Search - Aaron Copland, James Sedares, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra :: Copland: Suite from The Tender Land; 3 Latin-American Sketches; Suite from The Red Pony

Copland Rarities From Phoenix

Erik North | San Gabriel, CA USA | 09/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Aaron Copland was the composer who best personified the American style of classical music, having composed works that reflected all aspects of America: its big cities ("Music For A Great City"); its small towns ("Our Town") and its wide open spaces ("Rodeo"; "Billy The Kid"). But there is even more to this greatest of composers that our nation has ever produced, as personified on this 1991 recording by the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and its music director James Sedares.



The recording contains a three-part orchestral suite from the composer's surprisingly unsuccessful 1954 opera "The Tender Land"; a suite from his score for the 1948 film version of John Steinbeck's novel "The Red Pony"; and a true rarity among rarities, the "Three Latin American Sketches" (Estribillo; Paisaje Mexicano; Danza De Jalisco), which were premiered in 1972. This suite, sandwiched between "The Tender Land" and "The Red Pony", makes for a thoroughly interesting comparison with Copland's two earlier Latin-oriented sojourns, "El Salon Mexico" and "Danzon Cubano."



Under Sedares' crisp direction, the Phoenix Symphony shows itself to be very much at home in this great American composer's works. They are almost certainly one of the great regional orchestras in the U.S., capable of standing tall with their bigger bretheren in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York. This is a wonderful recording for anyone with a taste for Americana and the occasional Latin spicing."