The Copland Corral

Started by karlhenning, April 10, 2007, 05:12:59 AM

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vandermolen

Quote from: Bill on April 13, 2007, 05:31:36 AM
Thank you for all the feedback to my questions.

If you do not have it through the set, this is also a recording that I believe that most of you on this thread would enjoy:



Samples to be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Copland-Modernist-Aaron/dp/B000003G4A/ref=sr_1_2/102-7134284-2880939?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1176471040&sr=8-2

That is a great disc.  The "Symphonic Ode" was a great recent discovery for me; a wonderfully craggy and inspiriting work.  Symphony 3 (Slatkin RCA) is my favourite work by Copland but also  Quiet City, Music for the Movies and The Red Pony are all scores that I often listen to.  I even have a soft spot for the, often derided, Lincoln Portrait (espec. the Adlai Stevenson/Ormandy version)
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

tjguitar

Here are my favorite Coplands:


karlhenning

Doráti's is an excellent account of all these works (El salón México, Appalachian Spring (1945 suite), Rodeo, Dance Symphony, Fanfare for the Common Man).  I wonder what lackluster recording WCRB has been playing all these years, to convince me (wrongly) that Appalachian Spring was duller than reading the Orange County phone book . . . .

pjme

I have  "Grogh" on an Argo disc. just like the organsymphony a great accomplishment for such a young composer.



Here's the story - from:http://www.answers.com/topic/grogh-ballet-in-1-scene

This almost legendary score was known for years merely as the source from which Aaron Copland later drew his Dance Symphony. It was composed during the period Copland was studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He was gripped by the Expressionist German vampire film "Nosferatu, " which he had seen in 1921 in company with the writer Harold Clurman, whom he asked to write a ballet scenario. The story concerns a sorcerer who brings corpses to life to dance for his pleasure. The macabre subject required the youthful composer to stretch his technique to strange dissonances and rhythms. The music is often very violent. Some aspects of the libretto played to Copland's strength, his Americanness, by including "visions of jazz."

Copland's youth and naivete are also evident in this work -- not in the music itself, for it is remarkably self-assured and accomplished, but in the circumstances of its creation. Simply put, a more experienced composer would not invest the time and effort without an interested ballet company or impresario, choreographer, or even a commission.

The ballet was never staged, nor played in more than its two-piano reduction for nearly seventy years. Fortunately, Copland was able to recoup his investment. He heard of a contest for a new American symphony and quickly extracted parts of the score, soon producing a three-movement work he called Dance Symphony. He won the cash prize with it. Another section had already been published separately as "Cortege funébre." A further part of it was reorchestrated and included in a later ballet, "Hear Ye, Hear Ye!" Copland revised the score of Grohg in 1932. It was then shelved, then lost.

Over fifty years later Copland's assistant Roland Caltabiano conceived the idea of reassembling Grohg from the its separated parts and approached English composer-conductor Oliver Knussen to gather the pieces and provide any needed musical stitching. In researching Copland's music of the period at the Library of Congress in Washington, Knussen discovered the full score of the 1932 version, which had been misfiled. The ballet was finally heard as Copland conceived it in 1992.

This music casts an interesting light on the early, near-radical phase of Copland's career. It is one of the very few works from his pen which seem to have sprung from an emotional well-spring. It is too early a work to have a chance at being ranked as a masterpiece; it has the brashness of youth. It is also one of the few of his pieces where ideas seem to tumble over one another in unrestrained fashion. Altogether, a remarkable accomplishment and highly recommended to the listener who is familiar with the more standard Copland fare. ~ All Music Guide


Catison

If you want to hear the original chamber version of the complete ballet, I would highly (highly!) recommend this disc by Hugh Wolff and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.



The score is incredibly well recorded with all the detail you could ever want.  It is very delicate and tender, as I believe Copland intended it.  I listen to this version all the time, and it is one of my favorite recordings of anything.  Plus you get a second disc of songs.
-Brett

vandermolen

Why has Dorati's (allegedly terrific) recording of Symphony 3 never made it to CD?

I demand to know >:(
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

karlhenning

Quote from: D Minor on April 25, 2007, 11:05:51 AM
Copland, Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (E Power Biggs / Bernstein / NYPO).  Quite good.

