[Above: portion of letter from Aaron Copland to Harold Spivacke, Chief of the Music Division at the Library of Congress. Original in the Library of Congress’s Aaron Copland Collection.]
[“Appalachian Spring (7th Movement)” (about 13:30 long)]
[…or, if you’d prefer, the whole thing (about 35:57)]
Note: If you’re interested in the early history of “Simple Gifts,” rather than its resurrection in the 20th century, you might want to begin with Part 1 of this two-part series, posted a few days earlier.
In late 1942, choreographer/dancer Martha Graham first approached composer Aaron Copland. She hoped he could score a new ballet for her troupe. She had a grant from the Library of Congress’s Coolidge foundation to fund the work, but at that point she didn’t know the details of the project — certainly not the title. She hoped to premiere it in the auditorium of the Library in Washington, DC, within a year.As you can see from the portion of the letter reproduced at the top of this post, as of the following spring Copland had heard no more from her about the new ballet and moved on to other projects. But by June, 1943, he’d received Graham’s first notes; by July, he’d managed to compose the first third of the ballet. The premiere date was now set for October 30, at the Library of Congress as Graham had hoped. (One constraint: the orchestra would be limited to 13 musicians, because of the small size of the orchestra pit there.)
What Copland knew about the ballet at this point was the general story it would tell. It would be about a young farming couple in the hills of Pennsylvania, early in the 19th century. Graham hoped it might capture of the same spirit as Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town (1938). Of course, with the US and the world in the grip of war — and because the life of a pioneer farming couple would not have been easy — it could not be too sweet and sentimental. Importantly, it still had no title. (Copland settled on Ballet for Martha as his working title.)
But it did have a main theme, one which Copland had found almost by accident.
Musically omnivorous, Copland read as much as he could, about as many different kinds of music as he could.When Graham’s initial notes for the project mentioned a “Shaker rocking chair,” apparently a question mark went up in Copland’s head. (On the other hand, as he later conceded, “my research evidently was not very thorough, since I did not realize that there have never been Shaker settlements in rural Pennsylvania.” Ha!)
Copland’s research led him to a book (originally published in 1940) by historian Edward Deming Andrews, who specialized in the history of the Shaker religious sect. The book, The Gift to be Simple, provided music and lyrics of hundreds of Shaker songs, melodies, and dances; it took its very title from the first line of one song.
Andrews didn’t get the details of “Simple Gifts”‘s composition entirely correct, as later historians discovered. (I covered some of those details in Part 1 of this two-part series.) But his capsule summary of the song’s tempo — “a rather lively piece” — captured precisely the spirit in which it had been first composed and later performed by the Shakers.
Copland had a whole serious ballet to score, not just a few steps. He thus couldn’t make the whole thing “rather lively.” But he could honor “Simple Gifts” by playing with its central musical theme throughout the arrangement — and by devoting one entire section to variations on the song itself.
Not until the ballet was set to premiere did Graham come up with a title. It would come from one of the poems-within-an-epic-poem about the history of America, The Bridge, by Hart Crane (published in 1930). The specific poem she’d alighted on, not surprisingly, was called “The Dance,” and the stanza inspiring Graham’s title begins like this:
O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!…
(Interestingly, the spring to which Crane referred was not a season, but a little rivulet of water. This would cause Copland much amusement for the rest of his life: strangers kept telling him how perfectly his score captured that time of the year, in those mountains — even though he himself had had no idea it was “about” the Appalachians the whole time he worked on it, and even though the title had nothing to do with the months from March to June!)
Copland would receive the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1944 for Appalachian Spring, and he would soon recast it in shorter, suite form for full orchestra. He’d treat “Simple Gifts” itself in a separate work, as well, including voices. (I’ve included the suite version at the top of this post; section seven of eight total is devoted to five variations on “Simple Gifts,” and I’ve also extracted just that section above.)
Whatever else Copland did with Appalachian Spring, he rescued “Simple Gifts” from obscurity. (Only specialists like Edward Deming Andrews — and the handful of surviving Shakers — even knew of the song at that point.)And, for good or ill, he also changed its interpretation ever after: while some would recall the song’s “rather lively” origins, a generation of folk singers would depend on Copland’s overall interpretation: “Simple Gifts” must be sung reverently, almost somberly, even mournfully — as if it were a dirge for the passing of time out of simplicity into complication.
The first folksingers to latch onto “Simple Gifts,” probably, were a duo, George and Gerry Armstrong. Here’s their version, from their 1961 album of the same name:
Not as eyes-cast-heavenward as some would perform it, by a long shot — but also still (for my taste) a bit plainer than the song as performed by real (however elderly) Shakers.
