Connotations is a classical music composition for symphony orchestra written by American composer Aaron Copland. Commissioned by Leonard Bernstein in 1962 to commemorate the opening of Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts) in New York City, United States, this piece marks a departure from Copland's populist period, which began with El Salón México in 1936 and includes the works he is most famous for such as Appalachian Spring, Lincoln Portrait and Rodeo. It represents a return to a more dissonant style of composition in which Copland wrote from the end of his studies with French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and return from Europe in 1924 until the Great Depression. It was also Copland's first dodecaphonic work for orchestra, a style he had disparaged until he heard the music of French composer Pierre Boulez and adapted the method for himself in his Piano Quartet of 1950. While the composer had produced other orchestral works contemporary to Connotations, it was his first purely symphonic work since his Third Symphony, written in 1947.
Connotations was received negatively upon its premiere for its harmonic assertiveness and compositional style. The overall impression at the time was that, as critic Alex Ross later phrased it, "Copland was no longer in an ingratiating mood." The composer was accused by some critics of betraying his role as a tonal, populist composer to curry favor with younger composers and give the impression that his music still held contemporary relevance. Copland denied this accusation; he asserted that he had written Connotations as a twelve-tone work to give himself compositional options not available had he written it as a tonal one.
Part of the blame for Connotations initial failure has been ascribed by Copland biographer Howard Pollack, among others, to Bernstein's "harsh and overblown" conducting. Bernstein, known in the classical music community as a long-time champion of Copland's music, had programmed the composer's pieces more frequently with the New York Philharmonic than those of any other living composer. However, these performances were mainly of works from the composer's populist period, with which the conductor was in full sympathy. He was less comfortable in pieces that were atonal or rhythmically disjunctive. While Bernstein might have performed the work purely out of service to an old friend, he was apparently unable to interpret this work persuasively. Subsequent performances with New York Philharmonic during its 1963 European tour and a 1999 all-Copland concert showed that the situation had not changed. Bad acoustics might have also played a part in the work's lack of success at its premiere.
More recent performances, led by conductors Pierre Boulez, Edo de Waart and Sixten Ehrling, have been acknowledged to show the music in a more positive light. Nevertheless, the overall reputation of the music remains mixed. Some critics, including composer John Adams, have remained critical of the work and considered Copland's use of serial techniques detrimental to his later music. Others, which include critics Michael Andrews and Peter Davis, have seen Connotations as proof of Copland's continued growth and inventiveness as a composer while not downplaying the work's melodic and harmonic harshness and potential difficulty overall for listeners.
Background
Aaron Copland wrote Connotations to fulfill a commission from Leonard Bernstein for the opening concert of the New York Philharmonic's new home in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Since this hall was slated as the first part of Lincoln Center for completion, its inauguration was considered especially momentous. Among the guest list of 2600 for the first concert and the white-tie gala which would follow it were John D. Rockefeller III (chairman of Lincoln Center), Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Governor and Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, United Nations Secretary General U Thant and prominent figures in the arts that included of Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing, violinist Isaac Stern and actress Merle Oberon. Noted composers would also attend included Samuel Barber, Henry Cowell, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Richard Rodgers, William Schuman and Roger Sessions. United States president John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie had also been invited. Their initial inability to attend caused some consternation, since they had voiced their support for American culture. At the last minute, Jackie Kennedy said she would be there.
Copland was one of ten internationally known composers who accepted invitations to contribute music for the opening. His would be the first new piece to be heard. Other compositions included the Eighth Symphony of American composer William Schuman, an Overture Philharmonique by French composer Darius Milhaud and "Andromache's Farewell" for soprano and orchestra by American composer Samuel Barber. It would also be Copland's first purely symphonic piece since his Third Symphony of 1947, although he had penned orchestral works in a number of genres throughout the 1940s and 50s."10 Premieres Set by Philharmonic," The New York Times, September 6, 1962 According to Taruskin, Copland's receipt of such a commission testified to both his status as a creative figure and his close relationship with the American public. This position was unique among "serious" American composers and derived from the populist works he had written in the 1930s and 40s. However, from the 1950s Copland's public works—the ones for which he had developed his populist style—were increasingly written in what he called his "difficult" or "private" style. That style had become increasingly non-tonal.
