What It Takes to Get A Political Convention to Come to Your City.

DATE July 27, 2000 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Dave Davies, reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News,
discusses the upcoming Republican National Convention to be held
there in Philadelphia
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

FRESH AIR's hometown, Philadelphia, is about to play host to tens of thousands
of Republicans, media people and protesters. The city is preparing for
everything from traffic jams and crowded restaurants to demonstrations of
civil disobedience. Why do cities compete so vigorously to host a political
convention? And what did Philadelphia offer in order to win? My guest Dave
Davies is a longtime reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. He covered the
administration of Mayor Ed Rendell, which put together the convention package,
and he's covering the current mayor, John Street. It's somewhat ironic that
Rendell, who convinced the Republicans to come here, is now the head of the
Democratic National Committee. But Rendell felt so strongly about the city
hosting a convention, he pitched both parties.

Mr. DAVE DAVIES (Reporter, Philadelphia Daily News): One of the things about
Ed Rendell is that he's just an audacious sort of guy who gets an idea and
goes with it. And he was really excited about the city and some of the things
that were happening in the city, and felt that it would be a great place that
anybody would want to visit and Republicans would like it, too. He also saw
the political logic of Pennsylvania being a swing state which Republicans need
in a national convention and thought that would be a selling point. When I
did some early reporting on the city's effort to get the convention, I was
really surprised to hear what the business is like. At least since the '90s,
I mean, both parties issue specific requirements on what you're expected to
provide if you want to even be considered for a convention. They want you to
have 20,000, 25,000 hotel rooms within a half an hour. They want 100
air-conditioned buses for delegates. They want first-class travel and hotel
accommodations for as many visits as the site selection committee wants to
make to your city. And the other thing that surprised me was a financial
package in the tens of millions of dollars. These things are expensive to put
on, and the parties have learned, just as baseball's sports franchises have
learned and other institutions, that cities will pay.

GROSS: What do you mean by a financial package? What does that mean?

Mr. DAVIES: It means cash for the--it means cash and services to cover the
huge cost of putting on an event of this scale, money for security, for
transportation, for insurance. You have to build a 150,000 square foot media
area for the 15,000 journalists that'll be there filing and setting up their
satellite trucks. You know, the traffic controls, the security concerns, all
those things have to be provided. It runs in the tens of millions. And in
the case of Philadelphia, the package that was put together totaled $52
million. Now that wasn't all public money, most of it wasn't. About $7
million was from the city, about $7 million was from the state. But the rest
of it was from private corporations. And I think the Republican Committee
loved the city. I was here when the site selection committee came in June and
it was a beautiful, bright, sunny day when they were at the Independence
historical area and taking carriage rides around, and it can be kind of a
magical place at those moments. But the money really mattered.

GROSS: Now when you talk about the money, is this all like money in services,
or is there any, like, direct cash that changes hands?

Mr. DAVIES: A lot of it's direct services, such as police overtime, traffic
control. But the bulk of the money that is contributed by the host community
goes through a quasi-public corporation that is the host committee; in this
case it's called Philadelphia 2000. And they raise and spend a ton of money
in putting this on.

GROSS: So is this considered a campaign contribution?

Mr. DAVIES: That's an issue. There are those in Common Cause and elsewhere
who think it's an outrage to have corporations and governments contributing
money on the scale of tens of millions to an explicitly partisan political
event, and they have a point. The Federal Election Commission does permit
this use and it sort of makes distinctions between political uses of that
money and non-political uses. It would be a political use to make a video of
the candidate, which is shown on convention night. It's maybe a non-political
use to provide media space. But in the minds of critics, I mean, it's--that
distinction gets kind of specious. I mean, the fact is that corporations are
barred from prohibiting--from contributing to, you know, federal election
campaigns, but they're permitted to contribute in great measure to hosting a
convention, which, it can be argued, saves the party in question that money
from contributing to the political campaign.

