Aaron Copland
Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next half-century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. His sheer popularity and iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuated the familiar words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers.
Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible. In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory. Copland went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Viñes and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky, Milhaud, Fauré, and Mahler, but others such as author André Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924 Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965.
After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote American music. By the mid-'30s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public.
While Copland gradually became less prolific from the mid-'50s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra. Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s, Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in understanding the growth of American music in the 20th century.
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Pride of Oklahoma 1989
The University of Oklahoma Marching Band
Klassiek - Released by Tresona on 1 jan. 2012
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Danzon Cubano, Three Blues,Our Town
Wereldmuziek - Released by TP4 Music on 6 jan. 2022
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Bernstein Conducts Copland
New York Philharmonic, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein
Klassiek - Released by Music Manager on 6 feb. 2013
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Contemporary American Composers : Aaron Copland / "Billy the Kid", Fred Grofé / "Rodeo" & "Grand Canyon"
Klassiek - Released by ISIS on 15 jul. 2016
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Aaron Copland: Violin Sonata, Trio, Piano Sonata
Klassiek - Released by NWCRI on 1 jun. 2010
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Contemporary American Music (Remastered)
Barber, Diamond, Aaron Copland, Creston
Klassiek - Released by RevOla on 9 mei 2019
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The Great Conductors: Aaron Copland (Remastered 2016)
London Symphony Orchestra, Leo Smit, Aaron Copland, Radio Rome Symphony Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Jube Classic on 1 apr. 2016
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Barber: Concerto pour violon - Copland: Concerto pour piano (Mono Version)
Louis Kaufman, Leo Smit, Aaron Copland
Divers - Released by BNF Collection on 1 jan. 1956
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Finnegan's Wake
Klassiek - Released by Albany Records on 1 sep. 2004
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Copland Music For Piano Duo (Produced)
Arianna Goldina and Rémy Loumbrozo
Klassiek - Released by Phoenix USA on 15 apr. 2004
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Music by My Friends
Klassiek - Released by Albany Records on 1 okt. 2004
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Works for Violin and Piano
Klassiek - Released by Globe on 3 jun. 2016
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Copland: Symphony No. 3 (Transferred from the Original Everest Records Master Tapes)
London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Klassiek - Released by Everest on 6 okt. 2017
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Aaron Copland & Leonard Bernstein Play Their Works
Klassiek - Released by Naxos Classical Archives on 1 jan. 2013
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Copland: Appalachian Spring / Gould: Spirituals for String Choir and Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Everest Records on 10 jul. 1958
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Copland: Third Symphony
Aaron Copland, London Symphony Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Music Manager on 12 sep. 2019
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Drunk as Hell
Country - Released by Aaron Copeland on 8 okt. 2018
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American Composers
Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, Aaron Copland, Sir Eugene Goosens
Klassiek - Released by Music Manager on 4 nov. 2015
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Aaron Copland: Orchestral Variations - Alfonso Letelier - Aculeo, Suite for Orchestra
The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney
Klassiek - Released by First Edition on 14 jan. 2014
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Copland: Modern Vocal Premieres - Old American Songs, Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson - Warfield, Lipton, and Copland
Aaron Copland, William Warfield, Martha Lipton
Klassiek - Released by Soundmark on 1 okt. 1951
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Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite (Recorded 1945) (Live)
New York Philharmonic, Artur Rodzinski
Klassiek - Released by New York Philharmonic on 8 dec. 2017
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