Copland began sketching the work early in 1961. To gain composing time, he cancelled his 1962 trip to Tanglewood and determined to stay at home the entire year. Even so, he accepted an invitation to revisit Japan early in 1962 for a United States State Department conference and combined the trip with conducting engagements in Seattle and Vancouver. By June 25, Copland wrote to Mexican composer Carlos Chavez, "I am working day and night on my symphony for the Philharmonic commission. It is in three movements and I have just finished the last, the first being more than half done." Copland then went to Mexico at Chavez's invitation, partly to conduct but mainly to compose. From there, he wrote American composer Leo Smit on July 4 that he was not yet finished and was having trouble finding a title for the new work. He completed the piece in September 1962, just in time for orchestra rehearsals.
When he considered the form the work would take, Copland wrote that he "concluded that the classical masters would undoubtedly provide the festive and dedicatory tone appropriate to such an occasion." He therefore decided to offer "a contemporary note," one that would reflect "the tensions, aspirations and drama inherent in the world today." This tension, he explained in 1975, "is inherent in the nature of the chordal structures, and in the general character of the piece."
Composition
Instrumentation Connotations is scored for full symphony orchestra with augmented percussion. The complete ensemble includes piccolo, three flutes (third flute doubling second piccolo), two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, three bassoons (third bassoon doubling contrabassoon), six horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, tympani, five percussionists (glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, conga drums, timbales, cymbals, metal sheet, tam-tam, triangle, claves, temple block, woodblock, bass drum, snare drum, tenor drum), piano (doubling celesta) and strings.Page on Copland Connotations in Boosey & Hawkes online catalog
Form A typical performance of this work lasts 20 minutes.
Connotations is twelve-tone, a style of composition which is among the first introduced, and certainly most well known, forms of musical Serialism. Through this technique, Copland wrote that he felt he could express "something of the tensions, aspirations and drama" of that time. Three four-note chords, musicologist Neil Butterworth writes, spell out the 12-note row on two trumpets and two trombones. Each chord is separated by echoes from the remaining trumpets and trombones, which also introduces one of the work's main rhythmic elements. The row is repeated, transposed up an augmented fourth with a different distribution of notes within each chord. The chords "are repeated several times in various transpositions" so they can become firmly established in both the musical fabric and the listener's ear.
From these chords, Copland builds an overall structure that he calls "closest to a free treatment of the baroque form of the chaconne," with a succession of variations "based on the opening chords and their implied melodic intervals." A series of variations alternate fast and slow sections, which according to Copland biographer Howard Pollack creates a complex structure overall. This structure forms a musical arch, sectioned ABCBA. Pollack calls the A sections "prophetic, tragic," the B sections "jazzy, frentic [sic]" and the C section "pastoral, reflective." While these are all moods long familiar to listeners of Copland's music, Pollack asserts, "a new darkness hangs over the whole. The outer sections are grave; the jazzy sections rather cheerless; the pastoral contrast more weary than peaceful. The music often seems lost, uncertain, trapped." The piece ends in a series of strict 12-note chords that Copland called "aggregates."
Significance of title Both Chavez and American composer David Diamond were confused initially about what musical form Connotations would take. The work's title seemed to give no clear indication, they said, and Chavez told Copland that he found Connotations too abstract. As Copland explained to both men and later wrote, in selecting the title, he took the dictionary meaning of the word "connote" to imply or signify meanings in addition to the primary one as an impetus for musical exploration.
Butterworth writes, "Connotations is an essay in contrasts that do not destroy the inherent unity: the chordal writing gives way to outbursts of complex counterpoint." The entire composition, Copland explains, is derived from the "three harsh chords" with which it begins. Each of these chords contained four notes of the twelve-note row upon which the work is based. "When spelled out horizontally," they supplied him "with various versions of a more lyrical discourse." This "skeletal frame of the row," he told Diamond and Chavez, was the "primary meaning" and as such denoted the area which would be explored in the course of the piece. "The subsequent treatment," he explained, "seeks out other implications—connotations that come in a flash or connotations that the composer himself may gradually uncover." From there, the listener was "free to discover his or her own connotative meanings, including perhaps some not suspected by the author.
Resemblance to other Copland works Overall, both Pollack and the composer label Connotations as one of three works written in "the grand manner," as Copland wrote about his Third Symphony. The other two works in this category were the Symphonic Ode and the Third Symphony. Copland also calls those works transitional pieces, anomalies which stand between different compositional styles of his oeuvre. All three works proved, as musicologist William W. Austin notes and Pollack states about the symphony, "challenging to grasp." While music historian Judith Tick notes the work's "massive chordal assaults on the ear," she adds that while Copland 's stated intent was to evoke the dissonance of modern life, he also acknowledges "the darkness revealed in such early works from the 1920s as the Symphonic Ode and Piano Variations."