Copland: Appalachian Spring

Following the huge success of the previous release of outstanding ballet product, including the magnificent 50 CD box set A FESTIVAL OF BALLET, the ten BALLET EDITION albums and I LOVE BALLET, EMI Classics presents a further eight albums of ballet music.

These 2CD mid-price sets, drawn from the catalogues of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics, present a selection of the best-loved and most popular ballet music by the great composers, performed by the world’s leading artists.

Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein were two outstanding American composers who both contributed hugely to the musical scene in the USA. Both wrote ballets that broke new ground: Copland on themes that echoed the vast and lonely expanses of the American prairies, and Bernstein on the hectic life in New York in the middle of the 20th century. This album presents complete performances of Copland’s Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring and Bernstein’s Fancy Free and Facsimile, as well as extracts from other works including Bernstein’s powerful Symphonic Dances from his smash hit musical West Side Story.

Sarah Williamson was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition in 2002 and gave a highly individual performance of the Copland Clarinet Concerto. She recently made her Cadogan Hall debut performing the same work and received fantastic reviews. ‘A superb player’ Michael Church.

The music of Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is almost every music-lover's introduction to what might be called American 'classical' music. Either through the picture postcard that is El Salón Mexico or the fresh-faced innocence of the ballet Appalachian Spring, Copland is able to capture in sound the wide open spaces, the melodic freshness and rhythmic vitality that, to most European ears, has come to epitomise American music.