“I hope you will knuckle down to a good symphony,” wrote Samuel Barber in September 1944 to his fellow composer Aaron Copland: “We deserve it of you, and your career is all set for it.” It was a strange thing to say given that Copland had already composed a variety of symphonies, albeit admittedly all more experimental than Barber might have preferred. The fourth volume in the highly acclaimed Copland series from John Wilson and the BBC Philharmonic opens with the resoundingly successful Symphony No. 3 (1944-46). The optimistic spirit of this work resonated perfectly with the euphoria of post-war America, resulting in its becoming an emblem of US nationalism. This lesser-recorded original version comes complete with the twelve bars which Bernstein later suggested cutting from the fourth movement. Three commissions complement the symphony: ‘Letter from Home’ (1944) reflects the feelings of receiving a letter from a loved one. ‘Down a Country Lane’ (originally commissioned by Life magazine as a solo piano work) is here performed in its orchestral version (1964), reimagined for a series of concerts showcasing youth orchestras. ‘Connotations’ (1962), a twelve-note serial composition premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the inauguration of The Philharmonic Hall, complete this invigorating surround-sound album.

This disc substantially duplicates the repertoire on an all-Copland program produced by DG with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. However, where DG included the Short Symphony, Naxos offers the Clarinet Concerto. While the Nashville Chamber Orchestra doesn't offer quite the tonal refinement and polish of Orpheus, it basically plays just as well, and its slightly weightier, gutsier, more rustic sonority arguably suits the music even better. In the famous rehearsal disc that accompanied Copland's own recording of the original chamber version of Appalachian Spring, he can be heard exhorting his players not to sentimentalize the music: "...it's a little too much on the Massenet-side," he tells them. Obviously Paul Gambill understands this point, for he offers interpretations ideally poised between warmth and simplicity, full of those clean and clear sonorities that Copland made his own.

It should come as no surprise that, as a major musical capital, Nashville offers a large pool of excellent professional performers from which to draw, and as with its full-sized symphony, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra obviously employs some major talent, particularly among its strings. Copland's music is full of complex rhythms, often combining them with stratospheric violin writing. At such moments as the "Danza de Jalisco" from Three Latin American Sketches, or the initial allegro of Appalachian Spring, the Nashville players offer impressive accuracy of both rhythm and pitch. Quiet City benefits from some smooth-as-silk trumpeting from Scott Moore, while Laura Arden (principal clarinet with the Atlanta Symphony) turns in a masterful performance of the Clarinet Concerto. She commands a lovely, liquid tone in the lyrical opening movement (her pianissimo playing at the end is exquisite) and captures the finale's jazz elements without ever turning raucous.

The version of Appalachian Spring offered here is billed as the "Original Ballet Suite". It is not. The "original" ballet suite is the full orchestral version most familiar to music lovers, dating from just after the premiere in the mid-1940s. More than a decade later, in 1958, Copland published a new orchestration of the suite in which he returned to the chamber instrumentation used in the full-length ballet, allowing the option of a few extra strings (which I assume are used here), and this is what Naxos gives us. Gambill conducts this piece as well as anyone ever has; he's particularly adept at sustaining the flow of the slower sections without letting the music sag, and he gets an astonishingly full sound from his ensemble (listen to the focused tone of the basses when they first enter in the "Simple Gifts" variations). Sonics of ideal transparency and presence set the seal on a disc that's practically perfect from just about any perspective. [12/14/2002]

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

My first experience with the music of Aaron Copland was a Mercury Living Presence LP featuring Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapolis Symphony in El Salon Mexico, Rodeo, and Danzon Cubano. The exciting, original music, the powerful performances, and the hi-fi sound made this record a favorite of mine for many years. So it was with much anticipation that I approached this new collection by the Minnesota Orchestra under Eiji Oue. Would it revive that first thrill? Well, as in all of life, there's really only one first time, but this is one damn fine Copland disc. Beginning with an arresting Fanfare for the Common Man that reconfirms the piece as one of the 20th century's great works (you literally will stop whatever you're doing and pay strict attention), the program continues with a performance of Appalachian Spring that, while it doesn't take wing the way Copland's own peerless recording with the Boston Symphony on RCA does, still makes for a lovingly colloquial presentation.


