At Home with Friends

Two weeks ago my brother-in-law invited me to a concert. Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. The rest of our families were doing other things on a Friday night, so it was just him and me. I asked my wife, who is from New Hampshire, if she knew this place in western Massachusetts I’d been invited to. “Of course,” was the response, so I knew it was well-known in the region, at least among people who think a lot about music. Physically the place was lovely: dozens of acres of lightly-trod grass parking, and the “music shed” a roofed, open-walled, 90-year-old structure with seating for thousands surrounded by more grass for picnic blankets and camp chairs. Similar to the much younger Wolf Trap in Washington DC’s Virginia suburbs. Earlier rains diminished attendance on the grass; we arrived not many minutes before the program began and set up our chairs in a fine spot near center-front.

My brother-in-law looked at the printed program. “There will be ballet dancers.” That turned a wheel in my memory. That’s right: Appalachian Spring was originally composed as a ballet. I had never seen it performed that way, only as an orchestral performance. I enjoy dance immensely, so this would be a special treat.

To start things off, a woman stood at a microphone. “I am Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company.” Big applause. So, not only was I going to take in for the first time Appalachian Spring as a ballet, I was going to see it performed by the dance company that originated it. Director Eilber went on to speak of the origins of the piece. She ended with a letter to Martha Graham from the patron letting her know that she had received the commission to choreograph the work and that Aaron Copland had accepted the commission to compose it, hoping that she would work closely with him, and sharing his contact information, “Box 140 Stockbridge.” Huge applause. My brother-in-law explained, “That’s the town where we are.”

I did not know where I was, apparently the most ignorant in that audience of thousands as to where I was. Months ago I read or listened to an interview with a composer. He recalled as a young man attending a long-running summer composing seminar where he learned directly from Aaron Copland. Without knowing the name or location, without seeking it out, I had been brought to Copland’s summer home in the Berkshires to take in a work he composed there.

The reception to the Artistic Director stuck with me. Appreciative friends and admirers who know where they are and why they came.