The Tender Land

Composer: COPLAND, Aaron
  • The Tender Land is a small-scale opera Copland composed in 1952-4, with a libretto by Horace Everett.1
  • It was commissioned by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II2 for television, but when that broadcast project fell through, New York City Opera premiered it instead.
  • Copland later revised it so that it would be especially suitable for performance by university students.3
  • Story: a coming-of-age and tale about Laurie, a farm girl graduating high school in the Depression-era Midwest.4
  • Listen for: the influence of American folk music5 and an intentionally accessible style, which Copland called his “vernacular style”6

The Promise of Living

“The Promise of Living” is a number from the opera, which Copland also arranged for choir and piano four-hands in 1954. The orchestral version comes from the orchestral suite Copland created from the opera7 in 1958.8

The promise of living with hope and thanksgiving
is born of our loving our friends and our labor.

The promise of growing with faith and with knowing
is born of our sharing our love with our neighbor.

From “The Promise of Living.” Full text here.

Sources

  1. Howard Pollack, “Copland, Aaron,” Grove Music Online (2013), accessed August 22, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002249091.
  2. Vivian Perlis, “Tender Land, The,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed August 22, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000905177.
  3. Vivian Perlis, “Copland, Aaron (opera),” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed August 22, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000901128.
  4. Vivian Perlis, “Tender Land, The,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Ibid
  6. “Aaron Copland: The Promise of Living,” The Providence Singers.
  7. David
    Loebel, liner notes to Aaron Copland: Lincoln Portrait, Old American Songs
    et al, Katherine Hepburn, Sherrill Milnes, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra,
    Erich Kunzel, Telarc 80117, CD, 1987.
  8. Pollack, “Copland, Aaron,” Grove Music Online.

Cut IDs

18083 42798 45767