American Trails with Edgar Meyer
What to Listen For
Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo:
Buckaroo Holiday
The first movement sets the scene at a bustling rodeo, showcasing the Cowgirl’s energy and awkwardness. Copland largely derives the melodic material from Western American folksongs; in Buckaroo Holiday, Copland quotes “If He’d Be a Buckaroo by Trade” and the traditional tune “Sis Joe.”
Buckaroo Holiday opens with a rhythmic fanfare marked by syncopation. Copland uses brass and strings as opposing forces in this opening. Listen for the abrupt, unpredictable changes of meter that Copland uses. These rhythmic jolts represent the bucking of wild horses and the physical comedy of the Cowgirl trying to fit in with the cowboys. Also, listen for the sharp, percussiveness of the honky-tonk piano. Copland incorporates percussive, syncopated bursts from the piano to give this section the flavor of a saloon filled with cowboys.
Corral Nocturne
This second movement, Corral Nocturne, a brief, quiet scene, makes a stark, moody contrast to the opening as it captures the landscape after the crowds have disappeared. It offers dramatic relief from the bustling activity at the ranch; here, there are no folk tunes, but rather, Copland evokes the quiet, lonely romance of the night with a melancholic ode to unrequited love. Listen for the way Copland illustrates the Cowgirl’s sadness.
Saturday Night Waltz
The third movement portrays a community gathering, a local ranch house party, with the sounds of fiddlers tuning before the oboe introduces the main theme, which is built mainly on the familiar song Old Paint. Listen for the waltz rhythm but also for how Copland stretches and distorts it with unexpected, awkward pauses, highlighting the Cowgirl’s continued feeling of uneasiness and isolation.
Hoe-Down
The finale, Hoe-Down, is the most famous and recognizable movement of the suite, full of life and high-energy square dancing. Listen for the strings and the percussion in the traditional square dance melodies “Bonyparte” and “McLeod’s Reel.” In the climax, notice the large and sudden dynamic shifts. Listen for the Rodeo theme returning near the movement’s end, and listen for the major chord with its high, ethereal string sound, denoting the first kiss between the cowgirl and the head wrangler. Finally, Copland brings the work to a thunderous, celebratory conclusion.
Concerto No. 2 for Double Bass and Orchestra:
Allegro moderato:
Notice the dramatic, brooding orchestral introduction. When the bass enters, however, listen for how it plays on the entire range of the instrument, leaping from deep, rumbling low notes to soaring, delicate high harmonics. Near the movement’s end, listen for the large, virtuosic cadenza.
Andante:
Listen for how this movement can be compared to an operatic aria because of the long, soulful, and introspective lyrical lines Bottesini creates for the bass to “sing.”
Allegro:
In this virtuosic finale, listen for the extremely fast string-crossing, the dramatic technical leaps, and the exchanges between the hectic soloist and the orchestra. Throughout, the double bass plays with both surprising warmth and volume because the soloist uses “solo tuning,” where the double bass strings are tuned a whole step higher than standard orchestral tuning, putting more tension on the strings, helping the bass cut through the orchestral sound with a brilliant, cello-like tone.
Concerto in D for Double Bass and Orchestra:
Solo double bass and orchestra is not a natural pairing. The orchestra, with its combined instrumentation, is capable of a huge variety of dynamics and colors, but the bass is not a particularly loud instrument and has a predominantly dark sound. In this concerto, Edgar Meyer highlights and showcases the bass’s strengths as a solo instrument, one that is both lyrical and able to express many diverse emotions.
As you listen, focus on the seamless blending of classical rigor with American folk, bluegrass, and Celtic influences. Listen for the surprisingly lyrical, “singing” quality of the solo bass line. It often soars gracefully over the orchestra rather than just being a low, rumbling, rhythmic line. Meyer utilizes a vast five-and-a-half-octave range; listen especially for his very high notes and for the very low ones, as well as for the rapid, dramatic shifts from deep, resonant low notes to agile, high, thumb-position melodies.
