About the work
"Appalachian Spring" is a ballet by Aaron Copland, commissioned by the patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge for the choreographer Martha Graham. Copland scored it for a chamber ensemble of thirteen instruments to fit the small pit of the Coolidge Auditorium. It premiered on 30 October 1944 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., with Graham herself dancing the lead role of the Bride.
Plot
The ballet portrays a wedding celebration on a farm in the Appalachians in 19th-century Pennsylvania: a young bride and her husbandman, a revivalist preacher with his followers, and an older pioneer woman meet and, through dance, work through the hopes and anxieties of a new shared life. It unfolds without a fixed plot, more as a mood picture of American beginnings facing an unknown future.
Cultural significance
Copland won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the score; the orchestral suite drawn from it has since become one of the most frequently performed American concert works. The title, taken from a poem by Hart Crane, was suggested by Martha Graham only shortly before the premiere – the piece had originally been called simply "Ballet for Martha".