Reviews: Copland and The City
Post-Classical Ensemble / Angel Gil-Ordóñez, Naxos 2 110231 (132’ * NTSC * 4:3 * PCM mono & stereo, DTS 5.1 * 0)

The soundtrack to The City is a fine showcase of Copland’s Americana style. We think of Aaron Copland’s music as referencing classic American scenes such as rural towns or Western landscapes. But in The City, his characteristic wide-open spacing, gentle melodies and wind and timpani volleys paint a picture of emerging suburbia. Copland penned the soundtrack to a 43-minute documentary made for the 1939 New York World’s Fair and its theme of “The World of Tomorrow”. Scripted by city planner Lewis Mumford, the film depicts America’s industrial cities as dirty, polluted, overcrowded – necessitating a flight to the refuge of newly planned cities where people live away from factories and “close to the soil again” in residential communities. Even with its pie-in-the-sky hopes, the film somewhat predicts the social trends of post-war America. But it is propaganda through and through, presenting a naïve, one-sided argument akin to the footage of Atomic Café.

Though Copeland’s score goes along with the plot, it is anything but shallow. Brought out in its full glory in this new performance by the Post-Classical Ensemble, a complexity of feeling lingers in every scene. The ensemble, led by Angel Gil-Ordóñez and with narration by Francis Guinan, was able to re-record the soundtrack because the film contained no dialogue, marking the first time this music has been heard in its entirety in decades beyond a few excerpts Copland chose for his suite “Music for Movies.”

In what can only be called a spectacular improvement from the original monaural recording (which is included on the DVD as an extra), the newly performed score showcases every aspect of Copland’s Americana style, from majestic splendour accompanying wide-angle shots to an almost minimalist pulse of customers eating at busy lunch counters, to heart-rending looks at the urban poor. It was this masterful treatment that led to Copland’s successful run in Hollywood in films such as Our Town and The Red Pony. Anyone who is a fan of that music will surely not want to miss the full soundtrack of The City.

-Andrew Druckenbrod, Gramophone October 2009 pg. A5

American Record Guide, May/June 2009

Copland: City (The) (NTSC)
Hansen, Lawrence

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Commissioned by the American Institute of Planners to be shown in daily rotation at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair ("The World of Tomorrow"), The City is called a documentary. But it's more of a cinemagraphic-and musical- meditation on the de-humanizing evils of modern urban life and, in the second half filmed at model community of Greenbelt, Maryland, on the remedy for those evils. Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke directed and supplied the striking cinematography, while the narration was written by urban historian, critic, and city planner Lewis Mumford. All of this is bound together by a mature Copland score in the composer's best populist, "Americana" style of the 1930s and 40s. The blurb on the back of the box claims this is Copland's "highest achievement in film". I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far, though I'll agree it's a substantial score that's well worth hearing and well served by this ensemble.

The film's premise is pretty simple. The City of the present (i.e., 1939) is dirty, oppressive, chaotic, corrupting, and de-humanizing, while the country is a wholesome, idyllic, democratic place where life is lived on a human scale and the Common Man can be comfortable and contented. In the City, we see dirty tenements, smokestacks belching black smoke, and dirty, sad-faced children. In the Country, we see kids playing in a swimming hole, sturdy country artisans plying their rural trades from horse-drawn wagons, and men cutting wheat with hand scythes. City work is back-breaking or tedious, and always depressing; Country work is so wholesome and rewarding it's not like work at all! In other words, the basic premise is largely built on a city slicker's view of the country. But before we snicker at the naiveté, let's consider that if cities seem less oppressive and more livable now, maybe it's due, at least in some part, to the urban planning ideas depicted in The City.

The main interest for most ARG readers is probably going to be the new recording of Copland's complete score for the film by Gil-Ordóñez and his committed band of players. Rarely has music been more closely interwoven with cinematography, even in straight dramas, let alone a documentary. Excerpts from the score have been recorded, but they're less interesting and evocative when separated from the visual element. So praise to executive producer Joseph Horowitz and Naxos for giving us the opportunity to experience the score in its intended setting-and in modern sound (Dolby and DTS Surround).

The film opens ominously enough with an epigraph by Mumford: "Year by year our cities grow more complex and less fit for living. The age of rebuilding is here. We must remold our old cities and build new communities better suited to our needs." A bit chilling but not surprising given that the piece was commissioned by folks whose business was to plan and build new cities. In contrast to the lushly orchestrated scores of contemporary Hollywood film, Copland's music is spare, forthright, and uncluttered, but also melodic. The opening music is very reminiscent of the Fanfare for the Common Man.

One problem with the film as a whole reflected in Copland's music is that the first half, depicting the bustle and chaos of the city, is more engaging than the idyllic vision of the second half, for which Copland writes suitably wholesome, uplifting, but somewhat bland music. More engaging are the sections depicting the 1930s equivalent of fast food, gridlocked city traffic, the fire and fury of blast furnaces, and the "smoke that brings prosperity". There's a bit of anti-capitalist, socialist propaganda, accompanied by suitably mocking music, but then the piece is a product of the New Deal.

