Lincoln Portrait

The work is narrated with the reading of excerpts of Abraham Lincoln's great documents, including the Gettysburg Address.

Conductor Andre Kostelanetz commissioned Copland to write a musical portrait of an "eminent American" for the New York Philharmonic.

[2] Because of his leftist views, Copland was blacklisted and Lincoln Portrait withdrawn from the 1953 inaugural concert for Dwight D.

(Annual Message to Congress [since the twentieth century, State of the Union], December 1, 1862) The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

(Gettysburg Address) Lincoln Portrait is scored for speaker and an orchestra consisting of the following instruments: Woodwinds Brass Percussion Keyboards Strings

[25] As Copland recalled, "To everyone's surprise, the reigning dictator, who had rarely dared to be seen in public, arrived at the last possible moment."

On that evening Juana Sujo, an Argentine actress resident in Venezuela and an opponent of the repressive regime of Venezuelan President Marcos Pérez Jiménez, was the fiery narrator who performed the spoken-word parts of the piece.