I
was full of admiration for Benjamin Pasternack’s previous
CD of Copland’s solo piano music; indeed, it became one
of my discs of the year and has been played often since
(see
review).
So this new release already created some anticipation,
as I have always had a soft spot for the rarely heard Piano
Concerto as well as looking forward to the other works
here.
In
fact, the planning on this new Naxos release is very intelligent
indeed. I don’t recall having heard the suite from Copland’s
little-known opera
The Tender Land before,
but suffice to say it is full of what might be termed the
best of his popular style. As befits the subject matter – the
vicissitudes of a simple farming family in the Depression-hit
South of the 1930s – the music is redolent of
Appalachian
Spring, the film music to
Of Mice and Men and
other ‘wide-open’ scores of the 1940s and 1950s. The Suite
he extracted from the opera, which was not a success after
its New York premiere in 1954, is in three movements. The
Introduction is replete with those open fourths and fifths
in the brass, the
Love Music that follows it enjoying
the simplest and most affecting of melodic lines. The lively
rhythms of the
Party Scene which follows could be
out of
Billy the Kid, whilst the ringing affirmation
of the Finale:
The Promise of Living, are about
as American as Copland ever got. It is well worth making
an acquaintance with and note writer Joseph Horowitz admits
to preferring it to the flawed opera.
The
Piano
Concerto is firmly rooted in the 1920s, though once
again the glorious introductory bars, where horns, trumpets
and trombones exchange bold fanfares, points to his later
style. It’s usually referred to as his jazziest work,
and there are lots of elements to back this up, particularly
the second movement, where Copland clearly has Gershwin
in his sights, though with very different results. But
the opening movement, for all its ‘blue note’ leaning,
has more in common with the angular dissonance of the
Piano Variations, written just a few short years later.
The Concerto is a marvellous work, full of New York swagger
but tightly constructed – rather like the more popular
Clarinet Concerto – and it’s a real mystery why it doesn’t
crop up on more concert programmes. There have been some
good recordings over the years, including the benchmark
version from the composer himself with Bernstein at the
helm, though it does sound rather aggressively bright
by modern standards. I’ve tended to stick by an excellent
RCA recording from Garrick Ohlsson and the San Francisco
Symphony under Tilson-Thomas, part of an excellent Copland
survey he undertook in the early 1990s (Copland – The
Modernist, c/w
Orchestral Variations,
Symphonic
Ode and
Short Symphony). I have to say this
newcomer runs it close, with orchestral playing every
bit as solid and assured. The string tone of the Elgin
Symphony Orchestra, another new name to me, is superb
and the brass and wind sections are easily as sonorous
and colourful as their more famous counterparts. Pasternack
shows once again that he is completely inside Copland’s
style, and the very tricky passages of the second movement
are just as effective as Ohlsson’s more overtly virtuosic
reading.
The
disc rounds off its rarity value in style with arrangements
of Copland’s popular
Old American Songs, originally
for voice and piano but here transcribed to include chorus
and orchestra by Irving Fine, R. Wilding-White and Glenn
Koponen. It works very well, with the St Charles Singers
relishing the allusions to folk ballads, minstrel tunes,
hymns and children’s tunes. The lyrics – included in the
booklet - may be pure cornball in places (‘My pig says ‘griffey,
griffey…’) but they’re great fun and the chorus approach
them in this spirit.
The
recorded sound is warm and generous, coping with the thicker
textures well, and good liner-notes complete a very desirable
Copland selection.
Tony Haywood
see also review by Dan Morgan (July Bargain of the Month)
Reviews
of recordings of other Copland works on Naxos
Benjamin
Pasternack (piano) 
