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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2018 Jazz, Desire, Racial Difference, and Twentieth Century Gender Ideology in Arron Copland's Grohg: A Ballet in One Act Nate J. Ruechel Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC JAZZ, DESIRE, RACIAL DIFFERENCE, AND TWENTIETH CENTURY GENDER IDEOLOGY IN ARRON COPLAND’S GROHG: A BALLET IN ONE ACT By NATE RUECHEL A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music 2018 Nate Ruechel defended this thesis on March 28 2018. The members of the supervisory committee were: Michael Broyles Professor Directing Thesis Jennifer Atkins Committee Member Charles E. Brewer Committee Member Denise Von Glahn Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 2. THE FRENCH HARLEQUIN ..................................................................................................21 3. THE AESTHETICS OF COPLAND’S SYMPHONIC JAZZ .................................................38 4. VISIONS OF JAZZ IN GROHG’S “DANCE OF THE OPIUM EATER” ..............................56 5. CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................70 APPENDIX: “THE INFLUENCE OF JAZZ ON MODERN MUSIC” ........................................72 References ......................................................................................................................................79 Biographical Sketch .......................................................................................................................83 iii LIST OF FIGURES 1.1: “Visions of Jazz” Textual Indication ........................................................................................2 1.2: Components to Aaron Copland’s Polyrhythm ..........................................................................6 1.3: Piano Variations (1930) Variation 17, Measures 1-5...............................................................8 1.4: “The New Woman- Wash Day” .............................................................................................14 4.1: Spatial, Temporal, and Functional Relationships Between the Grohg Scores ......................59 4.2: Grohg: A Ballet in One Act (1932), p. 64, mm. 9-12”............................................................60 4.3: “Visions of Jazz” Polyrhythmic Piano Vamp .........................................................................61 4.4: Grohg: A Ballet in One Act (1932), p. 67, mm. 6-12; p. 68 m. 1 ...........................................62 4.5: Grohg: A Ballet in One Act (1932), p. 70, mm. 1-4 ...............................................................64 iv ABSTRACT This project investigates the explicit jazz idioms in Aaron Copland’s first orchestral composition: Grohg a Ballet in One Act. Composed between 1922-1925, and later revised in 1932, Grohg was never published in Copland’s lifetime but it maintains a significant position in the composer’s catalog. Material from the ballet is directly quoted in many of Copland’s early compositions such as Cortege Macabre (1923), the Dance Symphony (1929), and in sections of his second ballet, Hear Ye, Hear Ye! (1932). Beyond these uses, Copland employed the ballet’s third movement, the “Dance of the Opium Eater,” to illustrate the lectures on symphonic jazz he gave in the 1920s. The structural qualities of this movement’s jazz idioms served as the model for Copland’s theories on jazz style and technique first expressed in the 1927 article “Jazz Structures and Influence,” and later in a lecture he delivered in 1940 titled “The Influence of Jazz on Modern Music.” Drawing on historical and musicological evidence housed in the Library of Congress’ Aaron Copland Collection, I interpret the “Dance of the Opium Eater’s” jazz techniques as an example of racialized and sexualized musical discourse. By interpolating what he understood as a feminine vernacular tradition into the precepts of modernist composition, I argue Copland’s jazz-classical fusions approximate an early twentieth century theory of queer subjectivity. Ultimately, this thesis will demonstrate how Grohg’s jazz idioms articulate an aesthetic model for coalitional unity that would continue to inform Copland’s approach to jazz throughout his career. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In 1922 Aaron Copland began composing his last student work, Grohg: A Ballet in One Act. The ballet was never published in its entirety, but it maintains a significant position in Copland’s catalog. The work’s major dances were derived from an earlier set of waltzes that Copland completed under Nadia Boulanger’s supervision. Grohg can therefore be interpreted as an early opportunity for the young composer to refine and synthesize the creative skills he learned abroad. In other words, the ballet stands as a musical record of Copland’s transnational education. Beyond its pedagogic function, Grohg’s material resonates in Copland’s professional works. He directly quotes the ballet in Cortege Macabre (1923), the Dance Symphony (1929), and in his second ballet, Hear Ye! Hear Ye! (1934).1 The ballet’s scenario outlines a “fantastic and symbolic” narrative about a necromancer (Grohg) who raises three marginalized individuals from beyond the grave: a child, an opium addict, and a prostitute. Grohg “loves the dead,” and seeks their physical affection “despite his ugly exterior.” When the curtain opens, Grohg plods into an “empty courtyard surrounded by a thick, circular wall, from the top of which descend two flight(s) of stairs.” At Grohg’s command, his servants drag coffins containing the three unfortunate victims down the stairs to center stage. As the ballet unfolds, the necromancer uses his magic abilities to make each victim dance. They remain under Grohg’s control so long as “he does not touch them.” Inevitably, each corpse is overwhelmed by the necromancer’s grotesque appearance, and his unwelcome physical advances. In the final movement, Grohg is publicly ridiculed by his former servants and victims 1 Roberta Lindsey, “A Historical and Musical Study of Aaron Copland’s Grohg: A Ballet in One Act,” PhD diss., The Ohio State University, 1996. Pp. 76-126. 1 for his inability to achieve physical intimacy with any of the undead. Angered to rage, Grohg picks up the prostitute and throws her into the audience at the ballet’s climax. When the dust settles, all that remains is a state of “complete obscurity, except for a mysterious light that illuminates the head of Grohg.” The curtain closes after Grohg wistfully meanders offstage, “as if he imagined the entire thing.”2 The ballet’s 1932 revision includes an opening dirge followed by four dances extracted from the original score and miscellaneous sections: “Dance of the Adolescent,” “Dance of the Opium Eater,” “Dance of the Streetwalker,” and the final “Dance of Mockery.” The “Dance of the Opium Eater” is particularly notable as it features one of Copland’s first explicit references to jazz techniques. After a 32-measure introduction, the words “The opium eater begins to dance (visions of Jazz),” cue a new polyrhythmic theme from the piano (Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1 “Visions of Jazz” Textual Indication3 2 Aaron Copland and Harold Clurman, Grohg: A Ballet in One Act, 1922-4 Library of Congress, Aaron Copland Collection (now referred to as CCLC). 3 Aaron Copland, Grohg: A Ballet in One Act, (1932), pp. 67, mm. 5-8. 2 Beyond indicating his compositional resources, Copland’s text also employs certain discursive tactics used at the beginning of the twentieth century to represent Eastern subjects as prone to addictive behavior. As Charles Hiroshi Garrett notes “U.S. companies had shipped opium into China since the early nineteenth century, its evils were linked in the public imagination to China and Chinese America.” In effect, “this stigma served as a marker of racial difference and immorality.” 4 Why did Copland interpolate what he understood as jazz within these Eastern tropes? What can we make of the text’s overt racial references? This project is a critical evaluation of the jazz techniques Copland references in Grohg’s “Dance of the Opium Eater.” My interpretation of Copland’s musical fusion is multifaceted. Grohg’s status as a student composition implies Copland was at least attempting to conform to Nadia Boulanger’s musical precepts. Her Parisian studio was responsible for Copland’s introduction to Jean Cocteau’s modernist aesthetic theories. As I will demonstrate, Copland’s developing style soon coalesced around Cocteau’s thought. On the one hand, we can think of Grohg as a trial-run for many of the ideas and compositional methods he absorbed into his mature works. From a different perspective, the intersection of jazz and Eastern subjectivity in the “Dance