As elder documentary maker George Stoney points out in the accompanying material, this is one of the very few documentaries that makes effective use of humor in the music as much as in clever editing. It captures the unintentional humor of people going about their daily business, and the music helps the humor balance out the weighty, somewhat apocalyptic message. Copland's contribution goes a long way toward keeping that message from becoming preachy.

Copland consciously used his work for The City as a springboard to Hollywood film work-and what an excellent calling card it was. It led directly to the full-length Hollywood movie scores for Of Mice and Men, Our Town, The Red Pony, and The Heiress. Naxos also claims this is the "world premiere recording of the complete score", which isn't exactly accurate since the score premiered as part of the original film!

The print of the film used for the DVD (4:3 aspect ratio) is fairly crisp, if not up to the best restorations of material from the same period, with the narration newly recorded by Francis Guinan. Freed from its original constricted low-fi monophonic soundtrack, Copland's score can finally make an effect that the original audience could only imagine. How do I know that? Because the DVD also contains the complete documentary with Morris Carnovsky's original narration and the original studio orchestra soundtrack conducted by Max Goberman. Nice for comparison. In the new soundtrack, Guinan narrates well enough, but I prefer Carnovsky's hard-boiled, slightly brash period delivery.

But wait! As a much-parodied TV commercial used to go, there's more! The disc is filled out with another 45 minutes of documentary material. There's a 30-minute interview of documentary maker and film-cinema professor George Stoney conducted by Mr Horowitz, with perceptive comments about The City and the film's broader historical significance. Still not enough? The last "bonus" is a 15-minute documentary from the Greenbelt Museum with interviews of folks who grew up there in the 1930s and 40s. Interesting to watch once or twice.

Despite the exemplary production values, only 45 minutes of real meat is rather short measure for a DVD. Copland compleatists will want this for sure. Others may want to put it in their Netflix queue and watch before they decide to buy.

June 7, 2009

VAULTS: New recordings of durable scores

Gary Arnold

Better known as a recording company that takes a special interest in American classical compositions, Naxos has recently expanded into movie restoration, reviving semi-legendary documentary films whose musical scores have proven more durable than their pictorial aspects and thematic pretensions.

The first example was a Pare Lorentz set: his Depression period pieces about water and land reclamation, "The River" and "The Plow That Broke the Plains," both scored by Virgil Thomson.

A recent follow-up, which has arrived as a 70th-anniversary item, restores the urban planning polemic "The City," originally shown at the U.S. pavilion during the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. This project prompted Aaron Copland's first film score, and two of its movements were later incorporated into his suite "Music for Movies."

Both the Thomson and Copland scores were newly recorded for the Naxos editions, utilizing the Post-Classical Ensemble, organized eight years ago in the Washington area by conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez and artistic director Joseph Horowitz. A supplementary feature of the "City" DVD is a half-hour conversation between Mr. Horowitz and the esteemed documentary filmmaker George C. Stoney, now 93 and a faculty member at New York University.

They discuss "The City" and how it has aged — severely in the case of its defective line of argumentation, supplied by Lewis Mumford's commentary, which envisions a planned community of the New Deal era, the original Greenbelt, Md., as the idyllic answer to the ills of factory towns and congested metropolitan habitats. The most conspicuous habitat: a bustling New York City, destined to play host to the earliest public showings of "The City."

Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Stoney let their subject down gently, with the former deferring to the latter on points of documentary methodology and the latter deferring to the former on points of musical stylization. Despite the circumspect approach, it's difficult to get around the fact that "The City," even when melodically enhanced by Aaron Copland, labors under the burden of an outmoded agenda.

Moreover, Mr. Stoney's presence calls attention to the fact that his most famous documentary, the beautifully titled and durably heartening "All My Babies," circa 1952, is also available in a recent DVD edition, augmented by an authoritative commentary from the filmmaker. Both "The City" and "All My Babies" have been named historically significant movies by the Library of Congress.

At the outset, they were sponsored, institutional projects — "The City" by the Carnegie Foundation and the American Planning Association and "Babies" by the Georgia State Department of Health. One might also acknowledge similar humanitarian motives, but the lasting advantage belongs to Mr. Stoney, who discovered an exceptional embodiment of his subject, small-town Georgia midwife Mary Frances Hill Coley (1900-66), whose singular authenticity and radiance provide the camera with an irresistible life force.

A white Southerner, Mr. Stoney recalls how he initially resisted Mrs. Coley, or "Miss Mary" as she was familiarly known to clients, friends and family. He felt her too much of an "Aunt Jemima" stereotype to be desirable for a reform-minded project designed to set a good example. Luckily for him and movie posterity, no alternative emerged to rival Mrs. Coley as a plausible role model.

