Portraits in Tone

Three composers went to work on a job usually reserved for painters. Aaron Copland dug into a Modern Library version of Abraham Lincoln's life and letters, and tried to write down his impressions in music. Jerome Kern thumbed through his Mark Twain first editions and manuscripts in his Beverly Hills library. Virgil Thomson spent two hours in Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia's City Hall office in Manhattan, watched and jotted down music while the Mayor received visitors. He also spent a morning in Pundit Dorothy Thompson's library while she read and, after her fashion, meditated.

The results, four works for symphony orchestra, were complete this week: Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, a mixture of simplicity, tenderness and nobility; Kern's Portrait for Orchestra (Mark Twain), stringing out typically Kern melodies, portraying Mark Twain's humor in an impudent polka, his "gorgeous pilot house" in a broad andante cantabile; Thomson's brassy Mayor LaGuardia Waltzes and Canons for Dorothy Thompson.

All four pieces exist because of an idea of rotund-faced, baldish Conductor Andre Kostelanetz. As he explains it, "I want people to get the message of what democracy is, what we are fighting for." So first he telephoned Jerome Kern in Beverly Hills. Kern, who has been a Mark Twain enthusiast since boyhood (the first book he ever owned was Huckleberry Finn), jumped at the idea of a Mark Twain portrait. Copland wanted to do Walt Whitman in music, but was persuaded to tackle Lincoln. Virgil Thomson was best suited to his particular assignments. Since 1928 he has been composing musical portraits, sketching out his music (as a painter would) while the subject poses.

Kostelanetz commissioned the works (fees undisclosed) for performance during the summer concert rounds he will make with his diminutive wife, Coloratura Lily Pons. Next week, three of the portraits will have their premieres in Cincinnati.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.