And it doesn't stop there: the Minneapolis Copland tradition is maintained in the following marvelous performance of the Third Symphony. Oue keeps the contrasting and apposite styles of the work in balance, managing to sound raw and gutsy in the first movement and scherzo (with the brass really bringing on da' noise), but also poised and tender in the adagio and the more elegiac sections of the finale (which re-uses the Fanfare for the Common Man). And the sound! The power, the impact, the three dimensional image--it beats all the competition. Bernstein's highly personalized and idiosyncratic way with the Symphony still is my favorite, but this new disc easily could be anybody's first choice for a modern Copland collection.
--Victor Carr, ClassicsToday.com

". . . I have been waiting for this CD for over 40 years. . . There has never been a stereo recording of Copland's Third that approaches the concert-hall experience. Until now. This recording clearly has great value as a musical experience, but it also sets a new standard as a sonic showcase for a nearly impossible-to-record work." --Arthur B. Lintgen, THE ABSOLUTE SOUND

"Oue’s performances are shapely, tasteful, beautifully played, with a judicious balance of drama and restraint. The recorded sound is nothing short of awesome; you might want to obtain this CD just as an audio experience." –Peter Aczel, THE AUDIO CRITIC

"Eiji Oue is far more satisfying to my ears than Michael Tilson Thomas [in Copland's music]. The Minnesota Orchestra's tone isn't perhaps as glossy as the San Franciscans', but they and their conductor are more emotionally in tune with the music. The Third Symphony is first-rate in every way. This orchestra made the first recording of the Third with Atal Dorati for Mercury in 1953, and the piece still seems to be in the players' bones. A major Copland release." --Sedgwick Clark, GRAMOPHONE

"The Minnesota Orchestra plays wonderfully. Woodwind soloists and the concertmaster shine in 'Appalachian Spring', but the stars of this CD are the brasses who electrify in a way that brings to mind the Chicago Symphony's brass section in their heyday. Of course, a good recording is necessary to make this fully apparent . . . and my, what an exceptional-sounding disc this is. If you have just one vaguely audiophile bone in your body, this CD will be irresistible. RR has produced another winner." -- Andrew Quint, FANFARE

"This is a hi-fi lover's dream disc. That's what we expect from this label -- a production that shows what hi-fi performance is all about. As to the performances, you're in for another treat. The orchestra is as responsive and richly sonorous as you could ask for, with some expecially lovely wind playing in the symphony. Each of these performances can stand as a "reference." This one seems to have just about everything in place for maximum impact, especially the knockout sound."--David Vernier, STEREOPHILE

"A compelling performance of the Third Sympohony. I think this is among the best recordings since Bernstein -- and the sound is spectacular." --Peter Dickinson, GRAMOPHONE

"This is the best interpretation of the Copland Third in a generation, and the sound is Keith Johnson at his considerable best. That is to say, jaw-dropping and a revelation." --Harry Pearson, THE ABSOLUTE SOUND (Also listed in HP's Super CD List, Top 10)

How curious that a contemporary clarinet concerto should receive two recordings in such quick succession. Does John Corigliano's 30-minute work deserve the honour? Well, I heard it at the 1987 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where it was the only work in an LSO concert of American Music not to be heckled (the others were decried as absurdly derivative). It certainly deserved its respectful reception, even though the superficial and opportunistic finale seemed to me then unworthy of the cadenzas and elegy which preceded it. Looking at MEO's review of the Drucker/Mehta recording (on New World/Conifer) I see that's more or less how it struck him, too.

It helps a little to know that the finale was designed as ''a kind of festival for all the players''. And it helps that Stoltzman launches into it with even more daring and panache than Drucker (the concerto's dedicatee and a fine exponent). Stoltzman and Leighton Smith also stretch the slow movement a lot further than do Drucker and Mehta, and it says something for the expressive quality of the music that it can take this treatment. The confidence and relish with which Corigliano flings sounds around the orchestra in the opening movement also compels admiration. As for lasting quality, however, it cannot be claimed that the concerto has the substance of Nielsen's, the memorability of Copland's or a strong enough alternative identity of its own to persuade one to rank it anywhere near those works.

In the early stages of the Copland Stoltzman is rather less atmospheric than Janet Hilton (on Chandos), whose floating sound and tender legato make for a very special kind of poetry; later on her sense of fun and her feeling for the jazz idiom are also delightful. But the more the music swings, the more Stoltzman's alley-cat instincts come into their own. The LSO strings surpass their Scottish counterparts in their poise at tempo changes and in certain exposed passages later on.

The Bernstein also goes well, although Rattle on his EMI ''Jazz Collection'' manages to make it sound even more vulgar. RCA's recording quality is first rate, and for anyone drawn to this particular coupling, or to exceptional clarinet virtuosity, this is an issue not to be missed.