I have to say on the other side of the issue that the convention is, in
fact--it does generate jobs. And it is an economic development opportunity
and something which can boost the self-image of the community, so I don't
think that a lot of corporations that give do so for reasons other than that.
They think that it is good for the city.

GROSS: One of the promises that was made to the GOP was that Philadelphia
would have 2,000 more rooms by the year 2000 than it had a couple of years ago
when it was making the deal with the Republicans to have the convention here.
And I think Philadelphia got the rooms. What did it do to get more hotel
rooms?

Mr. DAVIES: You know, that was a promise that was made, but it
really--that's one thing that the host committee and the mayor couldn't make
happen by themselves. The reason that there's a growth in hotel construction
in Philadelphia is that the city is doing well. I mean, the downtown is
really bustling. The tourism hospitality industry has gotten a nice kick from
a convention center which opened in 1993. And there are things going on here
that people are kind of excited about. That and a booming national economy
has helped generate the economic kind of climate that hotels could build in.
Now the city did do what it could and the mayor did offer tax breaks to a
number of these hotels, but they wouldn't have happened on that basis alone.

I have to say that one of the other things that I think sold the site
selection committee is that a lot of these new hotels are in old buildings
which had been renovated and that sort of fits with what Philadelphia has to
offer that's unique. The sense of 19th century and early 20th century
architecture, a sense of heritage. One of the hotels that's right across from
where I work at the City Hall bureau of my newspaper used to be the old City
Hall annex. It was this musty, asbestos-laden, rat-infested dump, and it's
been taken over by the Marriott Corporation and these beautiful stone
Romanesque arches are cleaned and all the brass is polished, and it looks
great and it looks great in a way that a new hotel often doesn't in the sun
belt. And I think that kind of stuff really impressed the site selection
committee.

GROSS: Dave Davies is my guest, and he's a longtime reporter for the
Philadelphia Daily News, and he's been covering a lot of the city's
preparations for the Republican National Convention. With the national media
focusing on the city of Philadelphia, the city is, of course, hoping for, you
know, really good publicity, but there have been a couple of events recently
that have had the opposite effect, particularly an event involving the
Philadelphia police. Do you want to describe what happened, Dave?

Mr. DAVIES: Yeah. It's really unfortunate. What viewers around the nation
have seen on television is a videotape of police surrounding--this is taken
overhead from a television station's helicopter--of police pulling a
carjacking suspect out of a car, surrounding him and kicking him for about 30
seconds, administering 50 or so blows before the--it eventually stops and the
suspect is taken away. It--because it is very dramatic video, it got very,
very wide play. I think it's kind of--there's no doubt that it's unfortunate
that this happened just as the Republicans are about to come, unfortunate for
the city. But I also think that it's unfortunate that the whole story is not
widely circulated. It becomes treated as a Rodney King II, and it really
isn't.

I mean, this was a large guy with a long criminal record who was seen in a
stolen car, led police on a dangerous high speed chase through a residential
neighborhood, was stopped, fought the police, managed to get away, steal a
police car, drive on another high speed chase. And when he was finally
cornered, he was pulled out. The video shows the beating occurring. What you
can't see--because the officers are standing over the suspect--is what the
suspect is doing. And, in fact, the pi--if you look at it is kind of moving
and what the officers' lawyer has said is that the suspect was fighting,
resisting, kicking; in fact, that he had his teeth clenched around one of the
officer's hands. And, in fact, one of the officers was treated for a human
bite afterwards. So that, in the officers' defense, what you could say was
this was a guy who was fighting him and who had his teeth clenched on one of
the cops and they were kicking him to get him to release and to get him under
control. And once that happened, they let him go.

Now we're gonna figure out what happened--I mean, there will be other
witnesses and I suspect that there will be a sense that there was police
excess here. I mean, there were reports that he had shot a police officer in
the hand before. It's not clear whether that happened or whether it was
cross-fire. But there's no question that the video is dramatic and it shows a
lot of police violence against this guy. And it's--it does not help this city
as it begins to host a convention in which police conduct and mass protests
are a concern.

