Aaron Copland’s Hollywood Film Scores – Book Review

As a huge fan of Aaron Copland, Aaron Copland’s Hollywood Film Scores by Paula Musegades is a book I have been waiting for. It is a beautifully presented hardback book and does a fine job exposing the enormous and long lasting impact that Copland had on film music. It is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the history of movies, film music scholars and students and of course Copland enthusiasts.

It is so engagingly written that it almost comes across as a script to an as yet unmade PBS or BBC 4 documentary series. Considering the revolutionary nature of Copland’s scores and how they changed the sound of Hollywood for good, be that in Westerns, children’s movies, war films and psychological dramas, if I were Ms Musegades I would be using this book as a pitch to these TV companies for a 3-4 part series!

The book is structured into chapters that deal with the Hollywood system before Copland, his theories of film music, a chapter each detailing the scores from his five Hollywood pictures (Of Mice and Men, Our Town, The North Star, The Red Pony and The Heiress), and a concluding essay on the legacy and influence of his work on other film composers. Throughout, there are detailed comparisons with other film scores before, during and after Copland’s time in Hollywood and the author provides compelling arguments as to why Copland was a main protagonist in engineering the shift in scoring style and techniques. Example films include Dimitri Tiomkin’s 1937 score to The Lost Horizon and Alex North’s East of Eden from 1955 and there are plenty of others to keep readers busy watching and listening for a good while.

In scholarly works on Copland, I am always looking for gaps in my own knowledge to be filled and I was not disappointed. Many of the cues from the different films are described in ample detail both in terms of the music and the instrumentation. This has already helped open my ears to greater nuance and hear new things especially in some of the more incidental music.

Of course one always hopes for perfection but that is unachievable. So of course there are some issues. First and foremost, the hefty price tag of £80 will significantly limit the readership. This is a shame considering the fact that this book is likely to have an appeal way beyond University Libraries and film music students. Also, based on the cost one would expect the inclusion of at least a few movie images that could provide context to the discourse.

Unfortunately, the book assumes that most readers will be well versed in musicology. However, some people (like me) will be reading this book and 1) won’t be able to read music and 2) won’t have that much knowledge of complex musical terminology. As a result, the many music examples in the book will not really help the casual reader. In this technological age it shouldn’t be that difficult to set up a YouTube channel providing examples of the cues so music enthusiasts, who don’t read music will have a better chance of understanding what piece is being described. This was done for the recent Sally Bick book on Copland and Eisler. Similarly, I was constantly referring to Google searches for some of the musical phrases used. Of course many of these are simple enough principles but could be off putting to non-musicians. A short glossary explaining some of these terms (e.g. Parallel fifths, Open chords, Triadic harmonies etc.) would really help people’s understanding of what Copland’s music was trying to achieve.

Also, if this book is aiming to be definitive (which I think it is) then it should also have included:

• Summary details of the instrumentation for each score
• A list of cues for each film in the order that they come and their timings in the films
• The list of musical personnel involved and the orchestrators that Copland worked with on each film
• Recording dates
• A discography of the works – several soundtracks are now available but difficult to track down as they are not available to stream from Spotify or as CDs from Amazon
• Some of the music has found a life beyond the movie theatre in the concert arena either as suites or bits that Copland used in other works so it would been useful to provide this information.

Some of Copland’s film music is hard to track down. The Of Mice and Men / Our Town release is only available as a download from Naxos and the original Red Pony and Heiress soundtracks were a limited release from Intrada which you may find on Ebay.

The other thing that seems obvious to me is that Musegades almost certainly had to deal with tight editorial control. In the same way as most film composers, including Copland feared the dubbing process and the loss of control by the composer, I just wonder if the author was forced into making some tough decisions on what to leave out to keep the book under a 200 page spec? There are some omissions from the account that are so surprising that when one realises their absence they stand out like a 20 second stinger chord!

The most amazing of these is the lack of any description of The Fight cue from Of Mice and Men, which as anyone who has watched the film knows has such a shocking, dissonant 20 second stinger chord to accompany Lennie’s crushing of Curley’s hand. For what is a pivotal moment in the film, with a standout piece of scoring that was so atypical for a Hollywood film from 1939, to not get a single mention in a book dedicated to Copland’s film scores is unfathomable.

Also, considering Copland’s other Steinbeck score for The Red Pony also has a fight scene (Buzzard Fight cue) which is described in some detail, there was a major missed opportunity to compare and contrast their similarities and differences. This would have made a great deal of sense considering that both pictures were filmed on the same ranch (9 years apart) and Copland is quoted as saying:

In a way it almost seems that Paula Musegades and Sally Bick divided up the parts of the OM&M score that they would deal with in their respective books. Whereas, Bick failed to include the Mae at Home and Mae in the Barn cues (which by contrast are described in detail by Musegades) she does provide a highly informative interpretation of The Fight and the Prelude & Titles (which are omitted by Musegades). So, if you want a full picture of the OM&M soundtrack you’ll need to read both books.

