Aaron Copland
(1900-1990) is a composer with two faces. On the one hand, there is the artist who wants to express himself clearly and comprehensibly and addresses a large audience with easily accessible works. On the other hand, there is Copland the avant-gardist who builds his works from a few building blocks and writes harsh dissonances when this suits the idea of the composition. What is fascinating about Copland's music is that these two sides of his creative work are not separate from each other, but interpenetrate. Even his works, which are resolutely oriented towards New Music, are clear and comprehensible if one engages with their tonal language. Conversely, his popular pieces such as Appalachian Spring are by no means devoid of inner consistency and are designed with great motivic economy, whereby Copland also incorporates elements of New Music into these compositions. In his work, he combines influences from Jewish music to Anglo and Latin American folk music to jazz with the European tradition, and in this diversity he is a central exponent of American music. Copland left a deep mark on the musical life of the United States not only as a composer, but also as an organiser, publicist and promoter of many other musicians.

Aaron Copland was born on 19 November 1900 in the New York borough of Brooklyn. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania who had become wealthy in New York as operators of a department store. As a child, Aaron Copland was attracted to the piano and invented his first melodies. At the age of 13, he received professional piano lessons, and four years later, composition lessons were added. A stay in Paris from 1921 to 1924, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and others and became thoroughly familiar with the music of his time, was decisive for his artistic life. Copland had the greatest admiration for Igor Stravinsky, whose work strongly influenced him. On his return to the USA, Copland gave his first major premiere in 1924, that of the Organ Symphony, with Nadia Boulanger as soloist. Although the work met with disapproval in conservative circles, the premiere made the young composer famous in one fell swoop. Over the next ten years, Copland continued to create new, avant-garde works. Some of his compositions are influenced by jazz, but unlike George Gershwin, for example, there are no strong references to the jazz idiom. Among the most important works of this period are the piano trio Vitebsk, which works with quarter tones, and the Variations for piano. At the same time, Copland was committed to the cause of New Music in various organisations, organised concert series and wrote articles for newspapers and magazines.

In the mid-1930s, a turning point in his work began. Copland made it his goal to address the "common man", as one work title puts it, the ordinary person, without becoming shallow or banal. He wrote numerous very successful compositions such as the ballet music Billy the Kid or the orchestral piece El Salón México, in which Copland often makes artful use of folkloristic elements. Copland now also turned to film music and received an Oscar in 1948. With his writings and later also with television broadcasts, he reached a wide audience, among whom he promoted understanding for the New Music. In the 1950s and 60s, Copland added another facet to his oeuvre, creating several unwieldy works in which he made original and undogmatic use of the twelve-tone method. At the age of almost 60, Copland was still embarking on a conducting career which, although centred on his own work, was by no means limited to it. In 1973, Copland, who had to struggle with increasing health problems, gave up composing, but continued to conduct until 1983. He died on 2 December 1990.