus becoming the first product of Copland's Mexican travels. Copland would make several more trips to Mexico during extended working vacations.
After conductors Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski both declined to premiere the Short Symphony due to its rhythmic difficulties, Chávez agreed to conduct the work's world premiere. It was first performed in Mexico City on November 23, 1934 by Chávez and the Sinfónica de México. In gratitude, Copland dedicated the symphony to Chávez. The symphony remained unperformed for a decade following its premiere. Stokowski had originally put the Short Symphony on a program of contemporary works to be presented during the fall 1935 season of the Philadelphia Orchestra; however, he described the work as "asymetrical in rhythm and very difficult" and later cancelled the performance. Koussevitzky also announced and then cancelled a performance of the symphony. When Copland asked the conductor if the piece was too difficult, Koussevitzky allegedly replied, "" (). Stokowski eventually turned, and he conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra for the symphony's U.S. radio broadcast premiere in Radio City Music Hall, New York City, on January 9, 1944. Another performance was given in 1955 by the Südwestfunk Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden. In 1957, Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the piece's U.S. concert premiere. This was followed by the U.S. West Coast premiere at the 1958 Ojai Music Festival in Southern California, with Copland conducting.
In 1937, Copland arranged the Short Symphony as the Sextet for Clarinet, String Quartet, and Piano. Copland called this an "act of desperation" to make the piece less difficult to play. The Sextet was first performed in 1939 but subsequently received few performances. He also permitted an arrangement of the symphony by Dennis Russell Davies for a conventional chamber orchestra, which was completed in 1979.
Instrumentation The symphony is scored for:
Woodwinds: piccolo 2 flutes (flute 1 doubling flute in G) 2 oboes heckelphone (doubling cor anglais) 2 clarinets bass clarinet 2 bassoons double bassoon
Brass: 4 horns 2 trumpets
piano
Strings: violins I, II violas cellos double bass
The American composer Alan Stout observes that the instrumentation of the Short Symphony is closely similar to that of Chávez's Sinfonía de Antígona, as both works include a heckelphone while omitting trombones. The scoring of woodwinds, brasses, and strings in pairs also resembles the instrumentation found in Classical symphonies by Haydn and Mozart. Though Copland did not include a percussion section, the piano was effectively used as a percussion instrument.
Structure The symphony is in three movements, without breaks in between:
A typical performance is expected to last only 15 minutes. This length is what gave rise to the name Short Symphony.
I. Incisivo The first movement is in sonata-allegro form, consisting of an exposition where two themes are first stated, a development, a recapitulation where the themes are restated, and a coda. The movement's opening five-note motive implies the triads of both D major and D minor, creating the first of numerous tonal ambiguities found throughout the work. Copland uses this motive to construct the movement's first theme in the tonal center of G.
This theme is repeated throughout the orchestra in the opening bars and is later heard in augmentation with a B-flat center, beginning with the flutes and clarinets:
The second theme centered on E is then stated by the Heckelphone or Bass Oboe, with jazz-like syncopated rhythms:
The development section of the first movement is brief, consisting of only thirteen measures. It makes use of traditionally fugal elements such as stretto, which becomes a common device for the symphony's thematic development. This is followed by the return of the first and second themes, which now revolve around the tonal centers of B-flat and D, respectively. The movement concludes with a coda, where the entire orchestra restates the first theme centered on G.
The movement's tonal centers are in mediant and submediant relationships. This characteristic can be traced back to the mediant relationships between keys in Beethoven's works, whose use of such relationships departed from other Classical period music. Passages in the movement also make frequent use of complex rhythms and meter changes. The beginning of the recapitulation sees ten meter changes in fourteen measures, followed by an episode where as many as six meters are played simultaneously. A later passage has thirteen meter changes in a span of nineteen measures.
II. Espressivo The second movement is short—only 95 measures long—and is substantially slower in tempo than the previous movement. The musicologist Howard Pollack describes the movement's structure to be in ABA ternary form. However, according to the Copland scholar Quincy C. Hilliard, the structure of this movement differs from typical second movements as it resembles an ABBA "arch" design rather than the normal ABA form. This movement also contains some material from the first theme of the first movement, indicating the use of cyclic form which becomes more prominent in the third movement.
The A section is dirge-like and begins with a descending tetrachord theme with a B-flat center played by the flute in G:
The theme is varied and then played in counterpoint (e.g. in stretto) by other instruments before the beginning of the B section at a slightly faster tempo. The B section is lighter and more dance-like, with an F tonal center. Its theme is introduced by the flute in G and imitated in a canon-like form by the woodwinds.
The A and B section themes are heard in counterpoint in a four measure transition followed by the return of the B section theme. The A section theme is then reused in a stretto before the second movement is concluded and transitions into the third movement.
III. Preciso e ritmico Though the formal design of the third movement resembles the sonata-allegro form, it does not adhere strictly to it. For example, Julia Smith's 1955 book on Copland states that the movement follows the cyclic principle. Such a form was devised by the composer César Franck and reuses related thematic material from other movements for structural unity. The movement opens with a motive in the bass clarinet with pizzicato accompaniment, outlining the D-flat major triad. The first theme with a D-flat tonal center is then introduced by a variety of instruments beginning with the flutes, while accompanied by a rhythmic ostinato in the second violins.
A syncopated motive follows, which matures into the second theme with an F tonal center in the violins:
Following a development section, a modified version of the first theme returns, with different melodic intervals but still centered around D-flat and accompanied by the ostinato. The syncopated second theme also returns, this time with an A-flat tonal center. The coda begins with a return of the first movement's first theme, indicating the use of the cyclic principle. The symphony ends on an open fifth, a chord which is repeated two more times in the 1955 revision of the score.
The orchestration of the third movement makes more frequent use of the entire orchestra than that of the previous movements, using effects such as muted trumpets, col legno, pizzicato, and jeté. This movement also features many meter changes and syncopated rhythms. Pollack identifies "some assimilation of Mexican music" in the symphony's final movement. While composing the Short Symphony, Copland himself told friends that "The Third movement ... begins to sound rather Mexican to me." The finale also quotes a Werner R. Heymann song featured in Erik Charell's German film operetta Der Kongress tanzt (The Congress Dances), which Copland had seen in a 1931 visit to Berlin.
Style
Pollack considers the Short Symphony to be "sprightly and charming", and its "sharp dissonances" and "rhythmic jolts" to be of a humorous nature. He notes as well that the symphony could be neoclassical in style, comparing the first movement to a concerto grosso while identifying a motive in the third movement that is also found in the finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. Based on the rhythms and harmonies, the musicologist Jennifer DeLapp ascribes a modernist character to the symphony.
Rhythm