The descriptions of some cues are so in depth that it is a real shock when one of your favourites is either skipped or given a scant mention. The most obvious case of this for me is the section describing Emily’s Dream from Our Town which in my opinion is considerably undersold by the author. She writes uncharacteristically dryly:

Now, the reason why I find this piece remarkable is that not only does it use a musical saw to provide an unearthly Theremin like sound (which in itself deserves a mention) but also, for me, it’s where Copland almost anticipates Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti western vocalise performed by Edda Dell’Orso in films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I think my interpretation would get more people excited. But then again, maybe that’s just me!

Also, whist discussing Our Town, Musegades doesn’t really mention The Hill Top cue but rather suggests this music is a variation of the Main Title and Grovers Corners. I was surprised by this and have since listened to this part of the score on numerous occasions and feel sure that it is distinct musically. This piece was later incorporated into the Our Town suite and the reworking for solo piano titled The Resting Place on the Hill and is so Satie like that it could easily pass as Gymnopédie No 4. One other interesting point is that this piece (like the Piano Variations below) is one of only a couple of occurrences (to my knowledge) when Copland recycled an earlier piece into a film score (which is quite something considering that Copland was a consummate recycler!). The Hill Top theme was originally part of the incidental music for the flop theatre play Quiet City. (You can hear this in the suite arranged by Christopher Brellochs). It’s interesting to note that a piece composed to define a New York City location works equally well for a small New Hampshire backwater.

Musegade’s admiration for the use of music and silence by Copland in The Heiress is very evident. This chapter is almost twice as long as the others and 16 musical examples are reprinted (whereas examples from the other four pictures collectively amount to just 18).

The commentary throughout this chapter is exemplary. There is something that doesn’t quite add up though in the section dealing with the Anticipation cue (which Musegades refers to in the notes section but not in the main text). Copland’s memoirs suggest that in a preview showing of the movie that during the jilting scene where Catherine runs to the door he had scored romantic music that made the audience laugh at the heroine’s misfortune. As a result he was asked by Director William Wyler to rescore this portion and his recollection is that he incorporated a long discarded dissonant variation from his Piano Variations of 1930. But anyone who knows the Piano Variations will recognise that this music is actually used in the later cue Hatred (which is an equally dramatic scene between Catherine and Austin Sloper where she begins to rewrite his will for him – which unfortunately is not discussed in the book).

In fact the cue for Anticipation (when she runs to the door) is a very fast scored 15 second snatch of music for first high and then low strings and muted trombones which to my ear sounds virtually identical to the equally fast paced 10 second snatch of music for the cue Reunion with Morris scored for high strings and trumpets (this cue is also not described in the book). The difference between the two is that the latter ends with the Bittersweet Love motive whilst the former ends with an almost embarrassed limping dog, whimper.

So, my view on this is that either Copland himself was slightly confused in his recollection or perhaps being ever the raconteur he decided to embellish a good yarn rather than telling the exact truth. I would love to know what Ms Musegades thinks?

The cue called Morris Unmasked is described as consisting of stinger chords in muted trombones. To me it bears an uncanny resemblance to the section in the final movement of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony No 2 when the Earth shakes and the graves of the dead are burst asunder. I wonder if this was Copland’s idea of an in joke? In the Mahler these chords are followed by what seems like all hell breaking loose whilst in the Heiress cue it’s like a smouldering volcano that doesn’t blow. I wonder if Copland was not only tipping his hat at his lifelong admiration of Mahler but also effectively signifying the fact that there was to be no resurrection for the love affair and as Morris departs he was effectively dead and buried? It is amazing what you start to hear when you listen to a score a number of times and this book really does stimulate the reader to delve deeply inside the composer’s mind!

The final chapter looks at film scores by other composers that show Copland’s influence and like the rest of the book is very interesting and thought provoking. The odd exclusion here is the omission of any mention of Copland’s last film score for the independent movie Something Wild. Although this was not a Hollywood film it shows that 12 years later Copland had honed his craft even further. As it involves a narrative with sparse dialogue and great use of silence and what I consider to be thrilling and disturbing dissonant music throughout I feel it should have got at least a passing remark. Similarly, the appropriation of Copland’s concert music in Spike Lee’s basketball film He Got Game should also have warranted a comment, not least because it shows that even in 1998, Copland’s American sound was still as relevant as ever and could be used for even the grittiest of urban settings.

There is so much to commend in this book and I hope it gets the readership it deserves. For me I can see it being a book I go back to often – perhaps almost as frequently as Howard Pollack’s Copland biography which signifies high praise indeed! I would love to see it reprinted in paperback (perhaps with a few additions as mentioned above) and retailing at a much more affordable price. I also sincerely hope a TV executive will consider the seismic impression that Copland’s music made on the industry and make this book into the documentary series it deserves.

And one last piece of advice to all film goers from the man himself.

Book details:

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: University of Rochester Press (1 Jun. 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580469914
• ISBN-13: 978-1580469913