'AMERICAN VOICE'

in celebration of the 100th birthday of AARON COPLAND
by RICHARD KRAUSE

A Brooklyn kid gazes from the tenement window
and hears music, wild music, broad music,
a whole universe of sound embedded in a
neighborhood of Jews, Russians, Italians, Germans ...
the richest soil for the amalgam known as America.

 

The young man from Brooklyn gazes from a Paris
window and hears sophistication and courageous
gall, a new music shaking foundations, dissonant
effronteries to those sounds now overly rich,
new sounds calling forth the Modern aesthetic.

 

The American composer brings home these new
treasures from the Old World, he opens a wider
window upon grand streets already paved by
others smitten with America's rhythmic pulse,
jazzy exhortations birthing a dynamic America.

 

With eyes and ears undaunted by comfortable
protest, he scans the many avenues of the city
and beyond and catches the pure scent of the rural,
the innocent face of America as yet unruined,
an America in pain but unvanquished in spirit.

 

Adding his voice to America's wondrous concord,
he leaves windows behind to breathe openly our
vistas, from cornfield and church to mountain
and gorge, from boulevard and skyscraper to
temple and hearth, a man of music setting
all to notes of unquestioned veracity.