August 09, 2008

Come on, baby, to a drive-in show

Drive, the maestro said. On Tanglewood and the car.
Boston Globe, August 10, 2008.

My favorite bit of research that didn't find a place: in 1941, while packing to make the drive up to Tanglewood, Aaron Copland had a suitcase full of sketches and manuscripts stolen out of his car.

5 comments:

Rodney Lister said...

If I remember correctly, it included his only manuscript copy of the Piano Sonata, which he had just finished, and which he then had to reconstruct.

Matthew said...

The Piano Sonata was in there, although the NYT reports that it was only the first two movements. The loot that caught my eye was the only orchestral score to a piece called "Sorcery to Science," described as "music for Remo Bufano's huge puppet show in the Pharmacy Building at the New York World's Fair." I wonder if they were handing out samples at the Pharmacy Building.

rbonotto said...

Matt:
1) Where do you *find* this stuff?

2) I seem to remember there was a CD called "Celluloid Copland" and there was a world's fair score in there. (He had to reconstruct it, I guess.)

3) Speaking of composers-at-Tanglewood-and-cars, my father and I went to a concert in Trenton 10 years ago and met up with Babbitt, and Dad reminded him that he shared a car with him (along with classmate Michael Steinberg) to go to a Tanglewood concert some 50+ years ago. My father didn't remind him that

a) it rained all day

b) they had to have their picnic in the car

c) someone forgot the salt.

Anonymous said...

My favorite line:"There's also music.

Sator Arepo said...

Ah, well, that explains the Piano Sonata then. ;)