Ask An Expert: Getting Around To Copland

Just in time for us to begin ramping up the marketing efforts for our last Inside the Classics concert of the season, Bill Stroud checks in with this latest Ask An Expert question...

Q: What instruments are used in the orchestral version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring? I think that I hear a piano and a Xylophone, and is a piccolo (as opposed to a flute) used for some of those extremely high notes?

One of Copland's specialties was doing more with less, especially when it came to orchestration. In fact, the original version of Appalachian Spring was written for only 13 musicians (flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano, and strings) and it has a sparse, lonely sound that fans of the more popular full orchestra version might find jarring. Copland's choice of a small ensemble was dictated not by musical considerations, but by the fact that the pit at Washington, D.C.'s Coolidge Auditorium, where the ballet premiered, could only accommodate a small number of players, especially if a piano was to be in the mix.

The fully orchestrated ballet suite, which is eight minutes shorter than the original score, premiered almost a year after the 13-player version, and Bill is pretty much right on in his assessment of what he's hearing in its fuller, more integrated mix. The instrumentation is as follows:

2 flutes, with the second flute doubling on piccolo
2 oboes
2 clarinets (in both A and B-flat)
2 bassoons
2 horns
2 trumpets
2 trombones
harp
piano
timpani
xylophone
snare drum
bass drum
cymbals
tabor (long drum)
wood block
claves
glockenspiel
triangle
full orchestral strings (violin, viola, cello, bass)