Judy Collins recorded what is often regarded as a classic version of “Simple Gifts” for her 1970 album Whales & Nightingales. She herself (according to Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song, by Steve Turner and Collins) craved simplicity at the time and therefore recorded the album in a variety of plain, uncluttered rooms, with minimal instrumentation; the “Simple Gifts” session took place in a Greenwich Village loft, introduced with a flute solo:
By 1973, the song had sufficiently penetrated popular culture that the producers of the Kung Fu television series could, without much of a stretch or trouble, incorporate it into an episode. The singer: ten-year-old Jodie Foster.
(That’s actually pretty close to the original Shaker tempo and mood — especially interesting, i.e., odd, because David Carradine’s character is preparing to be hanged!)
Among the folkie interpretations I’ve heard, one of the more interesting (and longest) is a version recorded in 2007 by The Zincs, a Chicago troupe. It’s got its own little pitter-patter rhythm going on:
The
final bit I want to include here is an oddity, the single called “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” from 2008’s The Red Album, by alt-rock band Weezer. Its subtitle: “Variations on a Shaker Hymn.” And although by now you probably know that the word “hymn” isn’t quite right, surely you know which “hymn” it’s referring to.
From the WeezerPedia (!) site:
[Guitarist, singer, and songwriter] Rivers [Cuomo] has said, “The original inspiration for the song was…I just had this really strong and kind of sudden conviction that I am sick of writing verse-chorus-verse songs… I wanted to do something completely different.” Rivers also said, “I thought of classical theme and variation music.”In the liner notes of the deluxe edition of the The Red Album, Cuomo stated that the song did not originally have the subtitle “Variations on a Shaker Hymn,” however when Brian Bell’s mom came into the studio to see them she mentioned a melody from the song sounded similar to a hymn that the choir would sing in church. As a result the band looked up the hymn and indeed the melody was so similar to Joseph Brackett’s “Simple Gifts” that they credited the hymn with the subtitle.
Crazy, huh?
Here’s “The Greatest Man that Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)”; because the song itself is fairly long, you can find lyrics not here but directly, at WeezerPedia:
Quite a distance for a little song to travel, hmm? From a simple a-capella tune sung in the 1840s by members of a sect devoted to celibacy, all the way to a 21st-century mega-produced alternative-rock anthem whose lyrics promise that “soon I’ll be playin’ in your underwear”?
The Querulous Squirrel says
This was a stellar post. I forgot how much I loved Judy Collins. It was funny seeing ten-year-old Jodie Foster singing off-key.
John says
Thanks, Squirrel. I’m old enough to have been smitten at some point by many women on the folk-music scene: Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Mary Travers… It’s quite possible that I subconsciously tackled a folk favorite here with that in mind!
DarcKnyt says
I remember seeing that episode of Kung Fu when it aired originally. There’s another scene when Quai Chang is challenging Jodi Foster’s notions and beliefs and when she answers he perks his brows to create doubt. I’ve never, ever forgotten that expression on her face. Or his.
I’ve always found Judy Collins’s voice soothing and peaceful. I’ll have to dig around for more of her stuff and see what I find.
Great job on this, John. GREAT job.
John says
Darc: Some people have that sort of photographic memory of specific phrases they’ve read; I don’t, really (almost always have to go back and look it up again). But I’m completely with you on recalling specific moments — instants, really — from specific episodes of old TV shows, movies, and so on. That might even be one reason why we like to re-re-re-watch those things, just to recapture the feeling of seeing such moments the first time.
So glad you liked the series!
cynth says
Thanks John for capturing in many ways, one of my all time favorite songs! I even have note cards with the words on it done by hand (some clever calligrapher did it in a circle!). I’ll have to post one to you, so you can appreciate the subtlety.
Great post!
John says
cynth: Love to see one of those cards — even just send a snapshot — I can’t quite picture how it must go.
cynth says
I’m not sure how the copyright thing works on this women’s artwork. I’ll send you the link to her website and you can look for yourself. It’s really a great card!
Her website is: http://www.literarycalligraphy.com
You’ll probably like a lot of her other stuff, but this is one of my favorite cards to send.
cynth says
Okay, a lot of weird stuff appeared after my post…not sure what it means…
Froog says
Ah, Kung Fu was a key influence in my childhood – although I think I dissociated its Buddhist philosophy from China.
I was surprised you didn’t mention the link to the English hymn Lord of the Dance. Interesting that this Wikipedia article on it says that people commonly felt there was somehow an air of ‘antiquity’ about it and assumed it was very old. I had no idea it was such a comparatively recent composition: when I was being taught to sing it in elementary school, it was very new indeed.
John says
cynth: I visited Susan Loy’s “Literary Calligraphy” site — especially the catalog page where she offers a number of “Simple Gifts”-related items. Very nice!
(For those who haven’t yet seen it, in the center of the print/card is a simple woven basket of fruit and flowers. The song’s two verses appear in two concentric rings around the basket, each starting at about the 9:00 position.)