GROSS: Your paper, the Philadelphia Daily News, had a cover story that had a
photo of the police beating with the headline, `Welcome America.' Was there a
lot of editorial conversation about whether to run that headline or not?

Mr. DAVIES: The headlines are picked by guys who work late at night when the
moon comes up and it's time to make a splash and get impulse buyers of the
newspaper and so things like that happen. The other thing happens--and this
is sort of a comment about the way the media work these days. A newspaper has
to offer something different, and by the time people were gonna be buying our
newspaper, that would have seen that video many, many times--anybody who's
remotely aware of the news. What the newspaper was attempting to do there was
to make a connection between this now widely known beating and the fact that
we're about to be in the national spotlight and the Republicans are coming.
So it was a way of kind of expressing that connection in a really arresting
way. And we caught a lot of grief for it.

GROSS: From readers?

Mr. DAVIES: From readers, from city officials who literally stopped by to
complain about it. It's--you know, it's the kind of difficulty that you have
in reporting on controversial events. And I think a lot of folks felt--some
folks at least felt that the paper went over the line there.

GROSS: My guest is Dave Davies, a longtime reporter for the Philadelphia
Daily News. We'll talk more after our break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: We're talking about how Philadelphia won the bid to host the
Republican convention and what's it had to do to prepare. My guest is Dave
Davies of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Well, Philadelphia is not only going to be hosting the Republican National
Convention, it's gonna be hosting a lot of really large demonstrations during
the convention and there will be protesters from around the country coming
here. So there'll be a lot of attention on how the Philadelphia police
handles these protests. The protesters are supposed to be officially confined
to an area near the convention. One group--one umbrella group sued for the
right to protest in the streets of the city. They won, and there'll be a
large rally in the city on the streets on Sunday. And then there are other
protests that will go ahead without permits. And I think everybody's
wondering how will the police respond to these unpermitted protests. What has
the mayor had to say about this, Dave? You've covered City Hall for a long
time, and the mayor of Philadelphia is John Street, who's a Democrat, former
member of City Council and a former activist.

Mr. DAVIES: Yeah. Many, many years ago, I mean, he chained himself to the
railing of City Council and held street demonstrations on behalf of street
vendors. I mean, he is an old activist himself, although he has for many
years been a fairly traditional politician. He has not handled this
particularly deftly. He made the mistake of sort of saying in front of a
reporter for George magazine that `folks who come here and want to disrupt are
going to get a very ugly response.' It was a poor choice of words. And, in
fact, what the mayor also said in the meeting was that he fully believes in
the First Amendment and folks' right to protest and he is going to do
everything he can not only to make sure that protesters aren't abused, but in
fact, to make them feel welcome. I mean, the city's planning to, at its own
expense, provide portable toilets and drinking water if it's hot and other
amenities. So I think the mayor does have a feeling that people expressing
their views--and he's always been this way--is a good thing. But his poor
choice of words in the magazine was not good. And I think he didn't do a
particular job of handling the gaffe afterward.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Philadelphia has been described in a lot of the national
press as having gone a big economic revival. As someone who's covered the
city for a long time and covered city politics for a long time, how much of an
economic revival do you think this city has undergone?

Mr. DAVIES: It's real. You know, I mean, this is a city that at the
beginning of the 19th century was the second-largest English-speaking city in
the world after London. But in the last half of the 20th century, the kind of
economic decline and the loss of industrial opportunity that afflicted all
these northeastern cities has left this a relatively poor city and a declining
city. And it's also suffered from a self-image problem. It's kind of stuck
between New York and Washington, which are these great kind of centers of
culture and politics. It's not even on the weather maps in CNN, for example.
It tends to be forgotten. It tends to feel forgotten. By the 1990s, this
city was completely broke and dispirited.