-- Gramophone [4/1989]

Also available: Copland: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 - Ballets / Wilson, BBC Philharmonic

Following a highly successful recording of Copland’s ballet music, John Wilson, a specialist in American music, and the BBC Philharmonic present the first volume of the composer’s complete symphonic output. This unique collection of vivid and energetic pieces highlights Copland’s personal, unorthodox compositional language. The mixture of works of austerity and tense excitement ranges widely, from the twenty Orchestral Variations on an original theme (originally written for piano) to the single-movement controversial Symphonic Ode, a rhythmically complex piece written in its original incarnation for a huge orchestra including eight horns and five trumpets.

The album features also the lesser-known Short Symphony (No. 2) and early Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, in which the solo instrument throughout is closely integrated with the music of the orchestra. The organ soloist is the young Jonathan Scott. Since a highly successful Gershwin concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014, he is increasingly acclaimed around the world for his performances of American music.

This disc offers gripping accounts of four works. Every note tells.

– Sunday Times (UK)

Wilson obtains a superbly drilled and articulate response from the BBC Philharmonic. An outstanding release.

– Gramophone

Everything about the performances signals a conductor and an orchestra who really believe in the quality of the music they are performing. The BBC Philharmonic seems to relish Copland’s springy rhythms, long-limbed melodies and irrepressible invention, while Wilson manages to bring transparency and buoyancy to even the most massive climaxes.

– The Guardian

Also available on standard DVD

This concert film made in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1976 captures a memorable performance conducted by the doyen of American composers, Aaron Copland (1900–1990). It includes some of his greatest and most attractive music, from the patriotic flourish of Fanfare for the Common Man and the spirited orchestral fantasy El Salón México, to the colloquial warmth of his suite from the opera The Tender Land. Of particular importance is the collaboration with the great Benny Goodman in the masterwork he commissioned and premiered, the Clarinet Concerto.

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REVIEW:

Aaron Copland had an easy presence on the rostrum, totally free of histrionics, while getting a ready response from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I guess the timpanist would have liked a retake of the opening Fanfare for the Common Man where he had intonation problems, but elsewhere the orchestra are immaculate, Copland’s face displaying his total pleasure in each of the performances. The recorded sound is very good for that period, with a reasonably good internal balance, while visually it has sharp-edged colors.

– David’s Review Corner (David Denton

Leonard Slatkin’s Copland is always first rate, and this release is no exception. He already recorded the complete Billy the Kid in St. Louis for EMI, but that disc could be anywhere right now, except readily available, and so if you want the entire work this performance is just the ticket. I actually prefer the full-length ballet to the suite. You get about ten minutes more music, all of it worth hearing, and the result is a work that has a more compelling range of narrative and less of that picture postcard Americana feel that just might be starting to sound a tad old. It only remains to be said that throughout the disc the Detroit Symphony plays terrifically.

Grohg is early Copland, but much of it got reused in the Dance Symphony. Inspired by the silent film Nosferatu, the music is aptly dark and spooky, with a decadent sheen similar to what we find in, say, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin. That said, you can plainly hear the composer to come in such numbers as the Dance of the Street-Walker, with its angular sonorities and burlesque atmosphere. As with Billy, Slatkin proves a completely convincing guide to a remarkably assured piece of writing. The coupling of these two works also makes for a more interesting release than usual, and justifies purchase even if you already own a Billy the Kid or three. First rate sonics too.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

The Chavez Second Symphony is a luscious amalgam of pulsating rhythms bristling with exotic Central American percussion, and Bernstein's performance is electrifying.

...Of [Chavez's] six symphonies, the only one that's even remotely well-known is the Second, the Sinfonia India. Like many other folk, I came across - and was bowled over by — this in Bernstein's electrifying performance on a CBS recording of the 1960s. If your only knowledge of Chavez is this luscious amalgam of pulsating rhythms and reworked Indian melodies, succulently scored for a ripe romantic orchestra positively bristling with exotic Central American percussion, you could be forgiven for concluding that Chavez had set off hot-foot along the path of Nationalism, as Dukas had encouraged him to do....

