As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, one of the soundtracks of this moment is Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” memorializing one of Illinois’ most famous sons.
The widely heralded 1942 work features folk tunes, big brass parts and gripping quotes from the 16th president — words that have been narrated onstage by scores of famous Americans, from Barack Obama to Carl Sandburg and Coretta Scott King.
Adding to that roster is hometown actor Harry Lennix, who lent his booming voice to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the first time in June. He’d performed the piece, which he says puts “the American spirit to sound,” elsewhere 20 years ago, but this was his CSO debut.
For Lennix, there is a timeless message of unity in Abraham Lincoln’s words. (Click the red audio player above to hear Lennix bring Lincoln’s words to life.)
“If any American president could be canonized, it would be Abraham Lincoln,” Lennix, who grew up in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, said backstage before the show. “I don’t think that anybody can deny that he had a very almost divine sense of right and wrong.”
The roughly 15-minute piece begins with a gentle, contemplative sound. Then, through a lively middle section, Copland quotes from folk tunes — invoking the background sounds from “the colorful times in which Lincoln lived, sleigh bells, a horse and carriage from the 19th century,” according to musicologist Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett.
It isn’t until the final third of the piece that the narrator speaks, beginning with these words that Lincoln spoke in an 1862 address to Congress: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.”
The piece’s ability to welcome a non-musician is part of its widespread appeal, said DeLapp-Birkett, a longtime Copland scholar and consulting musicologist for the Aaron Copland Fund.
Then-Sen. Barack Obama performed it in 2005 in Millennium Park, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Poet Carl Sandburg narrated the CSO’s debut performance of the work in 1945. This fall, Matthew McConaughey will perform the work with the Houston Symphony.
“It’s non-elitist, so it gets performed [a lot] and it goes over well in more popular contexts,” DeLapp-Birkett said. “People who are not music aficionados love it and people who are music aficionados can also appreciate it, because Copland’s writing is very well crafted.”
The work by Copland, one of the leading American composers of the 20th century, was born out of a moment of hardship. The United States had just been attacked at Pearl Harbor and entered officially into World War II. Copland, who was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants from Russia, was eager to use his skills to help.
“His goal was to support the United States and its allies against a very powerful enemy,” said DeLapp-Birkett.
Now, more than 80 years after Copland wrote the music and looked to Lincoln for resolve, the country is turning 250 years old amid a moment of deep political divide. For Lennix, Lincoln’s words hold up.
“I don’t think that the words will ever be irrelevant. I don’t think that they’ll ever be out of date,” Lennix said. “It’s always the battle between good and evil, between those that have and those that have not.”
The Tony-nominated actor known for his work on stage in shows like “Purpose” and TV roles in series like “The Blacklist” is no stranger to the stage. Still, narrating “Lincoln Portrait,” is a unique role. In his original score, Copland made clear directions for the part: Deliver the words simply, with no added embellishment. For Lennix, this was the part that needed practice.
“Some people do it just like that. Henry Fonda did it just straight, no chaser, no spin on the ball, just the facts,” Lennix said. “I was just listening to William Warfield’s performance of it, which is magnificent, of course, but I think I lean toward a kind of more impassioned rather than dry performance of it. So, for me, the real challenge will be to not go too far to that other side of emotion.”
The piece quotes from an 1858 debate between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in Alton, Illinois: “It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’”
And, a private writing from that same year: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”
Then, the piece builds, finally, to words from Lincoln’s most famous address, given in Gettysburg amid the Civil War: “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lennix said it’s hard not to be stirred by this enduring and deeply American idea.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.