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The latter piece is also the unfortunate victim of over-exposure, as the "Hoe Down" bit has been used ad nauseum in those "Beef: It's What's For Dinner" commercials. Not Copland's fault, I know. But the damage is done.
So I was thrilled to find this recording, a double-album of some of the American composer's greatest hits, at a thrift shop. Besides the great cowboy cover art, the record contains, as you'd expect, "Appalachian Spring." It also serves as a good introduction to the man's most well-known works, along with some pieces I hadn't heard of: "El Salon Mexico" and the dance from "Music for the Theatre." Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic on this album.
Only four songs from "Rodeo" appear on the record: "Buckaroo Holiday," "Coral Nocturne," "Saturday Night Waltz" and the aforementioned beef jingle. But the selections demonstrate that Copland was a believer in bringing the full firepower of a symphony orchestra into his works. You've heard the term "minimalist composer?" I got the impression from this record that Copland was a maximalist.
Soothing and mellow this ain't, that's for sure. Other composers, especially the Romantics like Beethoven, Brahms, etc., can be heard either with full attention or just as background music. "The Copland Album," through its sheer brashness (or is that brassness?) demands the listener's ear.
Jazz isn't for everyone, of course. The records' liner notes say that one critic, disgusted with the jazz elements in this 1925 piece, said Copland's "music betrays as a whole a great anxiety to be modernistic while the modernist lamp holds out to burn."
To be fair to Copland, that critic probably thought rock 'n' roll was just a fad. So screw him.
The best surprise on the album is "El Salon Mexico," a suite that I hadn't heard before. The strings sound lush without sounding too sentimental, and Copland uses a subtle touch as he incorporates what sound like mariachi rhythms into the piece.
"The Copland Album" came out in 1970 on the Columbia Masterworks label. Phillip Ramey, an American composer who was 39 years younger than Copland, wrote an essay about meeting the legendary man the previous year. Copland turned 70 in 1970 and died in 1990. Ramey, who just turned 70 last year, is an author as well as a musician. I don't know if this essay has appeared anywhere else in print. If you're a diehard Copland fan (or Ramey fan, for that matter), it's worth picking up the album just for the essay.
You can find the LP at Amazon, for prices ranging from $3.20 to $67.69. A CD called "The Ultimate Copland" has many of the same songs on it, but not performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. That may not make a difference to you.
Fun fact: Weezer used the same Shaker hymn that Copland incorporates into "Appalachian Spring" as the basis for their song "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" on their 2008 self-titled album.
What do you think of Aaron Copland? What do you think of Weezer? Leave a comment.