Oh, and I fixed that lot of weird stuff. I’m not sure what happened, either, and it certainly didn’t mean anything! :)
John says
Froog: Ah. Yes, “Lord of the Dance” — I had a feeling someone would bring that up…
I had been familiar with Judy Collins’s version of “Simple Gifts” but then, for whatever reason, it passed from memory until sometime in the 1980s. At that time I picked up a cassette recording called Simple Gifts, by English baritone Benjamin Luxon and American folksinger Bill Crofut. (I still have the tape; it’s here beside me, atop a stack of tapes I’ve been meaning to convert to MP3 format via the computer’s audio card, since I no longer otherwise have a way to play them — and can’t find MP3 versions anywhere online.)
It’s a wonderful collection of folk songs — “Foggy Foggy Dew,” “Old Paint,” “Johnny I Hardly Knew You,” “Old Joe Clark,” and so on. The last number is a medley of “Simple Gifts” and “Lord of the Dance.” As I remember the arrangement, it begins with a duet of “Simple Gifts.” Somewhere in the middle, the singers’ voices diverge, with Crofut (?) finishing off “Simple Gifts” and Luxon (?) beginning “Lord of the Dance” at the same point, their voices softly overlapping but still distinct. It concludes with them both wrapping up “Lord of the Dance” together. Lovely.
Although the lyrics of “Lord of the Dance” are more explicitly Christian than those of “Simple Gifts,” it’s a peculiarly, well, mystical version of Christianity, referring not just to New Testament events but also to the Genesis version of the creation of the world, and rife with metaphors of a form of Christianity not often put about: a form which uses dance as its principal mode of expression. (E.g., “I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee / But they would not dance and they wouldn’t follow me” etc.) I never bought the whole “it’s an old song” line, because it sounded to me like a hippie version of Christian theology, y’know?
I liked the song quite a bit, despite an ambiguous whiff of anti-Semitism in one verse, and Crofut/Luxon’s medley linked it inextricably in my head with “Simple Gifts.”
And then came Michael Flatley, Riverdance, and its sequel: Lord of the Dance.
I loved Riverdance itself and dearly wish(ed) Flatley had just stopped with that, without bringing the whole Celtic/step-dancing thing into obstreperous overdrive. I don’t have any idea what his critical or even popular perception might be, and it’s probably quite unfair of me to wish the “Irish-American” in him were heavier on the former, lighter on the latter. At any rate, by the time that damned poster started showing up everywhere, I’d had enough of him. And now it’s almost impossible to separate him in my mind from the song “Lord of the Dance”…
So then we come to this RAMH post about “Simple Gifts.” It was already very long; rather than incorporate a whole grumpy aside like this into it, I took advantage of the it’s-too-long excuse, and left it out entirely. (I could never succeed in academe.)
And, haha, reCaptcha comments: former nitwits.
Froog says
Aha, I thought it might have been something like that, JES. Sorry to rake up that Flatley-phobia – but it makes for a fascinating footnote.
I hope you’ll get around to posting that Luxon/Crofut version sometime too.
I know what you mean about the ‘hippie-ishness’ of Lord of the Dance, but a lot of fringe religious sects in the 1800s, and earlier, had a very hippie-ish vibe to them too. I think it was the tune rather than the lyrics which suggested ‘antiquity’ to me.
amnesiac power says ReCaptcha!
John says
Froog: I only wish I could have offered a less irrational excuse for skipping over “Lord of the Dance.”
You’re right about the old-timey feel of the tune. Yet another mystery of music for me to scratch my head over: what makes a piece sound old? Remember that Maxence Cyrin version of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” from a post a few weeks ago? That feels notably older to me than the original. I don’t think it’s just because the arrangement is simpler. (I do know I’d never, on my own, have found that melody in the original version!) But why that should be so: as I said, a mystery!
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
Now, simple gifts – a really fine song, but also a fine concept. Like receiving an unexpected book in the mail for “no special occasion”. And to discover that it caused media/art forms to collide – a response in THIS weblog all the more apropos. A simple child’s tale shaped with several of the inspirations of a some times childish man’s passion. WELL – that is no mere simple gift :-) Thanks, mucho.
s.o.m.e.one's brudder says
oh, and on another note (pun intended). Whenever I hear Simple Gifts, it makes me think of “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” by Neil Young. Not exactly sure why, but that led me to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Is_Wide_%28song%29
An interesting heritage for that song, too.
John says
Glad you liked, brudder. (Found it in a review over at the Seven Impossible Things kidlit site. As soon as I saw the characters involved, I “knew.” :))
I just blew an hour looking up versions of “The Water Is Wide.” Naturally, the one I really wanted to hear and spent the most time searching for — by Cowboy Junkies — hasn’t been released in MP3 form!