wimpel69
01-09-2017, 01:23 PM
A quartet of albums with film music by distinguished American composer Aaron Copland. Copland didn't write very
many film scores, so inevitably there are duplications (three versions of his most popular score, The Red Pony).
These are all my rips. Please inquire the FLAC links in this thread. PM's will be ignored. Artwork and booklet are only
included for the Telarc/Sheffer album.
Unlike many ivory tower concert composers of 20th century America, Aaron Copland wanted to be a film
composer. Badly. He wanted his brand of popular Americana to reach as many listeners as possible, and he saw films
as a practical outlet, Unfortunately, many Hollywood producers perceived music that came from outside of Hollywood
as per se ivy league, or "Carnegie Hall". As a consequence, Copland was asked very rarely to score a mainstream
motion picture - much to his dismay. The Red Pony is probably his most recognized score, and a fine one it is. Also,
music from Our Town and Of Mice and Men found its way into his Music for Movies suite, of which there are many
recordings. The titles on this Telarc album,, however, are far less known, so the CD consists almost exclusively of
premiere recordings. From Sorcery to Science Copland wrote for a puppet show feature of the World's Fair,
and so the music is very broad, very colorful, and very entertaining. The City was a much-praised documentary
feature at the time and contains a substantial amount of fine music. The Cummington-Story, OTOH, is a best
forgotten WWII movie that nevertheless harbors much attractive music, forged into a 10 minute suite here by
conductor Jonathan Sheffer (himself a versatile film composer, and much in demand as a conductor for his
colleagues). The North Star was a lavish, pro-Russian propaganda feature; not surprisingly, its makers
ran into difficulties in the Cold-War era.
Having won Academy Award nominations for each of his first three Hollywood film scores -- Of Mice and Men (1939),
Our Town (1940), and The North Star (1943) -- Copland was much in demand for further film music. When he finally
decided to return to films after completing his Symphony No. 3 in 1947, it was once again in collaboration with producer-
director Lewis Milestone, with whom Copland had worked on the first and third of the films mentioned above. Milestone,
whom Copland called "a classy and intelligent director," had decided to make his first color film an adaptation of
John Steinbeck's novella The Red Pony. Once he had read, and liked, the Steinbeck book, Copland decided to join
the project, agreeing to write and record approximately an hour of music -- one of his largest musical efforts -- in ten
weeks for a significant (for the time, at least) fee of $15,000. The film and score were completed in 1948, with the film
released the following year. Steinbeck's novella tells the story of Jody Tiflin (renamed Tom in the film), a young boy who
lives on a ranch near Salinas, CA, with his parents and the cowhand Billy Buck. The novella and film deal with the death
of Tom's beloved pony Gabilan and the subsequent birth of Gabilan's foal, along with the relationships between the
various characters and scenes of everyday life on the ranch. Steinbeck himself wrote the film's screenplay, slightly
condensing and rearranging the action of his book.
Music Composed by
Aaron Copland
Played by the
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
EOS Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
Orchestra of St. Luke`s
Cleveland Pops Orchestra
with
Adlai Stevenson (narrator)
William Blount (clarinet)
Conducted by
Leonard Slatkin
Andr� Previn
Eugene Ormandy
Jonathan Sheffer
Louis Lane
Dennis Russell Davies
"Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical
expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next
half century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. Copland's sheer popularity and
iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both
accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuates the familiar
words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers.
Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned
a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun
writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and
piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible.
In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory.
He went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Vi�es and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all
the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky,
Milhaud, Faur�, and Mahler, but others such as author Andr� Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924
Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that
led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965.
After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety
of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains
one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and
newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote
American music. By the mid-1930s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of
his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy
Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing
directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this
period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public. While Copland gradually became less prolific
from the mid-1950s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including
a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra.
Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an
often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and
write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around
the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s,
Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was
the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in
understanding the growth of American music in the twentieth century."
Sources:RCA Red Seal, Sony Music, Telarc & ASV/Music Masters CDs (my rips)
Format: FLAC(RAR), DDD Stereo
File Sizes: 276 MB + 409 MB + 250 MB + 320 MB
A quartet of albums with film music by distinguished American composer Aaron Copland. Copland didn't write very
many film scores, so inevitably there are duplications (three versions of his most popular score, The Red Pony).
These are all my rips. Please inquire the FLAC links in this thread. PM's will be ignored. Artwork and booklet are only
included for the Telarc/Sheffer album.
TWO IMPORTANT THINGS:
1. Before(!) you ask for the links, make sure your inbox isn't full. I may remind you once, but after that, you won't get anything anymore.
2. If you don't get the link after a few hours, complaining will get you nothing (nor ever after)
many film scores, so inevitably there are duplications (three versions of his most popular score, The Red Pony).
These are all my rips. Please inquire the FLAC links in this thread. PM's will be ignored. Artwork and booklet are only
included for the Telarc/Sheffer album.
Unlike many ivory tower concert composers of 20th century America, Aaron Copland wanted to be a film
composer. Badly. He wanted his brand of popular Americana to reach as many listeners as possible, and he saw films
as a practical outlet, Unfortunately, many Hollywood producers perceived music that came from outside of Hollywood
as per se ivy league, or "Carnegie Hall". As a consequence, Copland was asked very rarely to score a mainstream
motion picture - much to his dismay. The Red Pony is probably his most recognized score, and a fine one it is. Also,
music from Our Town and Of Mice and Men found its way into his Music for Movies suite, of which there are many
recordings. The titles on this Telarc album,, however, are far less known, so the CD consists almost exclusively of
premiere recordings. From Sorcery to Science Copland wrote for a puppet show feature of the World's Fair,
and so the music is very broad, very colorful, and very entertaining. The City was a much-praised documentary
feature at the time and contains a substantial amount of fine music. The Cummington-Story, OTOH, is a best
forgotten WWII movie that nevertheless harbors much attractive music, forged into a 10 minute suite here by
conductor Jonathan Sheffer (himself a versatile film composer, and much in demand as a conductor for his
colleagues). The North Star was a lavish, pro-Russian propaganda feature; not surprisingly, its makers
ran into difficulties in the Cold-War era.