I've been curious about this piece . . . pray, say on.

BachQ

Quote from: karlhenning on April 25, 2007, 11:36:33 AM
I've been curious about this piece . . . pray, say on.

It's currently my favorite piece by Copland . . . . . .

karlhenning

Is it the Organ Symphony which provoked the comment on the order of "If a composer at [ age x. ] writes this, at [ age y. ] he will be ready to commit murder"?

Joe Barron

Quote from: karlhenning on April 25, 2007, 11:41:49 AM
Is it the Organ Symphony which provoked the comment on the order of "If a composer at [ age x. ] writes this, at [ age y. ] he will be ready to commit murder"?

from Walter Damrosch, yes.

Guido

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on April 12, 2007, 06:36:51 PM
He has recorded it at least once. The balance in the 2nd movement highly favors the piano (the non-quarter tone piano), so that it tends to sound something like a piano concerto.





Funny you should say that, because it started out as a piano concerto!

I absolutely adore the Copland Piano Sonata. Those five astonishing American piano sonatas from the first half of the twentieth century are never far from my player - Barber, Copland, Carter, and the two numbered sonatas by Ives.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

karlhenning

Quote from: Guido on May 31, 2007, 07:00:39 AM
. . . Copland maybe underrated, but he is held in really very high regard, so I'm not entirely convinced.

Karl - generally I prefer the amazing piano sonata to the variations - I think its my favourite piece of Copland. I find alot of the Americana difficult to stomach; not because it's Americanan per se but because it often sounds lazy when compared to many of his contemporaries. My feeling usually when I hear Copland is that he was an extraordinarily talented man, but only rarely did he strive to make the most of those talents. Thats just my own feeling of course.

When I fetched in the Benjamin Pasternack disc, I did enjoy the Variations, but the Sonata and Fantasy even more, yea, nigh unto adoration.

vandermolen

Quote from: James on May 31, 2007, 07:30:29 AM
One of my faves for Copland is Gerard Schwarz's excellently programmed disc with the Piano Concerto, Appalachian Spring & Symphonic Ode...Copland himself rated the Ode among his finest works and i have to agree with that, its just fab...



Same here, a great recent discovery and I have three recordings. the fine Delos and Copland's own recording but, best of all, the Michael Tilson Thomas RCA version in the album "Copland the Modernist".
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Bogey

Karl,
Continued thanks for opening my ears to Copland's chamber music...definitley need to more now for the shelf.  Any recordings suggested here are most welcome.
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Valentino

That piano concerto seems to be to my liking (been visiting the SFSO/MTT website). Recommendendez moi a recording, please?
We audiophiles don't really like music, but we sure love the sound it makes;
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karlhenning

Quote from: Bogey on June 01, 2007, 05:02:31 AM
Karl,
Continued thanks for opening my ears to Copland's chamber music...definitley need to more now for the shelf.  Any recordings suggested here are most welcome.

Hoy, Bill!

Actually, apart from the Sextet, I am not aware of much Copland chamber music apart from the songs and the piano solo music.  I have an idea he wrote a piano trio named Vitebsk?

Mark G. Simon

There's also a string Nonet from 1961, and I forget if this is actually 12 tone, but it is one of his crunchier works.

scottscheule

Quote from: Valentino on June 04, 2007, 05:48:38 AM
That piano concerto seems to be to my liking (been visiting the SFSO/MTT website). Recommendendez moi a recording, please?

There's a recording with the composer soloing and Bernstein conducting, available on this set http://www.amazon.com/Copland-Early-Orchestral-Works-1922-1935/dp/B0000027J9/ref=sr_1_5/104-2036130-3562369?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1180967148&sr=1-5

as well as others.  I enjoy it.

karlhenning

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 04, 2007, 06:21:25 AM
There's also a string Nonet from 1961, and I forget if this is actually 12 tone, but it is one of his crunchier works.

Sounds like it ought to be corn to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's sickle . . . .

Catison

Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 05:51:59 AM
Hoy, Bill!

Actually, apart from the Sextet, I am not aware of much Copland chamber music apart from the songs and the piano solo music.  I have an idea he wrote a piano trio named Vitebsk?

This is the recording you want.  Its all around great.

-Brett