Igor Stravinsky, orchestral arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (1941)

By anyone’s reasonable reckoning one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, the Russian-born Igor Stravinsky had, in 1941, been living in the United States (seeking refuge from the danger and deprivation of World War II) for two years. He wanted to make a patriotic gesture, as he was contemplating applying for American citizenship, which he received in 1945. But America didn’t exactly appreciate Stravinsky’s gift: an arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Two things gave Stravinsky the idea of writing the arrangement. First, a would-be composer who visited him twice a week “to have his works re-composed” by Stravinsky suggested it. Secondly, since Stravinsky was obliged to begin all of his concerts with the National Anthem anyway, and didn’t care for any of the existing arrangements, he set to work. He finished it in Los Angeles on July 4, 1941. Shortly afterward an orchestra and chorus performed it. Stravinsky sent the manuscript to Eleanor Roosevelt for a war-fund auction. The manuscript was returned with an apology. Stravinsky could only guess at the reason for its refusal. “My major seventh chord in the second strain of the piece, the part patriotic ladies like best, must have embarrassed some high official,” he speculated.

In the winter of 1944, Stravinsky performed his arrangement while conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He stood with his back to the orchestra, conducting an audience that refrained from singing. At the time, no one seemed to notice that Stravinsky’s arrangement was different from the traditional ones, but the next day, he found out that someone had noticed. Just before a second concert, a Boston police commissioner visited Stravinsky in his dressing room and informed him of a Massachusetts law against “tampering” with national property. The policeman said that officers had already been told to remove the arrangement from the music stands. Stravinsky liked to embellish his narratives with colorful and imaginative details of dubious accuracy and often claimed he had been threatened with arrest and/or deportation if he repeated the arrangement in Boston, though this appears not to have actually been the case.

Stravinsky responded to the Boston PD that if there was a definitive version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” it was not played very often in Massachusetts. But the argument fell on deaf ears, and the Stravinsky arrangement of the National Anthem has rarely been played since. “It ought to be,” Stravinsky, never lacking in brash élan or self-confidence, later said. “For it makes the linear and harmonic best of the material, and is certainly superior to any other version I have heard.”

Program Note by Jeffrey L. Tucker

Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring Suite (1945)

In the 1930s, Aaron Copland wrote that he was deliberately making a significant change in his style. “I felt that it was worthwhile to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.” He was committed to creating a distinctive American voice in music. It was Copland’s genius for finding the memorable, evocative musical phrase that moved him from the avant-garde maverick he had been in the 20s to the voice of America that characterizes his reputation today. There is no question he succeeded brilliantly. Composer Virgil Thompson called him “The President of American Music.” His music in this regard was so effecting, so endearing, so comprehensible, so identifiable as ours, that he singularly defined the American spirit in music. 

Appalachian Spring began simply as “Ballet for Martha,” referring to Martha Graham’s ballet troupe. According to Copland, the music was based on his friendship with Graham herself. “I was thinking primarily about Martha and her unique choreographic style, which I knew well. Nobody else seems quite like Martha: she’s so proud, so very much herself. And she’s unquestionably very American: there’s something prim and restrained, simple yet strong about her which one tends to think of as American.” Copland met Martha Graham in the early 1930s at a concert that featured his Piano Variations (1930). She told the composer she wanted to dance to it; Copland told her that was “impossible.” Proving him wrong, she created the dance Dithyramb. Copland was thunderstruck. “Surely only an artist with an understanding of my work could have visualized dance material in so rhythmically complex and thematically abstruse a composition.”

The composer began work on the ballet in the summer of 1943, commissioned by the Foundation of Arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who paid him $500 “for a dance piece” and no more than a dozen musicians. As finished, the original score calls for a chamber ensemble of 13 players. Martha Graham (who actually gave the work its title) had been inspired for a ballet by Hart Crane’s poem, “The Dance,” which included these lines:

O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;

Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends

And northward reaches in that violet wedge

Of Adirondacks!

The ballet received the Pulitzer Prize in May, 1945. Copland orchestrated the chamber score for full orchestra during the following summer and the Suite we will hear premiered on October 4, 1945, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodzinski. All 5 of the versions Copland made over the years are well worth exploring!

The scenario for the ballet takes place in the early 19th century, on the site of a Pennsylvania farmhouse that was a wedding gift to a young couple. Copland wrote, “The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, which their new domestic partnership invites. An old neighbor suggests, now and then, the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”

The original ballet had 14 segments lasting some 35 minutes; the orchestral version has eight, with a performance duration of around 25 minutes. The composer kindly provided the following road map to the orchestral version:

1. Very slowly. Introduction of the characters, one by one, in a suffused light.
2. Fast. Sudden burst of unison strings in A Major arpeggios starts the action. A sentiment both elated and religious gives the keynote to this scene.
3. Moderate. Duo for the Bride and her Intended — scene of tenderness and passion.
4. Quite fast. The Revivalist and his flock. Folksy feeling — suggestions of square dances and country fiddlers.
5. Still faster. Solo dance of the Bride — presentiment of motherhood. Extremes of joy and fear and wonder.
6. Very slowly (as at first). Transition scene to music reminiscent of the introduction.
7. Calm and flowing. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer husband. There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by author Edward D. Andrews, and published under the title “The Gift to Be Simple.” The melody most borrowed and used almost literally is called “Simple Gifts.”
8. Moderate. Coda. The Bride takes her place among her neighbors. At the end the couple are left “quiet and strong in their new house.” Muted strings intone a hushed prayerlike chorale passage. The close is reminiscent of the opening music.

