Since there are so many musicians here...
Most everybody in the Western world will recognize this tune. In a way it epitomizes American classical music. Pay attention to the theme that starts at 00:37 in this recording, the central theme.
This tune is "Hoedown" from Aaron Copland's ballet "Rodeo".
In 1937 ramblin' recordist and folk song compiler Alan Lomax recorded local fiddler William Stepp in Salyersville, Kentucky. Lomax related that as they were coming up the road a hillbilly threatened to kill them because they were strangers.
The recording is "Bonaparte's Retreat", but it is unlike any other version of that tune. Stepp made it up whole cloth.
Lomax's recordings were sent to the Library of Congress, where Stepp's recordings were transcribed to paper by Ruth Seeger, classical composer and step-mother of folk singer Pete Seeger.
Classical composer Aaron Copland happened across the transcription or recording or both, and made it the central theme in Hoedown.
When I was in Kentucky, not far from Salyersville, I always meant to make a run out to Stepp's grave. But reading just now it seems he might have moved to Indiana and died there. Not sure where he is now.
Here's another entertaining use of the tune, as a encore piece played by Russians in Romania....
Also, in the first link I fell in love with the cowgirl at 00:45. I was able to find out she was painted by Montana native Cheryl Gaer Barlow.
And...I just noticed the last three notes of the piece in the first link are a quote of the first three notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony. Those three notes of Beethoven are taken to symbolize fate. Nothing is there by accident in modern classical music. Ponder the symbolism. Some relation between the Old World and the New, in a tune that has come to epitomize the New.
Most everybody in the Western world will recognize this tune. In a way it epitomizes American classical music. Pay attention to the theme that starts at 00:37 in this recording, the central theme.
This tune is "Hoedown" from Aaron Copland's ballet "Rodeo".
In 1937 ramblin' recordist and folk song compiler Alan Lomax recorded local fiddler William Stepp in Salyersville, Kentucky. Lomax related that as they were coming up the road a hillbilly threatened to kill them because they were strangers.
The recording is "Bonaparte's Retreat", but it is unlike any other version of that tune. Stepp made it up whole cloth.
Lomax's recordings were sent to the Library of Congress, where Stepp's recordings were transcribed to paper by Ruth Seeger, classical composer and step-mother of folk singer Pete Seeger.
Classical composer Aaron Copland happened across the transcription or recording or both, and made it the central theme in Hoedown.
When I was in Kentucky, not far from Salyersville, I always meant to make a run out to Stepp's grave. But reading just now it seems he might have moved to Indiana and died there. Not sure where he is now.
Here's another entertaining use of the tune, as a encore piece played by Russians in Romania....
Also, in the first link I fell in love with the cowgirl at 00:45. I was able to find out she was painted by Montana native Cheryl Gaer Barlow.
And...I just noticed the last three notes of the piece in the first link are a quote of the first three notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony. Those three notes of Beethoven are taken to symbolize fate. Nothing is there by accident in modern classical music. Ponder the symbolism. Some relation between the Old World and the New, in a tune that has come to epitomize the New.
He wrote the state song and his music has an ancient and eternal feel, not unlike KY. The special way the notes grind themselves out is his personal stamp and why it's eternal.