Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, the music used for the introduction to this podcast, ties together two previous Fourth Turnings - commissioned after Pearl Harbor and including Civil War quotes from the 16th President -  in a way which makes it feel even more relevant as this current Crisis unfolds.

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A few relevant Wikipedia links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Portrait

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickett%27s_Charge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-water_mark_of_the_Confederacy

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein

This site has Kostelnetz commissioning it within 10 days - mid-December 1941- and that copland began writing in late February

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2007/julyaugust/feature/the-sound-freedom

 

 

The different excerpts are from

 

1) Address to congress 1862: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29503

2) Seventh and final Lincoln-Douglas debate October 15 1858 https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate7.htm

3) Collected works: https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm

4) The Gettysburg Address 1863: 

https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/copland/coplandstory.html

 

The NPS site says his slavery quote is from August 1, 1858 - 110 years before this recording.

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/onslavery.htm

This site says the date is pure conjecture, is from a scrap of paper that Mary Todd Lincoln passed to archivists later, and is signed with a different piece of paper from another document.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:547?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

Vin Scully, voice of the Dodgers, with the L.A. Philharmonic in 2017

https://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/14/see-vin-scully-narrate-the-words-of-abraham-lincoln-at-the-hollywood-bowl/

A direct link to a Youtube video of that performance https://youtu.be/6qpYwrla0GE

More on the quote about freedom and democracy

https://abrahamlincoln.quora.com/Close-Reading-2-Lincoln’s-Definition-of-Democracy-August-1-1858

The first item there is is a NYTimes piece from 1895 - that would be 30 years after the Civil War - that attributes it to Lincoln by the judge who ….attributes it to him. 

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/09/13/106068178.pdf

Last witness of the assassination of Lincoln, still alive in 1956, 14 years -after- the premiere of Lincoln Portrait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4