Quiet City

In 1939 Aaron Copland was asked to provide incidental music for Quiet City, a play by New York writer Irwin Shaw. When the play folded after just two performances, Copland was left with a sheaf of cues and musical snippets which had no immediate future. From these he crafted a 10-minute work, also called Quiet City, which has since become one of his signature pieces. The most striking feature of Quiet City is the prominent role played by the solo trumpet, which Copland said expressed the “inner distress of the central character” in Shaw’s play. Its keening solo passages, set against an atmospherically woven accompaniment for string orchestra, evoke a plangent sense of longing, and both the vastness and alluring beauty of the nocturnal city. A solo cor anglais provides a poignant counterpoint, suggesting a pair of similarly questing souls almost, but not quite, connecting in the night.