populist, folk aesthetic. Copland’s Old American Songs, published in two
sets in 1950 and 1954, respectively, were reportedly written whilst the
composer was taking a break from writing the Dickinson songs (Hartford,
2016, p.314). Hartford, however, explores the reality that these songs
were in the works during the 1940s, at the peak of Copland’s populist
period, through sketches found in the Library of Congress.
The significance of these sketches is in the content that was not included
in the collection published after Copland’s brush with McCarthyism. The
song ‘John Henry’, written about an African American proletarian folk
hero “appears in no fewer than five sketches” (Hartford, 2016, p.321),
demonstrating the song’s centrality to Copland’s original vision for the
collection. The connection here to Copland’s political identity is once
again rooted in his Jewishness. Comparative to the othering Copland
faced in the 1920s and 30s, Hartford suggests that: “In the early Cold
War milieu of the 1950s, though, the greater threat to Copland was not
the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jewish eclecticism but Jewish radicalism”
(Hartford, 2016, p.325).
The association between Copland and Popular Front ideology wasn’t
the only indication used by his accusers to claim communist leanings,
but his Jewishness was also politically dangerous. Interestingly, Old
American Songs is one of Copland’s more enduringly popular works, still
often performed to this day. In order to ensure the continuing popularity
and untarnished reputation of the work, Copland had to remove any
evidence of Jewish radicalism from it.
Bernstein the Rabbi: Activism Through Education
A major theme that ran through much of Bernstein’s career in music was his
love of education – which, on the surface, doesn’t seem to relate inherently
to Jewishness or to political activism. Bernstein’s efforts in education,
however, reveal that the Jewish and political aspects of his identity are
thoroughly woven into his educational endeavours in such a way that aligns
him with much of the thinking behind Copland’s populist period.
In terms of this populist attitude with which Copland approached his
compositions, Bernstein’s attitude is most obviously reflective of it in
his Young People’s Concerts, which aired on America’s CBS network
from 1958 to 1973. Considering the political situation at the time of
the program’s launch, it would make sense to suggest that the Young
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