And Mayor Rendell came in in 1992, and what has happened has been genuine and
real. I mean, there was some steps taken to right the city's economy, the
unions made some changes in benefits and work rules. And the mayor just
worked hard. I mean, he had very a talented bunch of people. They managed
the finances well, improved services a bit, actually began cutting the city's
wage tax just a bit, which is kind of unheard of. And that, aided by the good
luck of a national economic recovery, meant that the city really got going. I
mean, there has been a lot of growth downtown. But huge problems remain.
While the city's job growth has actually stopped, it continues to lose
population, the school system is both broke and dysfunctional. And people
still--too many people still feel unsafe, too many middle-class families are
still fleeing to the suburbs. So the challenges are huge.

GROSS: You know, we've been talking a little bit about how everybody will be
watching how the Philadelphia police handles the protests. And, of course,
the image that's in the nation's mind right now is the image of the video in
which the police were kicking the suspect. But there's also like a long-term
image of the Philadelphia police that goes back to the Rizzo era, from the
days before he was mayor when he was police commissioner, and he was like the
tough law and order head cop and was kind of proud of the aggressive ways in
which protesters were treated. So what would you say about the reputation of
the Philadelphia police now and of its pretty new police commissioner?

Mr. DAVIES: Well, it was getting better until we saw the video. Back in the
1970s when a tough-talking former cop Frank Rizzo was mayor, the city was
actually sued by the Justice Department for an ongoing pattern of police
brutality. That changed when he left office, but then in the mid-1980s there
was this disastrous confrontation with a radical group in west Philadelphia
which ended in a fire that destroyed 61 homes and killed 11 people. That
didn't help. And there have been ongoing cases of police corruption and
brutality over the years.

The city's new police commissioner, John Timoney, was probably the most highly
regarded kind of available cop in the country when he was hired two years ago
and has gotten high marks from both community leaders and police reform
advocates for trying to make the cops more honest, more accountable, more
efficient, more responsive. And I think most folks believe that he has taken
real steps in that direction. His response to the beating has been to say,
`Anybody who's done wrong is gonna be punished, but you gotta give me time to
investigate it.' And I think community leaders have in the main been
satisfied with that. And this will be a real challenge because what he has to
do in handling these protesters is to maintain order, not abuse the rights of
the protesters and not be seen as abusing them, and yet somehow prevent the
kind of chaos which really damaged Seattle in the World Trade conference. And
I think that the kind of protesters we're seeing present a much more
challenging situation for cops then maybe they did 10 years ago.

GROSS: Philadelphia landed the Republican convention before the World Trade
Organization protests in Seattle and before it kind of realized that big
events like this were going to be a magnet for this new network of political
protesters. And I'm wondering if you've been hearing any second thoughts
about getting the convention here now that we know that Philadelphia's going
to be the site of some major demonstrations?

Mr. DAVIES: No, I haven't heard anybody saying that they wish we hadn't done
it. But you do hear nervousness. I mean, you know, people are worried that
folks who are prepared to kind of use the anonymity of a crowd situation and
are willing to get arrested and really kind of don't particularly care who
they offend or hurt are a tough bunch for police to deal with. So I think
there is nervousness about it.

GROSS: Just as a little scene setting, we'll all be watching the convention
inside what is now called the First Union Center, which has had several other
names in the past few years.

Mr. DAVIES: Yeah, the protesters refer to it as the FU Center, right.

GROSS: But tell us a little bit about this center, how it also functions as a
sports arena and where it's located, what's in the neighborhood around there.

Mr. DAVIES: Yeah. The First Union Center was built in the early '90s as a
home for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Flyers. It's one of the
big new modern 20,000-seat sports arenas, which also hosts, you know, the
circus and rock bands from time to time. It's not downtown, which was a bit
of a disadvantage. It's about four or five miles, connected by a subway to
the southern end of the city where it is fairly near some rowhouse
communities who have long been troubled by the amount of traffic and parking
issues that it brings. But that's where delegates will go from hotels
throughout the area and downtown by these air-conditioned convention buses
which the Republican National Committee requires the host city to provide.
They'll go to the center. In the parking lot outside the center is a massive
temporary structure built to house some of the 15,000 journalists who will
need working space to cover this event. It's interesting, the organizers
don't like you calling it a tent, but it is, in fact, a large canvas-covered
semi-permanent structure that'll be taken down once the convention is over
with. In effect, you end up with a small city in this sea of parking lots in
south Philadelphia, which will be the center of activities for these four days
and then it will return to normal and back to the city's sports franchises.

