In Lionel Shriver's prize winning, chilling book, We Need to Talk About Kevin, the protagonist Eva in writing to and about her husband, mentions his liking Aaron Copland's Quiet City, as a sign that his music taste isn't entirely irredeemable.
I hadn't heard of Copland until that line from the above mentioned book. Like most discoveries, once I started reading about him, I realized how often his name shows up in related reading and what a legendary composer he was. Naturally there will always be people who will not have heard of him until a mention somewhere, a chance sound while passing by will change the state of things. Then life would change forever, yet again, because one man's music would have melded into another man's consciousness.
Quiet City, originally composed by Aaron Copland in 1939 for Irwin Shaw's eponymous play, has since become an American classic. Post Sep 11, 2001, this piece took on a certain poignance.
One version, with images from the Sep 11 disaster:
Quiet City and related Copland tracks from iLike
Copland on last.fm
The Aaron Copland Collection at the Library of Congress
What sort of books would Copland have read? A peek at his private collection of books.
No comments:
Post a Comment