Wonderful stuff, to be sure. These day I'm learning top play the three pieces from Our Town on the piano (along with The sunken Cathedral). As I've said before, copland's film scores contain soe of his most attractive, unassuming music. The best ones also date from his golden Americana perios, the lae 30s to the mid 40s.
I'll have to check out MTT's version of Appalachian Spring. I, too, have always preferred the original instrument version, which I find has a Baroque drive missing from the cushier big-orchestra scoring. I also like the sections of the ballet that were deleted from the suite.