BACKGROUND TO… Copland’s Quiet City
‘My career in the theatre has been a flop!’ That’s what Aaron Copland told fellow composer Virgil Thomson when Quiet City didn’t make it past three performances in the spring of 1939. He penned the score of Irwin Shaw’s play about a man who turns his back on his dreams and Jewish heritage, only to be brought back to his senses by the sound of a distant trumpet – the instrument his brother played. Originally scored for trumpet, sax, clarinet and piano, Copland re-worked his music for trumpet, cor anglais and strings. It received its premiere in January 1941 in New York City.