ABSTRACT
In June 1921 the 20-year-old Aaron Copland set sail from New York for Europe to begin his musical studies in Paris as a private pupil of Nadia Boulanger. Although the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was the first of Copland’s orchestral works to be performed, the Dance Symphony should be considered his first in order of composition as the music was written between 1922 and 1925. Copland began composing his Symphony for Organ and Orchestra in the summer of 1923 while staying at Milford, Pennsylvania, where he was earning a living playing the piano in a hotel trio. The climax before the central Trio and its return at the end of the movement with the full force of brass and percussion is Copland at his most ferocious. A careful examination reveals that most of Copland’s compositional characteristics are still present although on the surface the style is different.
