Quiet City

"This article is about the Irwin Shaw play. For the 2007 independent film see "Quiet City (film)"."

"Quiet City" is a play by Irwin Shaw and a well-known composition for trumpet, cor anglais, and string orchestra by Aaron Copland.

Dramatic play

The play had been commissioned for the Group Theatre by Harold Clurman and was directed by Elia Kazan. The play was dropped after only two Sunday performances, most likely due to internal dissension. [cite book
last = Shickel
first = Richard
title = Elia Kazan: A Biography
publisher = HarperCollins
year = 2005
pages = 75–78
isbn = 978-0060195793 ]

Musical composition

In 1940, Copland knitted together the ten-minute piece from the incidental music he had written the previous year to accompany the play. The piece was premiered on January 28, 1941, by conductor Daniel Saidenberg and his Saidenberg Little Symphony in New York City.

According to Copland, the piece was "an attempt to mirror the troubled main character of Irwin Shaw's play," who had abandoned his Jewishness and his poetic aspirations in order to pursue material success by Anglicizing his name, marrying a rich socialite, and becoming the president of a department store. The man, however, was continually recalled to his conscience by the haunting sound of his brother's trumpet playing. Continuing the assessment in his own autobiography, Copland observed that "Quiet City seems to have become a musical entity, superseding the original reasons for its composition," owing much of its success to its escape from the details of its dramatic context.

References

*Library of Congress. [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/achtml/acworks.html Aaron Copland Works List] . Retrieved February 26, 2006.
*Mason, Eric. [http://classicalplus.gmn.com/classical/work.asp?id=437&cmp=Copland%2C+Aaron&notes=true Quiet City] . Retrieved March 4, 2007.
*Purdue University Bands. [http://www.purdue.edu/bands/news/050224SymphTreas.htm 'Symphonic Treasures' features works by Copland, Borodin] . Retrieved February 26, 2006.