In the first movement, the double bass has what feels like a jazz solo “lick” at the opening. It is a bluesy ascending swagger with emphatic punctuations that set the style for the piece. After the orchestra coaxes the bass up into chilly heights, the first opening solo theme returns to end the movement. The second movement, in three-part song form, begins with the bass soaring lyrically over a pizzicato accompaniment, which Meyer says was inspired by Haydn’s Violin Concerto in C. The finale, also in three-part form, explodes energetically. Celtic modality, blues, orchestration inspired by American composer John Adams, and demanding virtuosity (including a solo bass cadenza) all dazzle in this complex third movement.
An American in Paris:
Gershwin told a Paris interviewer that An American in Paris “is written very freely. My purpose is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the noises, and absorbs the atmosphere.” Listen for the blues following the bright, brisk, carefree opening as the tourist strolls, taking in the hustle and bustle of the city. Soon thereafter, the American tourist suddenly suffers a spasm of homesickness. Listen for the lush, syncopated blues trumpet solo representing that homesickness.
An American in Paris showcases a blend of 1920s jazz, scales from the American blues, and even French symphonic textures that Gershwin absorbed during his time in Paris. It is important to track the honking of the famous, authentic Parisian taxi horns that Gershwin imported from Paris, specifically to add authentic street-scene noise to his score. Gershwin also brilliantly mixes French can-can music with American Charleston rhythms, building into a grand, sweeping climax. As the music returns to the exuberance of the opening, the street noises and the French atmosphere triumph.
Aaron Copland: Four Dance Episodes from the Ballet, Rodeo
Born: November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown (now Sleepy Hollow), New York
Date of Composition: shortly after the ballet premiered in late 1942; completed in 1943
Premiere: 1943
Orchestration: two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harp, celeste, and strings
An American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career, conductor, Aaron Copland helped to create a distinctly 20th-century type of American music.
Growing up, Copland was exposed to Yiddish popular music, which was part of a tradition filled with improvisation; jazz, the music of his time, also inspired him. Copland often said that he wanted to write music that would let people know how it felt to be alive on the streets of Brooklyn; nevertheless, he went to Paris to study with the most famous teacher of composers, Nadia Boulanger. But Copland still wished to break free from European musical traditions and create uniquely “American” classical music. Boulanger encouraged him to be himself and develop an American style. In his later years, he had accomplished his aim and was often referred to as “the Dean of American Composers.”
Returning to New York, Copland taught at the New School. Around the same time, the Library of Congress released recordings of American folk music, which captivated him; he wanted to find a way to incorporate their simplicity and power in his own work. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style that he labeled “vernacular.” For Rodeo’s 1942-43 season, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo commissioned Agnes de Mille to create the dances and Copland to compose the music for a new ballet that would create a sense of the American West. The result of their efforts was Rodeo, or The Courting at Burnt Ranch; it premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on October 16, 1942, with de Mille in the title role. The concert suite’s premiere occurred in 1943 with the Boston Pops. Rodeo is filled with American folk tunes, remarkably often left completely intact.
The Rodeo concert suite, Four Dance Episodes, includes Buckaroo Holiday, Corral Nocturne, Saturday Night Waltz, and finally, Hoe-Down. The melodic material is largely derived from Western American folksong. The word “buckaroo” originated when Western “Anglos” mispronounced the Spanish word “vaquero.” When the new word for cowboy became popular, Copland and de Mille used it in the title of their first Episode: much of Buckaroo Holiday, in which the cowboys celebrate their day off with dancing and singing, is based on If He’d Be a Buckaroo by Trade and Sis Joe. Buckaroo Holiday begins with a rhythmic fanfare filled with syncopation. Copland uses brass and strings as opposing forces in this opening. The fanfare, a cowgirl theme, Sis Joe, and If He’d Be a Buckaroo return in various forms at the boisterous movement’s conclusion.
In Corral Nocturne, a brief, quiet scene, Copland offers dramatic relief from the bustling activity at the ranch and uses no folk tunes. He writes an ode to unrequited love. The Cowgirl’s sadness is brought to life in the melancholy solo with which the wind instruments illustrate her situation. Agnes de Mille stated, “She run[s] through the empty corrals intoxicated with space, her feet thudding in the stillness.”
