Aaron Copland - El Salón México; Clarinet Concerto; etc. (Leonard Bernstein)

Information

Composer: Aaron Copland

• El Salón México
• Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra with Harp and Piano
• Music for the Theatre
• Connotations for Orchestra

Stanley Drucker, clarinet

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Date: 1989

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

This is a real scoop for Copland enthusiasts. These recordings reveal Bernstein and the NYPO on top form in the kind of music they find absolutely natural. The least familiar piece, Connotations, may be the place to start since Bernstein brings it off splendidly. It was commissioned for the opening of the Lincoln Center in 1962 and Copland may have been disappointed that the piece failed to win friends. The old LP on CBS (nla), also with Bernstein and the NYPO, was also a live performance, powerful but dragging a bit in the middle as audience restiveness showed, but this new recording makes an extremely eloquent plea for Copland's most extended serial work on orchestral scale. The language is unrelievedly dissonant, harking back to the 1920s in New York. There is even a near quotation from Copland's Piano Variations (1'02'') and a solo piano enters with glacial chords like ice-blocks (3'22) followed by rapt strings and some gentle groans from Bernstein. All in a good cause—and so, presumably, is his decision to take the law into his own hands by making a cut from bar 325 to 352. This does help the flow as Connotations crunches its way to a conclusion. Was Copland consulted about this cut, I wonder?

The rest of this generous 74-minute disc is just as rewarding and all in Copland's popular manner. Music for the Theatre (1925) brilliantly sets the style for much of later Copland—and gave Bernstein some ideas too. After the fanfare, the ''Prologue'' states a version of Three blind Mice (0'46''), a Copland fingerprint and a recurring feature of this work. The rhythmic zip of the second movement—West Side Story before its time—is infectious and the fourth movement, ''Burlesque'', takes the marking grotesco seriously when the trumpet soloists (1'14'') play deliberately below the note. The style is absolutely right and so is El salon Mexico which Bernstein knew from making the piano arrangement shortly after it was composed.

Both these performances are as good as any available and well recorded too. The Clarinet Concerto is another bonus in Stanley Drucker's interpretation. Perhaps Bernstein overdoes the Mahler aspects of the first movement but not seriously. Drucker is slightly freer than Shifrin, on EMI (5/89—nla) and even the original Benny Goodman under Copland (Sony Classical (CD) CD42227, 4/87). Drucker throws in a few bends (for example at 3'23''); the balance at 6'14'' nearly loses the soloist; but the drive towards the end is really exciting. In view of the riches of the CD as a whole, this is probably the performance of the Clarinet Concerto to have, along with excellent performances of the three other works.

— Peter Dickinson

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Aaron Copland (14 November 1900 – 2 December 1990) was an American composer. Born in New York City, he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger before returning to the United States, where he absorbed influences ranging from jazz and neoclassicism to folk traditions. Seeking a broader audience, Copland simplified his musical language in the 1930s and achieved international fame with works such as Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring. He also composed film scores, orchestral and choral works, and later experimented with serialism. Beyond composing, Copland was an influential teacher, writer and conductor.

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Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim. His fame derived from his tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, his concerts with most of the world's leading orchestras, and his composition. As a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and piano pieces. He also gave numerous television lectures on classical music.

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