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Learn something from the past about candidates, says Norwood man

Posted 3/25/16

To the Editor: As I watched a performance of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” played by the NY Philharmonic Brass and Percussion sections at the 911 Memorial Museum on YouTube, I …

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Learn something from the past about candidates, says Norwood man

Posted

To the Editor:

As I watched a performance of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” played by the NY Philharmonic Brass and Percussion sections at the 911 Memorial Museum on YouTube, I concluded that Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” should be Bernie Sanders theme music – reasons abound.

Both Sanders and Copland were both born and bred in Brooklyn, both were products of the New York City Public School system (Copland - Boys High School and Sanders - James Madison High School), both were of Jewish heritage. Both were for the common man, Copland in his music and Sanders with his political themes and politics. There was a certain dignity to Aaron Copland and there is a certain dignity to Bernie Sanders. This is refreshing in this day and age.

"When he touches on his magic theme, the 'Commies' or 'communism,' his voice darkens like that of a minister. He is like a plebeian Faustus who has been given a magic wand by an invisible Mephisto—as long as the menace is there, the wand will work. The question is at what point his power grab will collide with the power drive of his own party."

Aaron Copland on Senator Joseph McCarthy, May, 1953

Copland's impressions came from a face-to-face encounter. He wrote them down the day after appearing before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Joseph McCarthy Chairman, on May 25.

A Lincoln Portrait was scheduled to be performed in conjunction with President Eisenhower's first inaugural in 1953 until an Illinois Representative said, "Wait one minute. Isn't the composer of that piece a Communist?" The performance was cancelled. In May of the same year Copland was summoned before McCarthy's committee.

Copland’s experience was typical of artists who engaged politically in the 30s. When one-third of the American work force was unemployed, people of conscience questioned a status quo that could tolerate such suffering. Copland was luckier than most whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed during the era. It's rather astounding how Copland's official reputation survived and thrived: his music graced the second inaugural of McCarthy acolyte Richard Nixon; Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan gave him presidential awards and citations; and the House of Representatives, which called him "un-American" in 1953, gave him the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest civilian honor, in 1986.

When you hear today’s “McCarthy’s” calling Bernie Sanders a “commie”, learn something from the past.

Joseph M. Liotta

Norwood