Work

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland Composer

4 Piano Blues

Performances: 2
Tracks: 8
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Musicology:
  • 4 Piano Blues
    Year: 1926-48
    Genre: Other Keyboard
    Pr. Instrument: Piano
    • 1.For Leo Smit: freely poetic
    • 2.For Andor Foldes: soft and languid
    • 3.For William Kapell: muted and sensuous
    • 4.For John Kirkpatrick: with bounce

Copland's Four Piano Blues is a collection of four short works for solo piano integrating elements of various jazz and blues idioms. Though published together as a set in 1949, each piece was written separately and dedicated to a different pianist friend of Copland's.

Despite the title, Copland borrows rather loosely from the blues, more evoking a cool or blue mood rather than specifically using blues harmonies or rhythms. Though Copland's use of jazz and blues is often quite raw and authentic, here he uses the styles more abstractly à la Ravel, mixing blues elements with impressionistic harmonies and delicate textures, particularly in the first and third pieces, "Freely poetic" (1947) and "Muted and sensuous" (1948). The second piece, "Soft and languid" (1934), is more playful and unfolds with more of a swing, while the last piece, "With bounce" (1926), is the most "authentic" (written, it may be noted, at the height of the "jazz mania" among composers of concert music), possessing the playfully deceptive rhythms that are a hallmark of Copland's musical language.

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