GROSS: Philadelphia is a very Democratic city, and so it's kind of paradoxal
that it's hosting this Republican convention. I'm wondering if you think a
lot of the people in Philadelphia who are so excited about the convention
coming see it more as just like a big event that might generate good feeling
toward Philadelphia and business in Philadelphia as opposed to seeing it as a
political event in which, you know, the outside party is coming here to
organize?

Mr. DAVIES: Absolutely. And that's exactly the way it's seen. It's like
getting the Super Bowl or the All-Star Game. And it'll be interesting, in
fact, when the TV coverage, you know, showcases a lot of hard-hitting partisan
speeches by Republicans, whether some of the folks who had been excited about
this aren't just a little turned off. But, yeah, no, it's really for the
city. It has really little to do with ideology or candidate or campaign. It
really is a big event. It's a chance for the city to shine.

GROSS: Dave Davies writes for the Philadelphia Daily News. I'm Terry Gross.
And this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Professor Howard Pollack discusses the life and career
of American composer Aaron Copland
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite from "Fanfare for the Common Man")

GROSS: That's the opening of "Fanfare for the Common Man," one of Aaron
Copland's most famous compositions. It was written in 1942 as one of a series
of wartime fanfares commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony. This year,
orchestras around the country are celebrating the centenary of Copland's
birth. My guest is the author of a recent biography of Copland, Howard
Pollack, who's a professor of music history and literature at the University
of Houston.

In an era when classical music meant European music, Copland was determined to
create a distinctly American sound, which he succeeded in doing by drawing on
jazz, folk music and hymns. Some of his most famous music was written for
ballets such as "Rodeo," "Billy the Kid" and "Appalachian Spring." Let's
start with one of his early works, which shows the influence of jazz. It was
written in 1925 when Copland was 25. This is an excerpt of "Music for the
Theater."

(Soundbite from "Music for the Theater")

GROSS: Howard Pollack, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Professor HOWARD POLLACK (University of Houston): Thanks very much.

GROSS: You know, although Copland is so loved for writing music that really
sounds like America, he was accused of being anti-American during the
Red-baiting era of the 1950s. You cover some of that in your biography of
Copland, and you say that for him, this kind of started in 1949 with a Life
magazine article that singled him and about 49 other people out. This was an
article called Red Visitors Cause Rumpus: Dupes and Fellow Travelers Dress
Up Communist Fronts.(ph) This was an article about a world peace conference
in New York that featured photos of 50 of the conference's best-known
participants, including Copland, Bernstein, Charles Chaplin, Einstein, Lillian
Hellman, Thomas Mann and Arthur Miller. What was the importance of this
article?

Prof. POLLACK: Well, it was a landmark article in the history of the
anti-Communist hysteria that gripped America during these years. And it was a
tremendous personal embarrassment for Copland. He never dreamed that his
participation in this event could be interpreted in this way. It didn't auger
very well for the next few years.

GROSS: Copland was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
How did he handle himself when he was interrogated?

Prof. POLLACK: Oh, he handled himself as he always did, with extreme poise
and calm. And I think he very successfully managed to disarm Joe McCarthy and
the other members of that committee.

GROSS: Did he name names?

Prof. POLLACK: He did not name names, and was very clever about sort of
getting around the request for naming names. For instance, I think there was
a question asked about his participation in an event. It might have been the
world peace conference, I don't recall offhand. And he said, `I don't
remember seeing anybody there that wasn't mentioned in the newspaper.' So
that was the sort of very sly and clever way he handled the committee.

GROSS: Were there attempts to suppress his music during this period?

