Search - Aaron Copland, Leonard Slatkin, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra :: Copland: Music for Films

Sara F. from DENVER, CO
Reviewed on 10/19/2009...

hard to argue with well known western flavor of Copland

Yeah Copland and St. Louis!

Gregory M. Zinkl | Chicago, IL | 01/20/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recently rehearsing the Red Pony and Our Town in a mostly undergraduate orchestra, I was struck by how absolutely foreign the music seemed to the players. I made the (rash) assumption that this musical idiom would be so ingrained in American-trained instrumentalist...So tellingly different than my experiences at the age, where I played Copland several times a year. Let's hope my obesrvation is just an anomaly, and that his music lives on. It deserves to!Well, with recordings like this one, Copland's legacy has a good advocate! This Midwestern orchestra just shines in this kind of music--the strings are sweet, but yet balance that sweetness with a clarity that is jaw-dropping. For example, I don't think Ormandy's incredible Philadelphia players would be as idiomatic in this music as St. Louis. Philly's warm tone, so apt in the music of the late Romantics, would just get in the way of Copland's wonderful orchestration.What can I add? Slatkin stays out of Copland's music's way, which is all to the good. Don't mess with perfection! The Red Pony is great fun. Our Town is moving. The Heiress Suite is fine, but not my favorite Copland. Music for Films is music that communicates so well what the different movements are supposed to depict...etc. Great sound, too."

Great recording of definitive American film music

chefdevergue | Spokane, WA United States | 04/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In a way, filmgoers have been listening to Copland's film scores nearly every time they go to the cinema, since film composers have been shamelessly ripping off Copland for the last half-century or so. When you listen to the "Our Town" suite, do you get the nagging feeling that you have heard this music somewhere before? No doubt you have, in dozens of derivitave film scores from the 1980's and 1990's, sometimes (shamelessly) right down to the exact chord progressions.How nice it is then to be able to go back to the source, and have rendered in so superb a fashion as it is by Slatkin & the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Slatkin, as usual, upholds his reputation as one of the leading interpreters of American music.This CD contains the premier recording of "The Heiress Suite," which is a delight to listen to, and of course the fairly well-known "Red Pony" music. Is their a more quintessential piece of "Western" music than the "Walk to the Bunkhouse?" How does a jewish boy from Brooklyn nail it on the head so perfectly, anyway?Other selections include "Music for Movies," a collection of bits & pieces from an assortment of Copland-scored movies that Copland arranged in 1943, and "Music for Radio," an earlier composition that isn't really "movie music," but fits well with the rest of the compositions on this CD.Instead of wasting your time on movie soundtracks that are nothing more than just derivitave hack jobs, listen to music by a composer who had truly mastered his craft."