The works of Mozart, van Gogh, Shakespeare and others suggest that the world's greatest compositions, paintings, novels, dances and other works of art are usually created by individuals working alone to express their unique visions.
But in many other instances, artistic collaboration can lead to synergy - works that are greater than the sum of their individual contributions.
One such case is that of Martha Graham and Aaron Copland, according to Marta Robertson, a music professor at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., who has drawn extensively on the Library's collections for her doctoral thesis and subsequent work.
Graham choreographed, and Copland wrote the score for, "Appalachian Spring," which premiered in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium 51 years ago. The Library hopes to re-stage the work in the Coolidge Auditorium in late 1997 or early 1998, with the original score and choreography.
On one level, "Appalachian Spring" depicts with poignancy the feelings of an American bride and groom just after their wedding ceremony. In one part of the dance, for example, the bride's anxiety is charmingly illustrated when she bounces her fingers on her shoulders. Both music and dance exemplify traditional American themes: Set in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, "Appalachian Spring" incorporates a Shaker melody - "'Tis a Gift to Be Simple" - that is still heard today and has even been used in recent television advertisements.
But there are deeper themes as well, Dr. Robertson said, according to letters that Graham sent to Copland and which are now housed in the Library's Music Division. These letters illuminate the dance's focus on the relationships among the four main characters - the bride, the groom, a revivalist preacher and a pioneer wife.
Graham was also trying to comment on war; the piece, after all, was written squarely in the middle of World War II. Graham wanted to suggest that "the American Dream was being threatened by Nazism," Dr. Robertson says. But she also meant to allude to all war, including the Civil War.
The correspondence from Graham to Copland only recently became available, when the Library acquired the letters following Copland's death in 1990. When Dr. Robertson was writing her thesis at the University of Michigan from 1984 to 1992, she was able to examine only Copland's and Graham's correspondence with Elizabeth Coolidge, who commissioned "Appalachian Spring." The Graham letters have revealed many new insights into the work and personalities of these two artistic virtuosos, Dr. Robertson said. But she has yet to get her hands on letters from Copland to Graham, which are part of Graham's estate. Graham died in 1991.
Dr. Robertson has been studying the Graham-Copland collaboration for well over a decade. Her Ph.D. thesis is entitled "'A Gift to Be Simple': The Collaboration of Aaron Copland and Martha Graham in the Genius of 'Appalachian Spring.'" Yet Dr. Robertson is as enthusiastic about the subject matter as ever.
"I still get a lump in my throat when I see a performance of 'Appalachian Spring,'" she said. "It's a piece with staying power."
The letters make plain, Dr. Robertson said, that the collaboration of Copland and Graham was a successful and mutually respectful effort between two powerful artists. Early in their partnership, Graham wanted Copland to write a dark, foreboding work, but he refused.
"This is too dark," Copland wrote Graham. He suggested a dance piece more along the lines of "Our Town," Thornton Wilder's classic play about small-town America, and eventually persuaded Graham to write a more upbeat work.
"Appalachian Spring" was not the first collaboration for Copland. He conspired on "Billy the Kid" with Eugene Loring and on "Rodeo" with Agnes de Mille.
An accomplished ballet dancer and pianist herself, Dr. Robertson has used her findings from the Library in five lectures delivered at York University in Toronto. Her talks were accompanied by dancers demonstrating techniques used by Graham in "Appalachian Spring."
Other projects she is considering include the creation of a CD-ROM, in which filmed performances of "Appalachian Spring" would be intermingled with interviews of scholars, dancers, musicians, Graham and Copland, and possibly a biography of Copland.
Dr. Robertson is also working on a complete bibliography of Copland. Garland Press will issue the bibliography, which Dr. Robertson plans to complete by 1997. The project only became possible last year, when the Library's Music Division issued a catalog of works by and about Copland in its collection.
The Music Division catalog lists a wide variety of items by and about Copland that are housed in the Library. For example, in USA: An American Review, published by the U.S. Office of War Information, is an article by Copland entitled, "The American Composer Today." The catalog also lists articles about Copland, such as "Aaron Copland" from the February 1959 edition of Gramophone, and contains many of Copland's musical manuscripts - including "Appalachian Spring."
With the recent additions, the Library's collections are "like a candy store" for music scholars, Dr. Robertson said.
