Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
Orchestral Masterpieces
Appalachian Spring
- suite [25:45]
El Salón México
[10:50]
Piano Concerto [15:41]
Fanfare for the Common Man [2:47]
Lincoln Portrait [15:15]
Quiet City [9:38]
An Outdoor Overture [9:17]
Our Town – orchestral suite [9:09]
Variations for Orchestra [13:43]
Earl Wild (piano)
Charlton Heston (Lincoln)
Symphony of the Air/Aaron Copland
(concerto)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Fritz Litschauer
(Appalachian, Mexico)
Hartford Symphony Orchestra/Fritz Mahler (Fanfare, Variations)
Utah Symphony Orchestra/Maurice
Abravanel (Lincoln, City, Overture, Town)
rec. c.1961. ADD or AAD.
Reviewed as streamed in 16-bit lossless sound. Download only: no
booklet.
VANGUARD CLASSICS
[112:05]
This is a generally attractive collection of major and minor Copland – not
everything really qualifies for the hopeful description ‘masterpieces’.
This Vanguard recording of the Piano Concerto, which Rob Barnett
reviewed
some time ago, remains available
on CD from
Presto,
ArkivMusic and
Amazon UK, still coupled as reviewed with the Menotti Piano Concerto, but now with
the catalogue number OVC4029. You should be able to find the CD
for a little over £5, but the download, even in mp3, may cost you more than
that.
Downloaders are better served by the alternative 2-hour selection of
Copland’s music listed above, released by Musical Concepts, and available
for £7.19 from Qobuz, where I streamed it in 16-bit sound.
The more adventurous may wish to find many of these recordings as part of a Big Americana Box from Bach Guild. It’s a very mixed bunch of
recordings, but some gems, including some RPO/Farbermann Ives, as well as
some turkeys, 7½ hours for as little as £9.49 from
uk7digital.com.
The opening Appalachian Spring Suite is a little rough and ready,
and the Vanguard recording emphasises that by being a bit too up-front and
bright. I had the volume turned up a little for another recording, and
hastened to drop it a notch or two. Bearing in mind the price of the
download, it’s no great expense to choose another Appalachian Spring. You may already have one; otherwise, I
recommend a recording of the complete ballet, not just the suite.
It’s disappointing that John Wilson, on his recent Chandos album, chose to
record only the suite; I recommend the full ballet from Michael Tilson
Thomas and the San Francisco SO (RCA 82876658402, with Billy the Kid and Rodeo, download only). That’s no longer
a bargain, as the CD was when it was
reviewed by Peter J Lawson,
and the download comes without a pdf booklet, but it’s still well worth
having.
El Salón México
benefits more from the up-front performance and recording, but it’s with
the Piano Concerto that we come to the first really worthwhile
tracks on the album. It’s notable for Earl Wild’s brilliant solo
contribution, but the orchestral support, under the composer’s guidance,
and the very clear recording are also definite pluses. Rob Barnett – link
above – put it rather mildly when he wrote that ‘Wild does not hold back’.
Whether you choose the CD with the Menotti coupling or this download, this
recording is well worth having as an alternative to the Copland (piano) and
Bernstein recording with the NYPO (G010003984842U, download only, available
for around £5.50 in lossless sound, with Schuman Concerto, etc. –
review
of box set). Just don’t expect music as easy to listen to as Appalachian Spring and the other popular Copland repertoire. Not
an easy listen, but well worth the effort.
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra may not be well-known, but they give us a
vigorous Fanfare for the Common Man. The Lincoln Portrait
is the first of the works recorded by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and
Maurice Abravanel. I’ve always thought their Mahler recordings unjustly
overlooked, and their atmospheric recordings of American music are also
well worth having, especially as Vanguard always gave them some of the best
sound of the day. Whatever you may think of the words in the second half,
here spoken almost casually by Charlton Heston, they are words that some
politicians today would do well to heed. Oddly enough, Lincoln’s Gettysburg
Address was hardly reported at the time – one newspaper reported that ‘the
president also spoke’.
At any rate, the music is stirring, and this is greatly preferable to a
thankfully now defunct 1992 recording by Margaret Thatcher with the LSO and
Wyn Morris, offered free to anyone who wanted it by a record shop that I
used to frequent. No-one took it. An equally implausible recording by
General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, with Leonard Slatkin, remains
available (RCA G010003882012P, download only).
I confess to having found Quiet City less than compulsive
listening at times, even in Copland’s own recording, but Abravanel makes a
very good case for it, and what the Utah Orchestra lack in sheer beauty,
they make up for in their clear love of the music. As Rob Barnett notes in
his
review
of the Vanguard CD (no longer available) featuring the four Abravanel
contributions here, it’s the ‘angelic Utah trumpet’ that wins the day in
the Portrait and Quiet City, and again in the Outdoor Overture.
The Our Town suite, like Quiet City, can sound dull, but
Abravanel and the orchestra do their best to keep our attention. The
closing Variations for Orchestra, like the Piano Concerto, feature Copland in a different mode – appropriately, both feature on an
RCA recording entitled Copland the Modernist (G010000267910Z,
download only). It’s one of the few Copland works that I didn’t know, but
the Hartford Symphony and Fritz Mahler make a good case for it.
The Vanguard CD came with a coupling of music by Morton Gould of which Rob
Barnett was not greatly enamoured, so the all-Copland download is
preferable, not just for the very attractive price. Most of the
performances are idiomatic; none is beyond the pale, and the weakest, the Appalachian Spring, is easily supplemented. The Vanguard recording
is bright and truthful throughout – a little too truthful for that opening
work. There’s no booklet, which, though far from ideal, is less of a
problem when the recording is on offer so inexpensively.
Brian Wilson