Having won Academy Award nominations for each of his first three Hollywood film scores -- Of Mice and Men (1939),
Our Town (1940), and The North Star (1943) -- Copland was much in demand for further film music. When he finally
decided to return to films after completing his Symphony No. 3 in 1947, it was once again in collaboration with producer-
director Lewis Milestone, with whom Copland had worked on the first and third of the films mentioned above. Milestone,
whom Copland called "a classy and intelligent director," had decided to make his first color film an adaptation of
John Steinbeck's novella The Red Pony. Once he had read, and liked, the Steinbeck book, Copland decided to join
the project, agreeing to write and record approximately an hour of music -- one of his largest musical efforts -- in ten
weeks for a significant (for the time, at least) fee of $15,000. The film and score were completed in 1948, with the film
released the following year. Steinbeck's novella tells the story of Jody Tiflin (renamed Tom in the film), a young boy who
lives on a ranch near Salinas, CA, with his parents and the cowhand Billy Buck. The novella and film deal with the death
of Tom's beloved pony Gabilan and the subsequent birth of Gabilan's foal, along with the relationships between the
various characters and scenes of everyday life on the ranch. Steinbeck himself wrote the film's screenplay, slightly
condensing and rearranging the action of his book.
Music Composed by
Aaron Copland
Played by the
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
EOS Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
Orchestra of St. Luke`s
Cleveland Pops Orchestra
with
Adlai Stevenson (narrator)
William Blount (clarinet)
Conducted by
Leonard Slatkin
Andr� Previn
Eugene Ormandy
Jonathan Sheffer
Louis Lane
Dennis Russell Davies
"Few figures in American music loom as large as Aaron Copland. As one of the first wave of literary and musical
expatriates in Paris during the 1920s, Copland returned to the United States with the means to assume, for the next
half century, a central role in American music as composer, promoter, and educator. Copland's sheer popularity and
iconic status are such that his music has transcended the concert hall and entered the popular consciousness; it both
accompanies solemn and joyous celebrations the world over (Fanfare for the Common Man) and punctuates the familiar
words "Beef: It's What's for Dinner!" (Rodeo) for millions of television viewers.
Copland was the youngest of five children born to Harris and Sarah Copland, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who owned
a department store in Brooklyn. He did not take formal piano lessons until he was 13, by which time he had also begun
writing small pieces. Instead of attending college, Copland studied theory and composition with Rubin Goldmark and
piano with Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler, and attended as many concerts, operas, and ballets as possible.
In 1921, he went to Fontainebleau, France, taking conducting and composition classes at the American Conservatory.
He went on to study in Paris with Ricardo Vi�es and Nadia Boulanger and spent the next three years soaking up all
the European culture, both new and old, that he could. He learned to admire not only composers like Stravinsky,
Milhaud, Faur�, and Mahler, but others such as author Andr� Gide. Boulanger's performance of Copland's 1924
Organ Symphony with Koussevitzky was the beginning of a friendship between the conductor and composer that
led to Copland teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) from 1940 until 1965.
After his return to America, Copland drifted toward an incisive, austere style that captured something of the sobriety
of Depression-torn America. The most representative work of this period -- the Piano Variations (1930) -- remains
one of the composer's seminal efforts. He tried to avoid taking a university position, instead writing for journals and
newspapers, organizing concerts, and taking on administrative duties for composers' organizations, trying to promote
American music. By the mid-1930s, taking the direct engagement of and communication with audiences as one of
his central tenets, Copland's compositions developed (in parallel with other composers like Virgil Thomson and Roy
Harris) an "American" style marked by folk influences, a new melodic and harmonic simplicity, and an appealing
directness free from intellectual pretension. This is nowhere more in evidence than in Copland's ballets of this
period, and it finally earned him the respect of the general public. While Copland gradually became less prolific
from the mid-1950s on, he continued to experiment and explore "fresh" means of musical expression, including
a highly individual adoption of 12-tone principles in works like the Piano Fantasy and Connotations for orchestra.
Still, the fundamentally lyrical nature of Copland's language remained intact and occasionally emerged -- with an
often surprising retrospective air -- in works like the Duo for flute and piano (1971). He continued to teach and
write and received numerous awards both in America and abroad. In 1958, he began conducting orchestras around
the world, performing works by 80 other composers as well as his own over the next 20 years. By the mid-'70s,
Copland had for all intents and purposes ceased composing. One of the last of his creative accomplishments was
the completion of his two-volume autobiography (with musicologist Vivian Perlis), an essential document in
understanding the growth of American music in the twentieth century."
Sources:RCA Red Seal, Sony Music, Telarc & ASV/Music Masters CDs (my rips)
Format: FLAC(RAR), DDD Stereo
File Sizes: 276 MB + 409 MB + 250 MB + 320 MB
A quartet of albums with film music by distinguished American composer Aaron Copland. Copland didn't write very
many film scores, so inevitably there are duplications (three versions of his most popular score, The Red Pony).
These are all my rips. Please inquire the FLAC links in this thread. PM's will be ignored. Artwork and booklet are only
included for the Telarc/Sheffer album.
TWO IMPORTANT THINGS:
1. Before(!) you ask for the links, make sure your inbox isn't full. I may remind you once, but after that, you won't get anything anymore.
2. If you don't get the link after a few hours, complaining will get you nothing (nor ever after)