When I was young I learned a little bit of piano. One of the easy pieces I remember practicing was the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.” What I didn’t know was that this piece of music was incorporated into a ballet by Aaron Copland. Here’s what else I recently learned about Appalachian Spring.

Appalachian Spring is a ballet by Aaron Copland (1900-1990), an American composer who was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. It was commissioned by Martha Graham (dancer/choreographer) and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (pianist/patron of chamber music) in 1942. The show premiered at the Library of Congress on October 30, 1944 with Graham dancing the lead role. It won the Pulitzer Prize the following year.

The original score was written for 13 instruments. Conductor Artur Rodzinski then commissioned Copland to rearrange the ballet as an orchestral suite, which ended up being 10 minutes shorter than the ballet. There now exists four version of Appalachian Spring:

• Ballet with 13 instruments (1944)
• Orchestral suite (1945)
• Ballet with full orchestra (1954)
• Orchestral suite with 13 instruments (1972)

The ballet was orginally referred to simply as “Ballet for Martha.” The named “Appalachian Spring” (suggested by Graham) comes from the poem “The Dance” by Hart Crane.

Appalachian Spring tells the story of a wedding day at a Pennsylvania farmhouse in the early 20th century. The characters are a young couple, a pioneer woman, a revivalist preacher, and the preacher’s followers.

You can watch the 1958 televised production of YouTube:

The five variations on “Simply Gifts” are the seventh section of the eight-part suite. Let’s end with “Simply Gifts” performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss.