Danzón Cubano (1942). Aaron Copland

You probably scoff at classical music adaptations like techno remixes, jazz arrangements, weird electric guitar improvisations etc. Well, I'll suggest an instance where the remix improves on the original, namely the Baker Bros' Copland Died on December 4th, a remix of Aaron Copland's Danzón Cubano combined with Jay-Z's December 4th from The Black Album. MP3 page here (Soundclick registration required).

After listening to the remix, the original sounds lifeless and bland. But when Copland's melody and orchestration is combined with spirited (and sometimes reflective) vocals, the track is more than the sum of its parts. The effect is compounded when comparing it to the tediously slow recording conducted by Copland himself.

Note that Aaron Copland actually died on a December 2nd. I remember reading about it in the next day's NY Times while waiting for Caltrain on a cold morning in Palo Alto. From his obituary by John Rockwell:

Of many notable achievements, Mr. Copland's greatest gift was his ability to be both serious and popular, to adhere to the formal integrity and moral earnestness of modernism and also to espouse the generous accessibility of the dominant political mores of the 1930's and 40's.

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Comments

[Michael J. West]

I don't scoff at any kind of classical music adaptations; I actually think they're quite important, musicologically speaking.

An 18th century English writer named Joseph Addison wrote an essay on wit--specifically, on what did and didn't count as wit. He concluded that, "The only way...to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test, you may pronounce it true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment, you may conclude it to have been [false]."

I think that works in music, too: if you really want to test the quality and durability of a piece of music, you should translate it to another musical language. So consider an adaptation of classical as techno or jazz--or whatever--as a test of its real worth as music.

[Charles Hulin]

I appreciate your passion for American classical music and your commitment to sharing it with other folks in the blogosphere. I'll keep reading!