Quiet City is a play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 by Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...

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The play had been commissioned for the Group Theatre by Harold Clurman

Harold Clurman

Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...

 and was directed by Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

. The play was dropped after only two Sunday performances, most likely due to internal dissension.

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 wrote incidental music for the play. It later became a well-known composition for trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

, cor anglais

Cor anglais

The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....

, and string

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 under the same name Quiet City

Quiet City (music)

Quiet City is a well-known composition for trumpet, cor anglais, and string orchestra by Aaron Copland.In 1940, Copland wrote incidental music for the play Quiet City by Irwin Shaw. The next year he knitted some of it into a ten-minute piece composition designed to be performed independently of the...

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