Prof. POLLACK: There were a few. The most notorious was the removal of
"Lincoln Portrait" from the inaugural concert--from the Eisenhower inaugural
concert in 1952. The Congress thought that someone with these type of
questionable associations--these questionable leftist associations--should not
have his music performed at an inaugural concert. And it was meant--this
decision was met with great outrage and satirical comments by the press, by
and large, because people knew that this whole thing was a sham. "Lincoln
Portrait" is one of the great, great works of American music, and a very
profoundly, you know, stirring setting of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and
other of Lincoln's statements. But politicians really didn't know Copland
very well, and they just went along with the hysteria that was, as I said,
gripping America at the time.

GROSS: What were Copland's politics?

Prof. POLLACK: Copland was definitely a man of the left. He was very
concerned about the common man. He wrote a fanfare--a very famous "Fanfare
for the Common Man." And I think that was one of the great motivating aspects
of his life. His work as an artist, his work in the social arena, as a
conductor, as a writer were all geared toward raising the standards and
the--of the arts in America, making art available to Americans, fostering good
music in America. I think this all had a sort of social and political subtext
and connection.

GROSS: I'm wondering if the staunch anti-Communists and the people on the
House Un-American Activities Committee knew that Copland was gay, something
that they also probably would have been hysterical about.

Prof. POLLACK: There's no evidence of that in the FBI file, but it's very
possible that they did. He didn't make a great secret of being gay.

GROSS: Now you write a bit about Copland's homosexuality. And you say that
he accepted that himself at a pretty young age, at a time when a lot of gay
people didn't accept homosexuality because it was so unaccepted by the world
around them. What evidence do you have that he was comfortable with his own
sexual orientation?

Prof. POLLACK: The primary evidence consists of statements that his very
good friend Harold Clurman made. Harold Clurman was the great director and
drama critic. There's a Harold Clurman Theatre in New York. And Clurman and
Copland were roommates. They were cousins. They were also roommates in Paris
from 1921 to 1924. So Clurman is one of his oldest friends, and wrote about
Copland's acceptance of his homosexuality. Other composers, writers who
entered his circle either intimated or stated or spoke about Copland's comfort
with his homosexuality and how important that was for them because he was
someone--whether they were gay or straight, he was someone that they could
turn to for support because he was so confident with himself and had such
self-assurance about his own person.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Howard Pollack, the author of a
biography of Aaron Copland. Pollack is also a professor of music at the
University of Houston. Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some
more. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Howard Pollack, the author of a biography of Aaron
Copland. He's also a professor of music at the University of Houston.

One of the things I find almost paradoxical about Copland is that on the one
hand, he's writing, you know, American music. And by `American music,' this
often translates to music of the West, you know, like "Rodeo" and "Billy the
Kid." And then there's, you know, like, Mexican themes running through some
of his music. And there's Copland himself, who's, you know, the son of
Russian immigrants. He's Jewish. He's gay. He's from Brooklyn, New York.
And, you know, I know he wants to write, like, American music, but what's his
connection to the West--you know, to the American West? Did he--was he ever
even in that part of the country?

Prof. POLLACK: He was in that part of the country. And everyone in America,
I think, knows about the West. He grew up with watching Westerns in silent
films. And...

GROSS: Yeah. I was always think about Westerns as being later on. I guess
he could have watched those Western silent films. I don't want people to take
this the wrong way. I'm not trying to say, `Where did he get off as a Jewish
homosexual from Brooklyn writing about the West?'

Prof. POLLACK: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

GROSS: But it's rather, `How did he feel so connected to it when it really
wasn't a part of his personal background?'

Prof. POLLACK: Well, the importance of the West is, perhaps, in a way,
exaggerated by the fact that some of his most famous pieces are on Western
themes, that were written for choreographers who were writing ballets about
the West. If one looks as the total output of Copland's music, the West
really doesn't figure very prominently. But because of the prominence of
"Billy the Kid" and "Rodeo" and "Appalachian Spring," three ballets he wrote
in succession in the late 1930s and early 1940s, his name, I think, forever
will be associated with the West.

GROSS: And again, this is because he was commissioned to write these pieces.

