Connotations for Orchestra

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There has never been a better interpreter of Copland's music than Leonard Bernstein. Lenny's affection for--and understanding of--Copland and his music was matched by a unique physical ability to get the feeling of the music across as a conductor; in essence, he became the music when he conducted it, something Copland himself wasn't capable of. As a consequence, Bernstein's accounts of Copland's music speak with a convincing accent and special authority. That's certainly the case with these performances, which date from the last year of Bernstein's life and find him reunited with his old band, the New York Philharmonic. The bookends are the Music for the Theatre, from 1925, and Connotations for Orchestra, commissioned by Bernstein and the Philharmonic for the opening of their new home at Lincoln Center in 1962. Both are impressively done, as is El Salón México, one of the most rousing and colorful of Copland's orchestral essays. A different Copland emerges in the Clarinet Concerto, which was composed for Benny Goodman in 1947 and fashioned with a lapidary touch. The Philharmonic's principal clarinet, Stanley Drucker, steps easily into the solo role, playing with great sensitivity in the pensive opening movement--which, with Lenny on the podium, sounds very slow and full of tenderness, though perhaps a bit too poignant--and showing plenty of agility in the concerto's finale, where Latin and jazz elements come into play along with the high notes that were one of Goodman's specialties. --Ted Libbey

Copland: El Salon Mexico/Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra/Music for the Theatre/Connotations for Orchestra, Music, Stanley Drucker, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic, 20th/21st Century Orchestral Work with Descriptive Title, Clarinet Concerto, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral, Suite for Orchestra

Copland: El Salon Mexico/Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra/Music for the Theatre/Connotations for Orchestra
Average customer rating:

A treasurable concert, and a farewell to two American giants

THE BEST OF STANLEY DRUCKER AND AARON COPLAND

Biggest and best conglomeration of American musical talent.

Copland: El Salon Mexico/Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra/Music for the Theatre/Connotations for Orchestra

Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

All Works by Copland | Copland, Aaron | ( C ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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Copland: Our Town; The Red Pony Suite; El Salón México; Danzón Cubano; Three Latin American Sketches

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ASIN: B000001GES
Release Date: 1991-09-12

Tracks:

El Salon Mexico
Concerto For Clarinet And String Orchestra, With Harp And Piano: Slowly & Expressively
Concerto For Clarinet And String Orchestra, With Harp And Piano: Rather fast
Music For The Theatre: I. Prologue
Music For The Theatre: II. Dance
Music For The Theatre: III. Interlude
Music For The Theatre: IV. Burlesque
Music For The Theatre: V. Epilogue
Connotations For Orchestra

Amazon.com

There has never been a better interpreter of Copland's music than Leonard Bernstein. Lenny's affection for--and understanding of--Copland and his music was matched by a unique physical ability to get the feeling of the music across as a conductor; in essence, he became the music when he conducted it, something Copland himself wasn't capable of. As a consequence, Bernstein's accounts of Copland's music speak with a convincing accent and special authority. That's certainly the case with these performances, which date from the last year of Bernstein's life and find him reunited with his old band, the New York Philharmonic. The bookends are the Music for the Theatre, from 1925, and Connotations for Orchestra, commissioned by Bernstein and the Philharmonic for the opening of their new home at Lincoln Center in 1962. Both are impressively done, as is El Salón México, one of the most rousing and colorful of Copland's orchestral essays. A different Copland emerges in the Clarinet Concerto, which was composed for Benny Goodman in 1947 and fashioned with a lapidary touch. The Philharmonic's principal clarinet, Stanley Drucker, steps easily into the solo role, playing with great sensitivity in the pensive opening movement--which, with Lenny on the podium, sounds very slow and full of tenderness, though perhaps a bit too poignant--and showing plenty of agility in the concerto's finale, where Latin and jazz elements come into play along with the high notes that were one of Goodman's specialties. --Ted Libbey

Customer Reviews:

A treasurable concert, and a farewell to two American giants.......2006-07-06

Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein died within two months of each other in 1990 after a lifelong friendship that was also a mentor and disciple relationship. This CD captures an Oct. 1989 concert that was the last time Bernstein conducted a subscription concert with his own NY PPhil. They play magnificently and at times very sensitively.

