Music that Matters: Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait

Interesting excerpts available here from Elizabeth Bergman's book Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland during the Depression and War,, regarding Copland's Lincoln Portrait, written during some of the darkest days of World War II:

In the 1950s, Copland witnessed "a fiery young Venezuelan actress" narrate a performance in her home country. After the final lines "the audience of six thousand rose to its feet as one and began shouting so loudly that I couldn't hear the end of the piece." The military dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez was deposed shortly thereafter, and Copland was "later told by an American foreign service officer that the Lincoln Portrait was credited with having inspired the first public demonstration against him—that in effect, it had started a revolution.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the Henry Fonda version. I've heard it many times, and it never fails to stir me.