Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. 1. Buckaroo Holiday
2. 2. Corral Nocturne
3. 3. Saturday Night Waltz
4. 4. Hoe-Down
5. Introduction: The Open Prairie
6. Street in a Frontier Town
7. Card Game at Night (Prairie Night)
8. Gun Battle
9. Celebration Dance (after Billy's Capture)
10. Billy's Death
11. The Open Prairie Again

Disc 2:

1. Very Slowly
2. Allegro
3. Moderato
4. Fast
5. Subito Allegro
6. Meno Mosso
7. Doppio movimento
8. Rather slow
9. Very deliberate
10. Poco più mosso
11. A trifle slower
12. Milto Allegroed agitato
13. Broadly
14. Moderato (like a prayer)
15. Slow and solemn
16. Ritmico ed un poco marcato
17. Tempo as at first
18. Copland Rehearses Appalachian Spring

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72413 in Music
• Released on: 2000-11-07
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered

Customer Reviews

The composer as conductor is unusurpassed
This is a reissue of recordings conducted by Copland himself that are totally definitive and, to my mind, superior to the recordings by Bernstein that are generally considered to be the best. The composer has a broader, grander vision of these works, taking them at a slower and more majestic pace than Bernstein and others. In his hands this is great classical music, not just upscale cowboy music. The sound quality is phenomenal for the most part as well, the engineers must have performed miracles because the recordings with the LSO sound better than almost any modern digital recording. Highly recommended.

A great treat!
Here we have not only the original, complete chamber arrangement of Appalachian Spring in a pretty fine performance by Copland, but we get a neat 17 minutes of Copland rehearsing it, which is pretty cool for the Copland fan. Plus Nonet for Strings, well performed, which is a rare thing these days. The other disk is pretty average - Copland wasn't much of a conductor, but the chamber Appalachian and Nonet make up for it. Cheap and unique. A must have for the Copland fan.

A Unique Opportunity to hear it from Coplands mind
Aaron Copland can be and should be considered the father of American concert music. He decisively created a style of music that needed to be made as we were reaching maturity as a country. This collection of his orchestral works gives a great outline of the music that makes Copland such a innovative composer.
I personally find that the most interesting part of this collection is the inclusion of rehearsal audio from the same recording of Appalachian Spring that appears on the CD. This offers a unique opportunity to hear what Copland's vision of his music was. I am one who personally believes that no performance of a concert orchestral piece can be heard as it was meant to be unless the composer is leading the ensemble. By hearing Copland conducting a rehearsal of one of his masterworks, the listener is given a greater appreciation for exactly what Copland's vision was for his own music.

A definite must have for lovers of the young tradition of American Music.