Track Listing

1. Very slowly
2. Fast
3. Moderate
4. Fast
5. Still faster
6. As at first (Slowly)
7. Calm and flowing (Shaker melody "Simple Gifts")
8. Moderate: Coda
9. The Boatmen's Dance
10. The Dodger
11. Long Time Ago
12. Simple Gifts
13. I Bought Me a Cat
14. The Little Horses
15. Zion's Walls
16. The Golden Willow Tree
17. At the River
18. Ching-a-Ring Chaw
19. Four Dance Episodes, I: Buckaroo Holiday
20. Four Dance Episodes, II: Corral Nocturne
21. Four Dance Episodes, III: Saturday Night Waltz
22. Four Dance Episodes, IV: Hoe-Down

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197486 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

can't top the composer as conductor
Although Bernstein may be thought of as the premier conductor of Copland's music, these performances under the baton of the conductor himself are far superior in my humble opinion. In Bernstein's hands, for example, the hoedown from Rodeo is much too fast, Copland draws the music out and instead of cowboy music you have a true masterpiece of classical music. Listen to them consecutively, it is night and day. Same with Fanfare. It's also tough to beat the magnificent William Warfield's version of the Old American Songs, next to a version such as Marilyn Horne's, these (no knock on Ms. Horne) have gravitas and beauty. The sound quality on this disc, especially the tracks played by the LSO recorded at Walthamstow, is nothing short of astonishing, sounding better than the vast majority of modern digital recordings. A must.

From the horse's mouth (so to speak)
Because I love Bernstein's recordings of Rodeo and Appalachian Spring so much I hesitated to review Copland's own versions conducting his own music. While Bernstein's recordings are rightly legendary, in my opinion these should be too. Bersntein takes some tempos significantly faster (in some cases too fast for me) than Copland, and with Copland I was better able to hear the musical development and the rythmic pulse of the music(listen here to Hoe Down, then compare to Bernstein-the detail is much clearer with Copland). I also think the recorded sound has an edge over Bernstein, with really fine warmth and balance. Toss in what is in my opinion the definitive Old American Songs with William Warfield and it is really hard to find fault here. I once heard that Copland simply could not conduct his own music, but this disc blows that assertion out of the water. It speaks for itself.

A first-rate, authentic performance with barely a flaw
Everyone loves the sound of a magnificent baritone, and William Warfield, the baritone who married Leontyne Price in 1952, is the one stupendous voice featured here. The absence of soloist variety would hardly be a fault but for this disk's eclectic assortment of "Old American Songs" -- the changing moods of which call for a more diversified operatic line-up. One of the notable divas -- Kathleen Battle, Marilyn Horne, Dawn Upshaw or Frederica Von Stade -- could just as easily have shared the billing, particularly since each has sung so beautifully -- and several championed so fervently -- the songs of our American past.

Despite this arguable drawback, Copland speaks eloquently through the music he himself conducts. A majority of Copland's more popular pieces, those dating from mid-century, are eminent ballet and film scores -- and often of the genre we call "continuous symphony." The closest you will come to detecting what such music ought to be is hearing it under Copland's own direction. Two suites -- from the "Appalachian Spring" and "Rodeo" ballets -- are included in this recording. The unmistakable Copland touch is evident in the finely-tuned dynamics (yielding effectively smooth transitions and crescendos) and a tempo far more steadied, and occasionally extended, than one audits in other recordings-- resulting in greater depth and balance from start to finish; whereas alternate renditions of Copland's works are either too fast or slow to allow the impact of the shifting musical landscape to settle.

Musically speaking, Copland the Conductor unearths the landscape of a previous century with the sublimity and precision of a gifted storyteller.