One can't help tearing up if like me you grew up on Bernstein's version of El Salon Mexico, which he recorded no less than four times. Here the music has great impact from DG's excellent digital sonics. Afflicted with emphysema--as Copland was severely afflicted with Alzhemier's from the mid-Seventies onward--Bernstein struggled bravely to keep up his old panache, but there's an air of melancholy just beneath the surface. The nostalgic slow sections seem as much a nostalgia for lost life as for old Mexico.

Everything on this disc can be heard on various Sony CDs from Bernstein's tenure with the orchestra, which are livelier. As early as the mid-Fifties the teenage Stanley Drucker sat as first-chair clarinetist with the Philharmonic (where he remains today). His version of the Clarinet Concerto is sadder than Richard Stoltzman's dreamy, suave account on RCA, but richer for that.

The next work represent Copland's very early, jazzy modernism in Music for the Theater, where the 25-year-old composer manages to evoke the chic of Paris and the homeliness of the Great Plains in the same work. This reading sounds much better, if slightly less jazzy, than Bernstein's 1958 recording on Sony. The program ends with a piece that Bernstein commissioned for the opening of Philharmonic Hall in 1962, the 12-tone Connotations for Orchestra, probably the last importance public utterance from Copland. Audiences never warmed to his difficult modernist side, but if you can get past the atonality, the underlying gestures in Connotations are remarkably similar to his populist works.

I find it hard to listen to this CD without a catch in my throat, but any listener would find it superb sheerly on musical grounds.

THE BEST OF STANLEY DRUCKER AND AARON COPLAND.......2003-04-08

If you are a Copland fan then this CD is for you...couldn't find a better clarinet soloist as Stanley Drucker, our world's top Clarinetist. He can make you laugh, cry, and tap along while he amazes you with his musical abilities. This is THE Clarinet Concerto of the 20th Century! With Berstein at the head of the orchestra, Drucker is in his element of music when paired with Copland.

Biggest and best conglomeration of American musical talent........1999-08-27

This recording is taken from the final concerts Leonard Bernstein gave with the New York Philharmonic in October 1989, so it is a very historical bit of musical documentation as well as a fine reading of great American music. Bernstein and Copland had a long history together, and some of LB's greatest performances were of Copland works (Appalachian Spring, Piano Concerto, et al.). This disc is no exception; it's a very lovely recounting of some of the most important music of the 20th Century. "El Salon Mexico" is given a vibrant reading to start out, one that I might suggest as being almost definitive. The first part of the Clarinet Concerto is slower than some interpretations, but beautiful all the same. The second movement is where Stanley Drucker, Lenny and friends pull out all the stops for the raucous ending. The "Music for Theater" is conversely snappy and restful, a better reading (I'd say) than the mid-60s one done by the same orchestra and conductor. Finally "Connotations", one of Copland's last great works, is given a neat run-through by the ensemble it was written for. From its opening rim-shots to the final, ear-splitting chords, "Connotations" is quite an accomplishment for a composer whose name is most often associated with softer, more "open" tonality. This is a great CD (in the truest sense of the word), and a glorious way for America's greatest conductor to end his career with one of America's greatest orchestras.

The Americans: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon

Average customer rating:

Very Good To Memorable Recordings of Bernstein's American Composer Recordings

The Americans: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon

Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0001WGDXU
Release Date: 2004-05-11

Customer Reviews:

Very Good To Memorable Recordings of Bernstein's American Composer Recordings.......2007-07-01

This is yet another superb box set of Bernstein's Deutsche Grammophon recordings, emphasizing his strong affinity and interest in the work of such great American composers like Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and William Schuman. The best recordings are those with The New York Philharmonic of Charles Ives's orchestral works and Aaron Copland's Third Symphony, "Quiet City" suite for horn and strings, and the El Salon de Mexico ballet suite. But I also admire Bernstein's recordings with the Los Angeles Philharmonic of Gershwin's great classical/jazz orchestral works like "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris", and the recordings of several other Copland scores, most notably, "Appalachian Spring". Like virtually all of the other recordings in Deutsche Grammophon's "Collector's Edition" series of Leonard Bernstein, these were recorded by Deutsche Grammophon in the 1980s, often during live concert performances held in Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, and New York City (Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall). While some may prefer Bernstein's classic recordings of Copland and Ives for CBS Masterworks (now Sony) in the late 1950s and 1960s, these have the benefit of being digital recordings made by Deutsche Grammophon's then state-0f-the-art recording processes. Without question, anyone who is a fan of Copland's, Gershwin's or Ives' scores and of Leonard Bernstein will surely cherish this fine 6 CD box set.

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