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Technical Notice
| Classical Composer: | Copland, Aaron |
|---|---|
| Work: | Rodeo: 4 Dance Episodes |
| Year Composed: | 1942 |
| Instrumentation: | 3*,3*,3*,3*-4,3,3,1-Timp.,Perc.-Pno.,Hp.-Str. |
| Publishers: |
The Edwin A. Fleisher Music Collection Boosey & Hawkes |
| Duration: | 00:20:00 |
| Period: | 20th Century |
| Work Category: | Orchestral |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
Copland enjoyed enormous success with his pair of 'cowboy ballets', Billy the Kid of 1938, and Rodeo, commissioned by Agnes de Mille and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1942. Not only did de Mille write the story-line for Rodeo, she also created the choreography and danced in the starring rôle as the Cowgirl, with Frederic Franklin as the Champion Roper and Kasimir Kokitch as the Head Wrangler.
About the ballet, George Balanchine and Francis Mason write: Rodeo (subtitled The Courting at Burnt Ranch) is a love story of the American Southwest. It deals with a perennial problem: how an American girl, with the odds seemingly against her, sets out to get herself a man. The girl in this case is a cowgirl, a tomboy whose desperate effort to become a ranch cowhand creates a problem for the cowboys and makes her the laughing-stock of the other women-folk. Happily, by the final curtain it all turns out well, as the love triangle ends when the Head Wrangler goes off into the sunset with a rancher's daughter and the Cowgirl and her Champion Roper decide to 'get hitched'. Shortly after the ballet's première, Copland extracted the concert suite, excluding less than five minutes from the original score. Along the way, the composer has a great deal of musical fun, quoting a variety of American folk-tunes, like Sis Joe, Old Paint, and Bonyparte and McLeod's Reel in the famous Hoe Down, which gives the orchestra a sassy workout.
Writer: Edward Yadzinski
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