Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring

The Blue Ridge Mountains after a spring storm.

Appalachian Mountains in early autumn from the Devil's Marble Yard.

Winter view from McAffee's Knob on the Appalachian trail.

The kids on a winter hike at McAffee's Knob.

Copland:Appalachian Spring, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Easily identified as an American composition the moment you hear it, it is pure genius by Copland in his ability to capture the essence of these mountains from where it was actually written- Hollywood and Mexico!
The opening portion, Ballet for Martha, has always been my favorite. The music builds and swells, as buds in a forest of trees in the spring. When the French horns increase to practically fill the sky, I can barely contain my joy.
Copland wrote this score in 1943 as a ballet for choreographer and dancer, Martha Graham. Begun in Hollywood and completed in Mexico the following year, it was originally scored for 13 instruments. I prefer the full orchestra suite which dates from 1945. But what really amazes me is how the full landscape of Pennsylvania farmland and West Virginia mountains was captured by Copland from California and Mexico. Did Copland ever gaze onto the Appalachian landscape and jot down even a few notes? The penultimate section of the ballet is taken from a Shaker tune called, The Gift to Be Simple. A pretty song, it was sung as rounds by our children in grade school. This portion of the composition brings memories of the beautiful Shaker influence near our home in upstate New York, near Chatham. Across the border into Massachusetts is a Shaker village called, Hancock Shaker Village. Now a working museum, one can experience the simplistic living of the Shakers, view their unique furniture and round barn and soak up the gorgeous countryside of western Massachusetts.
Originally Copland didn't have a title for the composition and simply called it Ballet for Martha. It was Martha Graham who suggested Appalachian Spring after a section of poem by Hart Crane called, The Bridge. The lines go:

O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!

Here I find another sentimental attachment to our beloved Adirondacks. Growing up in upstate New York, the Adirondacks were our summer playground. Camping on Lake George, riding the day cruises up and down the lake, exploring Fort Ticonderoga and picnicking on the grounds of the Saratoga State Park. As a young adult, I spent summer weekends visiting Steve's family's summer camp on Brant Lake. We hiked Pharoah Lake, where Steve and his brothers still hike with our children each summer. In the late 1980's, we bought our first home in Saratoga Springs, New York in the foothills of the Adirondacks. This allowed us to bond even closer with that area and begin raising our children with a love for the mountains.
So today, as I drive on errands here in Southwest Virginia, listening to Appalachian Spring, my thoughts wander aimlessly to all the beautiful memories of mountains near and far. I wonder why I am drawn to mountains and not oceans. I wonder about the stories I've heard of my ancestors and where they came from. I think perhaps they too had a love of mountain regions and it has passed down through blood to me. I will keep wondering and wandering the mountains, appreciating the beauty of God's creation and listening to Appalachian Spring for inspiration. Whatever Copland was thinking while he sat writing in Hollywood has been fulfilled miraculously for me in this music of the here and now.