Intended for only a regional and specialized audience, the movie radiated impressively throughout the medical profession, attracted the attention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and became a down-to-earth favorite with film societies in the 1950s and 1960s. Among other things, it probably provided a generation of college students with their first unflinching look at a human childbirth, as Mrs. Coley attends a client called Ida.

In retrospect it seems right and just that the modesty of the aims advanced in "All My Babies" should have proved far more sensible and enlightening than the overblown social engineering that animated "The City," which now suffers both cinematically and philosophically from exaggeration and wishful thinking. I have faith in these kind of reckonings. Here's one to bank on: As time goes by, only diehard fanatics will prefer a polemical documentary as bombastic as "Fahrenheit 911" to a human-interest documentary as stirring as "The Story of the Weeping Camel."

TITLE: "The City"
MPAA RATING: Unrated (released in 1939 and exhibited at the New York World's Fair, decades before the advent of the film rating system)
CREDITS: Commentary by Lewis Mumford. Photography by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke. Music by Aaron Copland. Newly recorded score conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez with the Post-Classical Ensemble.
RUNNING TIME: 44 minutes, plus supplementary material
DVD EDITION: Naxos

 February 19, 2009
    

  Heard and Scene
   John von Rhein
   
DVD of the week "The City," 1939 documentary with newly
  recorded soundtrack of Aaron Copland's complete score (Naxos).

Copland never composed anything finer for film than the music he provided for this documentary, a period curiosity made for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The didactic script by city planner Lewis Mumford draws a simplistic contrast between life in America's crowded urban jungles and the idyllic life afforded by planned suburban communities.

The film's true worth lies in its seamless integration of music, cinematography and narration, newly recorded by Chicago actor Francis Guinan. Copland's score, reflecting both his homespun manner and a harder-edged proto-minimalism, is recorded for the first time in its entirety by the Post-Classical Ensemble under Angel Gil-Ordonez.

This refurbished artifact from an earlier recession era amounts to a valuable and splendidly produced release.

jvonrhein@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-0219-heard-and-scenefeb19,0,1900786.story

January 22, 2009

"The City" shines again on DVD

Charles Theatre to screen film with Post-Classical Ensemble's revitalized Aaron Copland score By tim smith

clef notes tim.smith@baltsun.com

Two years ago, as if presciently planned, the Washington-based Post-Classical Ensemble took a fresh look at a 1939 documentary called The City that boasts a vivid score by Aaron Copland. The film, made by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke and scripted by urban planner Lewis Mumford, examines the most unattractive aspects of modern metropolitan life and promotes an environmentally friendly, government-spearheaded alternative.

This Great Depression-era product has now re-emerged on DVD by Naxos, with Post-Classical's freshly recorded soundtrack, just as the country is in the grip of the Great Recession and the air is full of talk about government projects, large-scale and green. Seems like great timing to me.

Movie and history buffs will want to check out The City, which looks and sounds great on the DVD - and is sure to make a strong impression when shown at the Charles Theatre this weekend, part of the Cinema Sundays series there. And music buffs will not want to miss the chance to hear what Post-Classical's artistic director, Joseph Horowitz, asserts is "arguably Copland's highest achievement as a film score."

That score, here conducted by the ensemble's music director, Angel Gil-Ordonez, with his usual care and expressiveness, comes through as vibrantly as the camerawork. This is particularly true in the brilliant urban scenes. It sounds as if Copland had more fun composing music for those city shots; that's where the music really jumps out at you.

Those kinetic, frenetic scenes are actually more fun than the idyllic views of Greenbelt, the first New Deal towns created with federal money in the '30s along the lines espoused by Mumford to provide a more humanizing and community-conscious experience for the citizenry. (One jarring note, perhaps more so this week than any other time, is that the utopian Greenbelt depicted in the film appears to be an all-white enclave.)

The newly recorded narration is delivered with flair by Francis Guinan, a veteran of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.

DVD extras include the complete 43-minute film with its original soundtrack and narrator, and a short film from 2000 about the development of Greenbelt. Among those interviewed in the latter is an original 1930s resident seen as a boy in The City.

The presentation of The City at the Charles will be paired with another documentary from that era, The Plow That Broke the Plains, which has a memorable film score by Virgil Thomson, also freshly recorded by the Post-Classical Ensemble (and released on a Naxos DVD in 2007 with The River). Horowitz and Gil-Ordonez will join Cinema Sundays host Jonathan Palevsky to discuss the films and take questions after the screenings. The action begins at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Charles Theatre, 1711 N. Charles St. Admission is $15. Call 410-727-3456 or go to cinemasundays.com.

I wish the Post-Classical Ensemble could develop a regular presence in Baltimore. Its programming in the Washington area, like last season's terrific revival of an obscure 19th-century operetta and, later this month, the pairing of a concert with a re-enactment of Copland's 1953 testimony before Sen. Joseph McCarthy's infamous communist-hunting committee, is invariably original and thought-provoking.

Scherzo Magazine on Angel Gil-Ordóñez and "The City"