COMPOSERS: Copland
LABELS: RCA Victor Red Seal
WORKS: Organ Symphony; Dance Symphony; Short Symphony; Orchestral Variations
PERFORMER: St Louis SO/Leonard Slatkin
CATALOGUE NO: 09026 68292 2 DDD
This is an unfamiliar, darker Copland. The Dance Symphony is about a vampire magician who raises the dead; it’s music of a fevered imagination. The Organ Symphony inhabits a twilight world too; it is heavily jazz-orientated and the brash, cocky scherzo echoes Stravinsky’s Petrushka. The more folksy Short Symphony is notable for the languid/ jagged beauty of its central movement. Slatkin carries off this demanding and often risky music with deftness and aplomb. Ian Lace
Copland: Organ Symphony; Dance Symphony; Short Symphony; Orchestral Variations
This is an unfamiliar, darker Copland. The Dance Symphony is about a vampire magician who raises the dead; it’s music of a fevered imagination. The Organ Symphony inhabits a twilight world too; it is heavily jazz-orientated and the brash, cocky scherzo echoes Stravinsky’s Petrushka. The more folksy Short Symphony is notable for the languid/ jagged beauty of its central movement. Slatkin carries off this demanding and often risky music with deftness and aplomb. Ian Lace
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:08 pm