The above became iconic American music, deeply embedded and embraced in our culture. The seventh section, “Simple Gifts,” sometimes tends to steal the show, which the composer recognized very early on. In response, Copland made a separate arrangement for orchestra, titled “Variations on a Shaker Tune,” which has also become part of our American musical heritage.

Although he had composed the work simply as the abstract “Ballet for Martha,” Copland’s musical setting was so ideally persuasive and memorable that it soon came to seem impossible to hear apart from its narrative scenario. On one occasion, the composer recalled that an audience member, after hearing Appalachian Spring in 1981, came up to him and said, “Mr. Copland … when I hear your music, I can just see the Appalachians and I just feel spring. …” Copland responded, “After all these years, I can too!”

Program Note by Jeffrey L. Tucker

Requiem Americano was completed in 2022 after nearly two years of composition, beginning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Though the work is not explicitly about the pandemic—aside from the third movement—it emerged from that period of isolation and uncertainty, providing a creative framework to explore broader American societal issues. The piece is notable for its unique approach: a fusion of the traditional European requiem form with American musical idioms, making it distinct in both scope and intent. In 2023, the piece was awarded an Honorable Mention by the American Prize in Composition.

The title draws from Caffé Americano, a coffee style that originated when American soldiers during World War II requested their espresso be modified to resemble the coffee they drank at home. In a similar spirit, Requiem Americano adapts the European requiem tradition, infusing it with American folk, popular, and nationalistic styles. This blending of genres creates a familiar, approachable musical language while addressing complex societal themes with seriousness and nuance.

The work is structured in nine movements, framed by the traditional Introit and the non-traditional closing Hymnus Ad Exequias Defuncti. Each inner movement addresses a different issue within American life, with motifs and themes recurring throughout.

The Introit opens with a few solitary notes in the trumpets followed by a dramatic chromatic descent in the orchestra. A tenor soloist then enters with traditional liturgical text, later joined by chorus. Foreshadowing motifs appear in the orchestral accompaniment, unveiling musical ideas that will surface in later movements.

The Kyrie is one of the most narrative-driven sections, reflecting on the lingering scars of the Civil War. A solo fiddle introduces “Lorena,” a beloved tune from the era, which morphs into a hymn-like melody reminiscent of rural Protestant churches. Elements of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” are layered with the Kyrie text before war erupts musically with “The First Gun is Fired.” The “fiddle” returns in the end, but this time, as a dark viola solo closing the movement. Its music now changed—symbolizing the transformation of the young protagonist by war and signifying emotional scars and unresolved national divisions.

Gradual & Tract merges two liturgical components into one, using shape-note choral music from The Sacred Harp, a folk tradition passed through generations in the American South. Sung in English, this movement reflects on activities lost during the pandemic—communal singing—and expands its scope to the present, highlighting how digital silos and online life continue to increase social isolation even after lockdowns have ended.

The Dies Irae addresses anti-immigration sentiment through the lens of Mexican-American musical heritage. It reimagines the traditional Day of Judgment text as a dramatic, and at times, lighthearted narrative. A tenor soloist gradually realizes that the fate he sings about also applies to himself. Incorporating Mexican-American styles affirms their essential role and contribution to American music, echoing how immigrant traditions—including a particular British melody that became the U.S. national anthem—have long added to the nation’s cultural fabric.

The Offertory takes on the topic of hypercommercialism. Written in the cinematic style of early 2000s American film scores, it conjures an imagined ritual where consumers are sacrificed to corporate greed. The movement critiques the ever-increasing saturation of marketing and advertising in daily life—from entertainment and social media to even the spaces once considered free from ads.

Sanctus reflects on the tragedy of school shootings. It begins with haunting low brass, followed by a youth chorus singing “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus [Holy, Holy, Holy].” The full choir joins, but shortly after, the music fractures. Voices splinter into layered fragments, including the haunting line “Pleni sunt coeli [The heavens are full],” sung by tenors, underscoring the devastating toll on children. Snare drums evoke gunfire, guiding the music into a march of mourning. The chorus repeatedly exclaims “Hosanna!” driving into climactic despair, which briefly pauses before transitioning to the next movement.

The work continues into the Agnus Dei, portraying the cycle of passive response following national tragedies. While musically sincere, it reflects a cultural tendency to offer “thoughts and prayers” without pursuing meaningful change. The movement ends on a major chord, musically implying closure. But this sense of resolution is an illusion.

In Libera me, themes of incarceration and forced labor are voiced through the structure of a prison work song. A solo tenor is joined by percussion mimicking the sounds of physical labor. The tenors and basses join in, followed by the strings who take over the melody, which is mixed with the returning chromatic motif from the opening of the requiem. The movement ends with another sung refrain, reinforcing the ongoing cycle of mass disproportionate incarceration.

The final movement, Hymnus Ad Exequias Defuncti, is a setting of excerpts of a text by the 4th-century writer Prudentius. The central line, “For all created things must wane,” becomes the philosophical crux of the requiem. It opens with solemn, patriotic music, evoking a national funeral, before erupting as the full weight of societal failure is realized. The chorus then begins a slow, building lament, with fragments of earlier movements layered into a dense, emotional climax. But as the movement reaches its final peak, it withholds resolution. The final notes quote the Agnus Dei, and the chromatic motif returns—signaling that despite recognition of these problems, no genuine solutions have been employed. The work ends not with closure, but with a quiet warning: history is doomed to continue repeating itself if nothing changes.

Program Note provided by the composer.