Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history at Boston College, entered the pantheon of people who have been privileged (as I'm sure she saw it, too) to read the lines from Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" at Tanglewood last night. She joined an impressive review of personalities who have also performed it: Gregory Peck, Adlai Stevenson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Osgood, Coretta Scott King, Danny Glover, Henry Fonda, Barack Obama, Gen. Normal Schwartzkopf, even Margaret Thatcher, to name just a few.
That above group includes me, who certainly doesn't belong in the same category of prestige. I was asked by Brian O'Keefe, director of the Cedarburg High Orchestra, to perform it in concert our fairly new entertainment center back in 2001, probably because I had gained membership on the NEA Board of Directors and carried sufficient weight to do so. It was fun to do, and I appreciated the opportunity.
I considered it a privilege, too, and an honor. I practiced my fanny off. I wanted the words to be impressive more than any performance I could add. As usual, Lincoln's words, taken from various speeches, carried the day.
The piece's origins are noted in a biography of Copland written by a University of Houston music professor, Howard Pollack. It was composed in 1942, when the country looked around for something to hang onto as the Axis seemed ready to pounce on the U.S. and the rest of the world and enslave it. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the conductor Andre' Kostelanetz, in preparing for a summer tour, commissioned the playwright Jerome Kern, the composer Virgil Thomson, and Copland to write works that would present a "musical portrait gallery of great Americans."
Kern and Thomson opted for literary figures, but Kostelanetz suggested to Copland that he should try a statesman like Lincoln. Copland, said Pollack's book, was astonished that "Lincoln Portrait" became one of this best-known compositions. He said it was written to address an emergency; I wonder if he would express that sentiment now as well. If you've ever heard it, you know its powerful impact.
The thing about Lincoln's words is that they endure. Drop them into place today, and you stare at a prophet way-way beyond comprehension. "Fellow citizens," Copland quotes him at the start of the piece, "We cannot escape history." That was taken from his State of the Union (what was left of it) Address in 1862, at a point at which it appeared that the Confederacy would in fact win its battle for independence--and the perpetuity of slavery on the continent.
He goes on: "We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Just as true today as then. There's plenty of dishonor to go around, too: Not only from those who abandoned democracy and shunted it into the ditch, but those who also let them get away with it: the major networks, the Supreme Court, nearly everyone significantly connected with the Republican Party, for instance. They know they're on the wrong side of our history, but they believe, as others believed likewise throughout history, that this time they'll get it right and they'll run the show forever. But forever is a long time, and their dishonor will cloak them instead.
We have been here before, but there are important differences: some seventy-odd years ago, it was fear of communism and the rise of demogoguery, led by Joe McCarthy (from my home state, sadly); he had the power of Congressional investigation, a spinoff of the House Un-American Activities Committee, that he manipulated to gain the pulpit and humiliate others. That was bad enough, but one embarrassing moment for him brought him down, and with that momentum, the Senate censured him and he faded into the maelstrom of alcoholism.
Copland also fell prey to anti-communist investigations. He was a kind of textbook example, having been a "fellow traveler" in the 1930s with other artists and performers who idealistically sided with the Soviet revolution in desiring the nation to get itself through the Great Depression. He sided with actors who called themselves The Group, made up of such later stars as Karl Malden, John Garfield, and Franchot Tone. They were unabashed communists at one point; Copland went to meetings but never declared himself as such. He was also a member of what was called The Composers Collective; while there, "he puzzled over the question of finding a musical style appropriate to the Marxist Revolution,"wrote Pollack.
McCarthy worked Copland over for two hours in his Un-American Activities quest. It was futile, as many of his inquiries were; they had little more effect than to ruin lives with negative publicity. That Copland not only survived the attacks but thrived afterwards was remarkable, but was the man who also went out of his way to compose pieces that glorified the American plains and the simple people who lived on them: "Rodeo," "Fanfare for the Common Man," and "Appalachian Spring," among others. A more genuine American musician could not be found, and maybe still can't. HUAC tried to pin subversiveness on him with their lies and innuendoes, with trying to brand him as "subversive," and they couldn't do it. Copland remains one of our best composers despite attempts to cast him into shadows.
Today's demogoguery is far worse, for it is led by a person with ultimate, overriding (Thanks to the Supreme Court) power, which allows 47 to do what he pleases without accountability. Reference to a president's "core duties" made by John Roberts in the fateful decision is a gossamer thin covering allowing the monster to roam as he pleases, with no logic or precedent applied, to satisfy only him in vengeance against real or pretended political foes. He has the pulpit, too, and we know how much he is manipulating it with lies. His words will be remembered, too, as signposts to others to be aware of how, if you don't do your homework, you can be taken in by all this nonsense.
There will be no relent of this, either. The right wing doesn't stop until their goals are met to their satisfaction, not anyone else's. They will stop at nothing. The Congressional Republicans use the deity to justify their support, too, though no deity would possibly support this. This, I believe, will take much longer to overcome because the attitudes that formed it will not disappear when 47 does. An appreciation of democracy, when it diminishes, does not spring back up like someone does out of bed after the flu passes. This national illness will linger.
I am waiting for Heather Cox Richardson, who writes and nationally publishes a history-based blog almost daily, done with impeccable research, to come into 47's crosshairs. She is one of the few unfettered foes of 47 left who has not been attacked with utter abandon. But 47 has all the time he needs now, and plenty of advisors who will pick her out the rest of the crowd for ugly attention. He will accuse her of treason, mock her findings, and make up lies and innuendoes that will be impossible to refute. He will mount the pulpit and try to humiliate her, in response to facts she has included in her writings that he cannot deny--though as we know, he doubtless will.
We should anticipate this. Copland and Richardson are great Americans; McCarthy and 47 are not. We need to keep them in proper channels. We will need to remember Richardson as one of those still brave, still determined, still believing enough in the promise of America rather than the cynicism of those who ply it only for their own gain.
She will defend herself, I'm sure, but a public outcry will be necessary. She has done so much for us to clarify the impact of the past. We should be the wind at her back when these awful people come after her. He will try to smear a great American; he must not succeed. Let me continue Lincoln's comments above featured in "Lincoln Portrait": "We, we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility."
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
