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El Salón México |
Composed: 1932-36 Estimated length: 12 minutes |
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Born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York; Died on December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown, New York |
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First performance: August 27, 1937, in Mexico City, with Carlos Chávez conducting the Mexico Symphony. |
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First Nashville Symphony performance: December 3, 1957, with Guy Taylor conducting at War Memorial Auditorium. |
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No matter how pioneering or original they may be, composers never work in a vacuum. A complex layer of influences, whether conscious or not, is always at work. Parallel developments among leading figures from different countries underscore the point. Hence it makes sense to juxtapose the Cantata Criolla, the most impactful achievement of Antonio Estévez, with music by Aaron Copland and Astor Piazzolla. All three composers sought to communicate with wider audiences through the cultivation of identifiable national musical idioms and styles.
Curiously, it was through his travels outside the United States that Copland—the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants—eventually found his way toward the simpler, more-direct style by which he became widely beloved. El Salón México was a crucial early step along this path. The Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez—a contemporary who became a lifelong friend and whose artistic and political evolution paralleled that of Copland—encouraged his colleague to make his first visit to Mexico in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression.
“In some inexplicable way, while milling about in those crowded halls,” Copland later recalled, “one felt a really live contact with the Mexican ‘people’—the electric sense one gets sometimes in far-off places, of suddenly knowing the essence of a people—their humanity, their separate shyness, their dignity and unique charm. I remember quite well that it was at just such a moment that I conceived the idea of composing a piece about Mexico….”
El Salón México takes its title from a famous dance hall in the capital city. Both the raucous dance hall and the bands that kept couples moving through the sticky night, in Copland’s imagination, proved music’s power to sustain people in desperate times. Chávez conducted the premiere of El Salón México, which was an immediate success; it became the first Copland work to be recorded commercially.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
Copland draws from a large number of Mexican folk tunes, but these are not merely quoted. His method is to weave the source material into a single, collage-like movement. Biographer Howard Pollack compares this approach to the “patchwork practiced by folk artisans.” A large percussion section contributes to the rhythmic layering and intensifies the colors of Copland’s vibrant orchestration.
Scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, and strings
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
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