Prof. POLLACK: He was commissioned to write them. There's a comical story
about discussing "Rodeo" with Agnes DeMille. And Agnes DeMille outlined her
idea about this cowboy ballet. Copland had already written a cowboy
ballet--"Billy the Kid"--and thought one cowboy ballet in a lifetime is
enough, and was rather resistant. And Agnes DeMille in trying to win him over
said, `But it will have something of what Martha Graham'--who was her
friend--`what Martha Graham calls "race memory."' To which Copland responded,
`Well, why then don't we do a ballet about Ellis Island?,' referring to the
fact that Agnes DeMille had a Jewish grandmother who was the mother of Cecil
B. DeMille, the great film director. And--so Copland was rather ironic about
this.

However, Agnes DeMille won him over. She had created this wonderful comic
persona as a cowgirl who was a little bit big in the hips and didn't move that
gracefully. And it was a wonderful comic person. And she convinced Copland
to write a ballet for that persona, for that stage character. And Copland
responded with "Rodeo."

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear a passage from "Rodeo." What should we hear,
"Hoe-Down"?

Prof. POLLACK: "Hoe-Down" sounds great.

GROSS: OK. And this is Leonard Bernstein conducting.

(Soundbite from "Rodeo")

GROSS: That's Leonard Bernstein conducting Aaron Copland's "Rodeo." My guest
is Howard Pollack, who's written a biography of Aaron Copland, and he's a
professor of music at the University of Houston.

What was his attitude toward Hollywood when he was writing movie music? And
before you answer that, tell us some of the best scores that he wrote for
movies.

Prof. POLLACK: He wrote five Hollywood scores, including "Of Mice and Men,"
"Our Town," "The North Star," "The Heiress" and "The Red Pony." And all of
them won Academy Award nominations; finally won by the last film, "The
Heiress."

Copland had a very balanced view of life, including film music. He recognized
that most people were hearing--in America and maybe around the world--were
hearing orchestral music in the movie house. So he recognized the importance
of film music in American society and in world society. That made him very
interested in trying his hands out as a film composer.

That said, he also recognized that there were a lot of pitfalls for a serious,
idealistic artist like himself in Hollywood. And he kind of proceeded very
carefully in his Hollywood career, making sure he would be working with
certain directors and making sure he'd be working on certain projects. And,
in fact, the very unpleasant incident about "The Heiress" was one of the
reasons, probably, he gave up writing film scores for Hollywood.

GROSS: And what was that incident?

Prof. POLLACK: The opening title music that he had written--which is very,
very strong, powerful music to help set the mood for this really wonderful
film adaptation of the Henry James story--was rewritten by a studio hack into
kind of a schmaltzy, typical Hollywood opening. And if you watch "The
Heiress," you'll notice that when the titles read `Music by Aaron Copland,'
the score suddenly changes and it's like somebody's just thrown cold water
over you because that's the beginning of Copland's own score and his own
music, which is much more severe and hard-edged than one had heard up until
that point. Copland was so disgusted with Hollywood for doing that that he,
you know, he just publicly criticized the studios. And this probably lead to
such bad feelings that it became difficult for him to work in Hollywood, not
that people did not ask him to work in the ensuing years.

GROSS: Let's hear the opening music from "The Heiress" as audiences heard it
when watching the movie. And then we'll hear what Copland intended. And
we'll hear that conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

(Soundbite from "The Heiress")

(Soundbite from original score to "The Heiress")

GROSS: Aaron Copland's theme for "The Heiress" as he composed it, preceded by
the rewritten version used on the soundtrack of the film.

My guest Howard Pollack is the author of a recent biography of Aaron Copland.
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This year marks the centenary of Aaron Copland's birth. My guest
Howard Pollack is the author of a biography of the composer.

