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.
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
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Aaron Copland: Piano Concerto, El Salón México, Appalachian Spring, Old American Songs
Classical - Released by Praga Digitals on Jan 1, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Copland Conducts Appalachian Spring & The Tender Land - Gould Conducts Fall River Legend
Classical - Released by Living Stereo on Jun 4, 2007
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland Conducts Copland - Expanded Edition (Fanfare for the Common Man, Appalachian Spring, Old American Songs (Complete), Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes)
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Jan 1, 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Our Town Suite, The Red Pony Suite & El Salón México
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Feb 4, 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Violin Sonata & Duo & Nonet
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Mar 31, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Billy The Kid & Statements for Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by Everest on Oct 6, 2017
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Copland Collection: Orchestral Works 1948-1971
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Sep 26, 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Copland Celebration, Vol. 1
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Nov 3, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Copland Collection : Orchestral and Ballet works (1936-1948)
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Jan 1, 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Copland Collection
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Jan 1, 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Appalachian Spring
Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Paula Engerer, Laura Ardan, Paul Gambill, Scott Moore
Symphonic Music - Released by Naxos on Nov 8, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Appalachian Spring, Nonet, Two Pieces for String Quartet
St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Dennis Russell Davies
Classical - Released by Musical Heritage Society on Jan 1, 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Symphony No. 3 (Transferred from the Original Everest Records Master Tapes)
London Symphony Orchestra, Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by Everest on Oct 6, 2017
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
American Classical Music
George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Oct 9, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relaxed Holidays
Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Dec 5, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland conducts Copland
Classical - Released by Regis Records on Jul 31, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Piano Quartet & Sextet & Vitebsk
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Feb 16, 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Chamber Music Of Aaron Copland
Classical - Released by Arabesque Recordings on Dec 14, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
El Salon México
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Nov 10, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Copland: Music For The Theatre, Music For Movies, Quiet City, Clarinet Concerto
Orchestra of St. Luke's, Dennis Russell Davies
Classical - Released by Musical Heritage Society on Nov 18, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis Kaufman Plays Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, and Robert Russell Bennett
Classical - Released by Soundmark Records on Apr 30, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo