Appalachian Spring, or Not

One of my favorite pieces of music is Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring. I often listen to it while driving, but the last time I did that I realized something which had been scratching at the back of my brain for years: Appalachian Spring doesn't sound much like the Appalachians.


The main theme is a Shaker hymn, "Simple Gifts." The Shakers settled in New England, then spread through upstate New York to the Ohio River valley. They don't seem to have spent much time in the Appalachians*, and certainly the pious, celibate, teetotaling Shakers are not what comes to mind when one thinks of mountain folk.


In Copland's piece, the main theme based on that hymn is played on a flute, which is not one of the iconic instruments of Appalachian music. Where's the fiddle solo? Or the dulcimer? It's particularly jarring because Appalachia is a part of the country with its own strong and distinctive musical tradition; one could write anything and call it a "Rocky Mountain Suite" or "Sierra Nevada Concerto." Those mountains don't have a characteristic sound.


Aaron Copland was born in New York, studied in Paris and Rome, and traveled widely during his life. But I can't find any evidence that he actually visited the Appalachians at all (he may have ridden through them by train). It's a shame, really: when one hears how he adapted Western or Mexican styles it makes one wish to hear what he could have done with the sounds of mountain music. Of course, one can't blame him for the non-Appalachianity of Appalachian Spring; apparently when Martha Graham commissioned the work from him she hadn't chosen a title yet. So I guess it's her fault that the piece called Appalachian Spring is about the least Appalachian-sounding piece of American music.


*I'm aware that the mountains of New England are geologically part of the Appalachian chain, but nobody ever calls the Green Mountains or the White Mountains or the Berkshires "the Appalachians." They have their own identity. Plus, that mountain chain would also have to include the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, the Highlands of Scotland, and the mountains of Greenland and Scandinavia. So there.

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Published on September 22, 2016 16:29
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