The Copland work we've been hearing has, for the most part, been his really
accessible, popular music. Now he also wrote some more contemporary sounding
classical music, using, like, the 12-tone row, for instance. Some people
think of that as being kind of out of character for him, or being less
important or less interesting than his more, say, jazz-oriented work and his
dance suites. Why don't we hear the very ending of his piece "Connotations
for Orchestra," which was commissioned in 1962 to open what was then called
Philharmonic Hall and is now Avery Fisher Hall, which is part of Lincoln
Center. What are your thoughts about the ending of this piece and the
importance of this piece in his larger output of work?

Prof. POLLACK: Well, "Connotations" represents in a way an extreme of this
spectrum because it really is one of the thorniest and most difficult works of
Copland. Every once in awhile he gave into a work that seemed to express a
good deal of violence and harshness. And people have interpreted this as
Copland taking stock of the world that we live in, and it's not always
nostalgic reflections of a previous day, but rather gritty reflections on our
own day. And I think "Connotations" falls into that category.

GROSS: And the end--you know, challenging as it may be, the end is really
rousing and noisy and interesting.

Prof. POLLACK: Copland's always noisy, I think. Not always, but--I mean,
this is one of the earmarks of his music. It's just extremely vital and
vibrant with lots of percussion instruments. And his music often concludes in
this sort of a rousing way.

GROSS: OK. Here's the end of Aaron Copland's "Connotations for Orchestra."

(Soundbite from "Connotations for Orchestra")

GROSS: The ending of Aaron Copland's "Connotations for Orchestra" as
conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Bernstein and Copland had a very important musical relationship. Bernstein
conducted a lot of Copland. He premiered some of Copland's pieces. Would you
tell us a little bit more about their relationship, what they thought of each
other musically?

Prof. POLLACK: Copland was by far the most important person professionally
in Leonard Bernstein's career, especially as a composer. Bernstein discovered
Copland's music while he was still in college. They became personal buddies
when Copland--when Bernstein, again, was still in college. And Copland really
mentored Bernstein, and Bernstein developed a musical style that grew directly
out of Copland's music. "West Side Story," for instance, is inconceivable
without the example of Copland's music. So Bernstein was one of
many--actually, many American composers who had an enormous debt to Copland as
a composer.

GROSS: Do you know what he thought of, say, "West Side Story," which is a
really wonderful work, you know, the score for that, but it is very much out
of Copland?

Prof. POLLACK: Copland did not write very much about Bernstein's music. His
only extended piece on Bernstein is an earlier work in which he sort of
criticizes the eclecticism of his music, but praises its vigor and panache.
He predicts in the late '40s--from when this article was from--that
Bernstein's greatest success is likely to be in the theater. So he was right
on that score.

GROSS: Mm-hmm. Copland died in 1990 at the age of 90. He had suffered a
form of dementia for several years. Did the public know about that?

Prof. POLLACK: The public really didn't know about his dementia. It was more
or less, you know, kept from public view. There were a few late episodes in
Copland's career when it was clear that he did not have all his faculties, and
the press were beginning to comment on that. And at a certain point, he just
had no contact with the public.

GROSS: Do you know if during that period he had any music abilities left,
whether he listened to music or could play, if he took any pleasure in music?

Prof. POLLACK: He did take pleasure in music. People report that he would
tap his fingers listening to music or tap even without listening to music.
You know, the pianist's habit of kind of tapping his fingers on the keyboard.
And he listened to music and he seemed to enjoy hearing music and would smile.
And to the end, kept a certain very agreeable countenance about him that he
was always known for, this kind of toothy, grinny, smiling face that everyone
knows to be Copland's public face.

GROSS: Would you like to choose a piece for us to close with, a piece that
you particularly love that you'd like to share with us?

Prof. POLLACK: Hmm. I have to admit a special fondness for "Appalachian
Spring." As popular as that work is, it's a work that one can go back to time
and time again and hear something new always.

GROSS: OK. Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us about Aaron
Copland.

Prof. POLLACK: Oh, it's been my pleasure, Terry. Thank you.

GROSS: Howard Pollack is the author of "Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of
an Uncommon Man." Pollack is a professor at the University of Houston.

(Soundbite from "Appalachian Spring")

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite from "Appalachian Spring")
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