The opening of Saturday Night Waltz presents the sounds of fiddlers tuning before the oboe introduces the main theme, built mainly on elements of the familiar song Old Paint. The movement begins with the cowboys and town girls pairing off to dance, with the cowgirl left standing alone until the champion roper approaches her. They then dance to "I Ride an Old Paint."
Hoe-Down, the most recognizable movement, is the name of the liveliest dance of the southwest, and of the parties at which it was danced. Copland’s Hoe-Down uses the traditional tunes of McLeod’s Reel and the song Bonyparte, which originally had words about Napoleon and his troops taking an imaginary journey across the Rocky Mountains. The Rodeo theme returns near the end of the movement. The major chord at the conclusion has a high, ethereal string sound, which denotes the first kiss between the cowgirl and the wrangler.
Giovanni Bottesini arr. Edgar Meyer: Concerto No. 2 in B minor for Double Bass
Born: December 22, 1821, in Crema, Italy
Died: July 7, 1889, in Parma
Date of composition: the original Bottesini work is mid-19th century; this specific version was released on a 2002 recording
Premiere: premiered on a 2002 recording by Edgar Meyer
Orchestration: string orchestra of violins, violas, and cellos, but today often performed in the full wind/string orchestrations: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, and timpani
Giovanni Bottesini was enrolled in the Milan Conservatory when he was 11, and since the only opening was in the double bass department, he took up the cumbersome instrument and, before long, had acquired astonishing virtuosity on it. In solo performances in Europe and America, Bottesini usually played a small bass of the kind called a basso da camera, which had a delicate tone and was easier to handle than the usual orchestral bass.
Bottesini, known as the “Paganini of the double bass,” composed operas and oratorios as well as chamber and symphonic music. A virtuoso himself, Bottesini famously transformed the notoriously bulky double bass into a singing, highly agile solo instrument; this concerto has been dubbed “the double bass equivalent of a Chopin or Paganini violin concerto.” Known for his use of virtuosity and melody, Bottesini tested the limits of the instrument. Throughout, the double bass performs rapid-fire arpeggios, extremely fast technical runs, and artificial harmonics.
The first movement, Allegro moderato, begins with a dramatic, brooding orchestral introduction. When the bass enters, it plays on the entire range of the instrument, leaping from deep, rumbling low notes to soaring, delicate high harmonics. Near the movement’s end, there is a large, virtuosic cadenza.
Bottesini was heavily involved in Italian opera (he conducted the 1871 premiere of Verdi's Aida.) The second movement of this concerto, Andante, can be compared to an operatic aria because of the long, soulful, and introspective lyrical lines Bottesini creates for the bass to "sing."
In the third movement, Allegro, a virtuosic finale, the extremely fast string-crossing, the dramatic technical leaps, and the exchanges between the hectic soloist and the orchestra are memorable.
Throughout, the double bass plays with surprising warmth and volume because the soloist uses "solo tuning,” where the double bass strings are tuned a whole step higher than standard orchestral tuning, putting more tension on the strings, helping the bass cut through the orchestral sound with a brilliant, cello-like tone.
Edgar Meyer: Concerto in D for Double Bass and Orchestra
Born: November 24, 1960
Date of composition: 1993
Premiere: 1993 with the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Edo de Waart. Edgar Meyer is the only soloist allowed to perform this work.
Orchestration: solo double bass and chamber orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, timpani, and a full string section of violins, viola, cello, and double bass
Edgar Meyer, well-known as both a unique and masterful instrumentalist on the double bass, is not only a vibrant performer but also an innovative composer. He has been hailed by the New Yorker as “...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument.” Meyer’s mastery of the double bass, an instrument of unusual technical difficulty, has allowed him to perform music not originally composed for double bass, as in Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. Throughout his career, Meyer has collaborated with many outstanding artists, including Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Béla Fleck, Mark O’Connor, and James Taylor.
When he was five, Meyer’s father started him on the bass; later, he studied with Stuart Sankey. The winner of numerous competitions, Meyer joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1994 and, in 2000, became the only bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant. His uniqueness was recognized with his receipt of a MacArthur Award in 2002.
