Reception
The premiere, on September 23, 1962, "sent shock waves through the world of music," according to Alexander J. Morin, with a reaction by the initial audience, according to Taruskin, of near-silence and incomprehension. Copland noted that the general impression "was that the premiere was not a congenial circumstance," with the music not considered important as the sound of the new concert hall. His effort to present something not bland or traditional for such an occasion and distinguished audience "was not appreciated at the time." Also, Taruskin states, Copland had become an emblem of success in the eyes of the American public. The fact he had written a twelve-tone composition for such an occasion seemed a repudiation of the audience he had won through years of hard effort.
Read more about this topic: Connotations For Orchestra
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)