Copland wrote the scores for eight films—including two documentaries—beginning in 1939. He was in the forefront of those who brought a modern musical style to a Hollywood that had been thoroughly dominated by pseudo-romantic film composers. His music for the film dramatization (1949—starring Myrna Loy and Robert Mitchum) of John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony was composed in 1948, and a suite of six movements for concert performance was subsequently extracted.
Steinbeck’s work—an “episodic novella” of four short stories--was written in 1933. Each of the stories was subsequently published separately in various American magazines before joint publication in 1939. The Red Pony is a characteristic example of Steinbeck’s narrative genius in telling simple stories about common people that nevertheless plumb the profound truths of humankind. In this case, the themes revolve around a few slices of the life of an adolescent, Jody, on a small ranch in the Salinas Valley of California after World War I. There, with his father, mother, grandfather, a hired hand, and an elderly transient, the simplicities of Jody’s childhood are confronted by the more sinister challenges of life. The stark realities of adult life that follow the naïve world of youth are examined here with Steinbeck’s well-known probity. It is Jody’s “initiation into a violent world where pain and death are everywhere and danger is always present.” Steinbeck’s novel is now a classic, and for many years was requisite reading in high school literature classes. Well over a half-century later, this writer well remembers the examination and discussion in class of Jody’s world. The author’s observation, “A boy becomes a man when a man is needed, ” has never been forgotten.
The first story, “The Gift,” relates Jody’s introduction to responsibility with his father’s gift of a red pony. Unfortunately, his joy turns to tragedy, with the grotesque death of the beloved pony. In “The Great Mountains” Jody meets an old Mexican who, turned away from the ranch, steals a worthless nag and disappears into the mountains—leaving Jody to meditate over the encounter’s meaning. The third story, “The Promise,” is grim. Jody anxiously anticipates the birth of a foal, haunted by the death of his pony from the strangles. Tragedy sure enough ensues, as the hired hand has to kill the mare, and delivers the breeched, bloody foal by caesarean--more food for Jody’s thoughts. Finally, “The Leader of the People” relates the bothersome, constant stories of Jody’s grandfather, who, like so many, incessantly recounts his youthful adventures, to the annoyed boredom of all. Here, Jody learns sympathy for the old, and tolerance, as well. It must be said that Hollywood smoothed out some of the darkness, grimness, and violence of the book, adapting it for contemporary movie audiences.
With these life themes as inspiration, Copland, crafts a score whose style and attractive simplicities are well known to all who admire and enjoy all of the masterpieces that made Copland’s reputation during the 1930s and 40s. The extracted suite of six movements begins tranquilly with “Morning on the Ranch”, followed by “The Gift.” The latter perfectly reflects Jody’s joy in his red pony, with his excited schoolmates animating the middle section. “Dream March and Circus Music” are apt accompaniment to Jody’s fantasies of riding the pony, first as a steed in glorious chivalric battle to a pompous little march that—like a dream—just peters out at the end. The second march finds Jody and the pony performing tricks in the circus to spiky, dissonance-laden musical clichés. “Grandfather’s Story” gently, nostalgically—although with a bit of stamping--evokes the old man’s obsession with distant memories of his trek along the Oregon Trail. The limping “Walk to the Bunkhouse” drolly depicts the hired hand, Billy Buck, who was an aging, bandy-legged, real horseman. Finally, “Happy Ending” is just that, a scampering, effervescent affair in Copland’s best upbeat manner, and recaps the mood and music of the opening.
--Wm. E. Runyan
©2019 William E. Runyan