A frequent guest at music festivals, Meyer has appeared as performer and composer at Aspen, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Chamber Music Northwest, and Marlboro. Meyer and colleagues Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O' Connor were widely acclaimed for Appalachia Waltz and its follow-up Appalachian Journey, which won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album. Joining with Ma and O’Connor for a second time, Meyer’s Appalachian Journey appeared in March 2000; this time, they toured across the U.S. and to Europe and Asia. Appalachian Journey won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album that season.
Meyer premiered his Concerto for Double Bass with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra in 1993. He stipulated to his publisher, Boosey and Hawkes, that he was to be the only bassist to perform the work. Meyer incorporates a great deal of fast, driving rhythms of bluegrass and Celtic fiddling into this concerto. Listen for the sudden passages of “fiddling fury” and syncopated runs, especially in the finale. Listen to how the double bass interacts; at times it fights the whole orchestra for dominance, and at other times, it playfully entwines its lines with solo woodwinds.
Meyer best explains his eclectic work: “Most of the music I’ve become interested in is hybrid in its origins… Classical music, of course, is unbelievably hybrid. Jazz is an obvious amalgam. Bluegrass comes from eighteenth-century Scottish and Irish folk music that made contact with the blues. By exploring music, you’re exploring everything.”
George Gershwin: An American in Paris
Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: July 11, 1937, in Beverly Hills, California
Date of composition: completed November 18, 1928
Premiere: December 13, 1928, Walter Damrosch conducted the orchestra of the newly reorganized New York Philharmonic Symphony Society
Orchestration: piccolo and three flutes, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, three saxophones (alto, tenor, and baritone), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, percussion (including four old-style French taxi horns played by a percussionist), celesta, and strings
Rhapsody in Blue remains an important monument in the history of American music. It was George Gershwin's first extended composition and combined jazz and classical music. Gershwin’s natural melodic gifts had already earned him an important career as a writer of popular songs, but he had not written larger musical forms; first he had to learn how larger forms worked and what held them together.
The extraordinary vitality of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for piano and jazz orchestra led to the commission for his first symphonic work, the Concerto in F, written for Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin had no previous experience with the large forms and the full symphony orchestra, but the Concerto in F’s success was so great that he promised Damrosch another work, and in January 1928, he began to sketch the music for An American in Paris.
After his success with Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin felt that sharpening his technique would lighten his labors. He read some technical manuals and then decided to go to Europe, which was the source of nearly all the concert music performed in America, to see what he could learn from the many composers there. From London to Paris to Vienna, he found that people were familiar with his work, and such eminent (and different) figures as William Walton, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, and Franz Lehár, admired it. None of them would presume to teach him anything. Maurice Ravel turned him down as a student with the query, “Why do you want to become a second-rate Ravel, when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?” When Igor Stravinsky learned how much money Gershwin earned from his music, he said, “Perhaps I should take lessons from you.” Nevertheless, Gershwin's time in France was not fruitless; it inspired An American in Paris. Back home, he worked with several well-known musicians and teachers who helped him polish his skills further.
When he returned to New York for the summer, he worked on two Broadway shows. In the autumn, he turned again to his concert piece, and on November 18, 1928, he had completed An American in Paris. Gershwin described it as a tone poem, a ballet, or a rhapsody; he explained that the musical manner and style were modern and French, the subject matter was Franco-American, but more impressionistic than literal. Sometimes he made up outlines of little stories that might be traced through the music.
“The new piece,” he told a Paris interviewer, “is written very freely. My purpose is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the noises, and absorbs the atmosphere. The individual listener can read into the music such episodes as his imagination might picture for him. The blues follow a gay opening. Our American friend has perhaps suffered a spasm of homesickness, but the music returns to the exuberance of the opening.” At the end, the noises and the French atmosphere triumph.”
On December 13, 1928, Walter Damrosch conducted the orchestra of the newly reorganized New York Philharmonic Symphony Society in the premiere of the colorfully orchestrated work.
© Susan Halpern, 2026