— Paul Serotsky, MusicWeb International

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A "Latin-American Fiesta," as the label has it, indeed. With a strong Brazilian emphasis, as it happens; this element headed by Villa-Lobos with the fifth of his mixtures of Bachian and Brazilian technique, the Bachianas Brasileiras. This is the one for soprano and eight 'cellos, with the moving Cantilena by way of Aria, and Martelo by way of Danza. This seems actually the least satisfactory performance on the disc; not so much, at all, on account of the unidentified soprano, who projects the dance-music in splendid style (though the Cantilena not quite so well), as on account of the 'cellos who sound sad and muddled (though I would be most hesitant to try to distribute the blame for this last shortcoming fairly between scoring, players and recording). Camargo Guarnieri, Villa-Lobos's junior, also represents Brazil, with an entirely gay, samba-style dance movement. The Batuque, too, is gay, as exemplified in this sample from Fernandez, yet another Brazilian, and one who has the local reputation of being Brasileirissimo. If Brasileirissimo means what I think it means his music is certainly that.

Revueltas was a Mexican who died in his forties, in 1940, and who was born either (it depends where you choose to look him up) in Santiago Papasquiaro or in Durango; followers of Westerns will without doubt agree that it must have been Durango. (He took violin lessons, most improbably, there. Perhaps his teacher was one of those of whom Revueltas later wrote "...some teachers of mine from whom I fortunately did not learn much".) As it happens Revueltas was an entertaining and uninhibited writer of words ("I like all kinds of music. I can even stand some of the classics, and some of my own works...."), as well as of the lively music represented on this disc. The weightiest Mexican contribution, however, is that of Carlos Chavez, half-Mexican, half-Indian. The Sinfonia India is a substantial outpouring of convincingly Indian-sounding sounds in term of a large symphony orchestra, with plenty of auxiliary (not always in fact so very auxiliary) percussion. It is repetitive, but then so, no doubt, is the original music; and a further conviction of authenticity is given by the use of three actual Indian melodies.

Much less authentic, however, is the sound of Copland's Danzon Cubano. While this is an attractive enough piece, it is of course a pastiche, and here hardly in the right company — its North-American fingerprints do show up so much more markedly than usual. But as a United States tribute to this of all their Latin-American neighbours it may be found welcome enough.

— Gramophone [9/1964]

REVIEW:

Aaron Copland's three major large-scale piano works count among the composer's greatest in any genre. Their jagged keyboard edges and austere lyricism best communicate in the hands of a virtuoso gifted with strong hands and patient ears. I'm certain Benjamin Pasternack's idiomatic mastery would have pleased the composer no end. Granted, in the Fantasy Pasternack doesn't match Leo Smit's gritty resonance within big chords, and the Sonata's central Vivace sounds a shade square and literal compared to Peter Lawson's suppler phrasing. But Pasternack's subtle gradations in touch and gentle yet firm sustaining power in the Andante sostenuto command your attention. So does the authority with which he integrates and characterizes the Variations' radical swings in mood and texture. The dry, dynamically constricted, closely miked ambience, though not really to my taste, befits Copland's quasi-percussive piano writing. I can't imagine a better way to inexpensively acquire the three pillars of Copland's solo piano output in committed, rock solid performances.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

All of these works predate Aaron Copland's populist American ballets, but they reveal perhaps even more tellingly just what a talented and individual voice he had right from the start. The most important piece here is the Short Symphony (a.k.a. Symphony No. 2), a stunning essay in rhythmic lyricism that was considered all but unplayable when written in 1933--so much so that Copland rewrote it as a sextet. This performance hasn't quite the sharpness and sizzle of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra recording for DG, but the Bournemouth Symphony under Marin Alsop shows itself more than capable of mastering the music's intricacies.

The other two performances are even finer. Alsop catches the bittersweet lyricism of the First Symphony's outer movements very affectingly, while the whirlwind central scherzo is dazzling. The same observation holds true of the Dance Symphony, which works its way to a fine frenzy in a finale that strikingly anticipates the mature composer of the 1940s. Copland's bright, open textures come across well in the problematic acoustic of the Poole concert hall; this is one of Naxos' better recordings from this locale, graced with some really impressive bass sonorities. This is an intelligently planned and impressively executed disc.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Revueltas and Copland wrote prolifically for film, and these scores are their greatest achievements in the medium. The scores were crafted for two of the most formidable and politically motivated films of the time. Redes is a story of victimized fishermen in Mexico - and the subject matter drew from Revueltas passionate music that Copland himself admiringly described as 'vibrant and colorful'. The City is a documentary that reveals the musical missing link between Copland's 'urban' and 'country' idioms, prescient of minimalism, and masterly in construction and effect. Without narration or dialogue, both scores are heard here for the first time in full.