George Copeland

George Copeland (April 3, 1882 – June 16, 1971)[1] was an American classical pianist known primarily for his relationship with the French composer Claude Debussy in the early 20th century and his interpretations of modern Spanish piano works.

[5] A month after this performance, they appeared as a trio with Karel Ondříček, a concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and member of the Kneisel Quartet.

Copeland became an Iberian specialist, performing works of Isaac Albéniz, Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, and others throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1909, he introduced three of Albéniz's Iberia suite to the United States, playing "El Albaicín," "Malaga", and "Triana" in Boston.

On January 15, 1904, Copeland gave one of the earliest-known performance of Debussy's piano works in the United States, playing the Deux Arabesques at Steinert Hall in Boston.

[12] Copeland was not the first to perform Debussy in the United States; that honor went to Helen Hopekirk, a Scottish pianist who programmed the Deux Arabesques in Boston in 1902.

In 1913, Copeland gave the following account of their discussions:[14] "I have never heard anyone play the piano in my life who understood the tone of every note as you do," remarked Debussy.

[15] In this later version, Copeland claimed that their meetings were daily, for four months, including periods of playing as well as long walks in the countryside.

23, Debussy's two piano work En blanc et noir performed with Copeland's student Elizabeth Gordon, and miscellaneous short pieces.

The latter, in themselves, are not so absorbing as some of the composer's more familiar pieces, but as played by Mr. Copeland they acquired a delicate tone and glowing imagery that were surpassingly beautiful.

Philip Hale seemed more enthusiastic than his New York counterpart: "The two new pieces by Debussy afforded the pianist an effective opportunity for displaying the vaporous quality of tone, the imagination and finesse for which he is now famous.

A newspaper item from 1909 said that Copeland was "the most expert and sensitive of all the pianists whom Boston ordinarily hears to the music of Debussy, Ravel, and the new French composers in general.

The club included T. Handasyd Cabot on cello, violinists Frederick Mahn and Frank Currier, violist Alfred Girtzen, and Copeland.

Copeland made his English debut at Leighton House Museum in 1910 as a supporting artist to French mezzo-soprano Blanche Marchesi.

2, and also evinced a gift for accompanying, as noted by a reviewer:[33]"...Mr. Copeland illustrated the possession of a technique as rare as it is welcome to-day among a race of giant pianists too apt to regard the piano as a monster to be subdued rather than as a fairy to be courted.

I found that the people who frequented vaudeville theatres were much more eager for and appreciative of good music than the average concert audience.

[41] During this period, Copeland appeared a number of times in a novel format; he performed recitals in which he would play a piece, and then the Ampico player piano would repeat the same work.

[42] It was reported that the audience was "most appreciative..."[43] At one concert of this nature in at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh in 1920, he performed alongside the pianists Mischa Levitzki, Arthur Rubinstein; all three played and were then followed by their piano roll recordings.

The film featured Sicilian-American mime Salvatore Guida, who acted out a retelling of the Commedia dell'arte Pierrot story.

[53] In 1963, he made a comeback, recording with famed engineer Peter Bartok and concertizing at schools and smaller halls on the East Coast.

The big ring of remarkable workmanship that almost covered three fingers of his right hand he managed expertly as he inserted a long and slender cigar into a dainty silver-rimmed holder and lit it.

Some of the more esoteric composers featured in his programs: Nicolas Slonimsky, Victor de Sabata, Carl Engel, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Federico Longas, Ramon Zuera, etc.

His Jordan Hall recital of December 1916, for example, included the Boston premières of several Debussy works, the Beethoven "Appassionata" Sonata, Op.

[...] Mr. Copeland commands the light and iridescent quality of tone that they require; he is capable of their flecks and filaments of sound; he can make their harmonies stream when Debussy so wills; or he can fill them with the composer's gleams and sudden lights; or he can spin their delicate arabesques, calling them from the air and seemingly letting them vanish into it.

Philip Hale in the Boston Herald (January 8, 1915): ...Mr. Copeland among pianists is as Swinburne said of Coleridge among poets, lonely and incomparable.

Playing Debussy's music more poetically and fantastically than any pianist we have heard, he yet cannot be called a specialist, for he played last night the music of MacDowell in the epic manner; his performance of Scarlatti's Pastorale, beautiful in every way, had the right touch of archaism; his Schumann was Schumannesque, and his interpretation of Chopin's pieces would surely have won the approval of Vladimir de Pachmann.

Totally unlike physically the traditional pianist of the long locks and temperamental make-up and producing a first impression of a prosperous business or professional man of the day, the moment the player struck the opening chords, with which he elects to begin each of his numbers by way of preliminary, the cognoscenti knew that an artist had come among them.

A piano recital, the most deadly form of entertainment in the hands of mediocrity, had become for the time a thing of life and joy and personal satisfaction to every listener.

The most-represented composer was Debussy, including excerpts from the Preludes, Images, Estampes, Children's Corner and Suite Bergamasque, as well as many Spanish piano works including those of Albéniz, Granados, and de Falla, and more obscure composers like Gustavo Pittaluga, Joaquin Turina, Raoul Laparra and Federico Longas.

In 1937, Copeland recorded a number of songs with well-known Spanish soprano Lucrezia Bori, including works of de Falla, Nin, and Obradors.