Copland

[Stanfordian]

Is there a Sting to this tale?

I think he/she wants you to put on a dunces hat and stand facing the corner whilst chanting out how very grateful you are to have had your typo highlighted and subsequently corrected.

Sting! I know where I'd like to stick that mandolin!

[richardfinegold]

It all depends on how much you like Copland's music. I enjoyed the Stravinsky/Milhaud influences in the early Organ Symphony we heard yesterday, albeit applied with sledghammer. After that period it's all right, I suppose, if you go for certain harmonic devices that quickly become clichés, though I always think that this composer was rather full of himself - attaching himself to the avant garde at a time when there were composers living in America who were far more genuinely avant-garde than he, including Varèse, Ruggles, Riegger and of course the refugees from Nazi Germany. It says something about the state of then-considered "new" American music of the 1930s that it allegedly had the Young Elliot Carter slavering over the Piano Variations we heard today - a work any one of us could have composed using that tempting but creative trap the diminished scale ad nauseam and mostly in one position. We seldom tut-tut the C-words "socialist realism" in connection with Copland's most broadcast bleeding chunks, thinking of him as an antipode to Asavievism and the kind hearted supporter of others younger and often more radical than himself - which, to be fair, he was, boulstering his kudos before the Establishment - and as the most American of American composers, when others including Ives, Gershwin, Cowell, Harris, Cage or Zappa were arguably more qualified. I would put Copland on a par with Britten.

I had thought that we had moved beyond bashing 20 th Century Composers that deliberately tried to make their music accessible, but some attitudes die hard

[ardcarp]

Just got round to editing the thread title.

[Bryn]

Just got round to editing the thread title.

You did? Are you sure?

[Andrew Slater]

You did? Are you sure?

I just sneaked in and did it

[Bryn]

I just sneaked in and did it

[cloughie]

Is there a Sting to this tale?

...and that strangulated voice really stopped me from liking Police.

[Bryn]

I just sneaked in and did it

The "e" you dropped seems to have generated a flash-back.

[Andrew Slater]

The "e" you dropped seems to have generated a flash-back.

One more try .....

[Nick Armstrong]

Just got round to editing the thread title.

Actually I did, this morning. I flit around silently and occasionally save people from thread title bloopers. All part of the service

[teamsaint]

Actually I did, this morning. I flit around silently and occasionally save people from thread title bloopers. All part of the service

Just helping folk to cop eh?
Anyway, we can all sleep more easily tonight, I think.........

[Bryn]

Actually I did, this morning. I flit around silently and occasionally save people from thread title bloopers. All part of the service

Let's hope it holds this time. It has switched back to "Copeland" twice in recent hours.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Actually I did, this morning. I flit around silently and occasionally save people from thread title bloopers. All part of the service

Many thanks, Cali. I should point out that my #11 was in no way meant to be mocking the added "e", just as a light-hearted way of moving the discussion on from the Police-based joshing to a discussion of the actual Music of this week's composer.

FWiW, I've always preferred Copland's "popular" pieces much more than the "serious Art" works, which I find rather pompous and "over-acted". I think he was a marvellously lyrical composer, too - my favourite of his works are the Clarinet Concerto and Quiet City. I hope this week's programmes are seen as part of the Beeb's act of penitence to the composer for the corporation's doing its very best to make its listeners heartily sick of hearing the Hoe Down!

[Nick Armstrong]

Let's hope it holds this time. It has switched back to "Copeland" twice in recent hours.

[cloughie]

Many thanks, Cali. I should point out that my #11 was in no way meant to be mocking the added "e", just as a light-hearted way of moving the discussion on from the Police-based joshing to a discussion of the actual Music of this week's composer.

FWiW, I've always preferred Copland's "popular" pieces much more than the "serious Art" works, which I find rather pompous and "over-acted". I think he was a marvellously lyrical composer, too - my favourite of his works are the Clarinet Concerto and Quiet City. I hope this week's programmes are seen as part of the Beeb's act of penitence to the composer for the corporation's doing its very best to make its listeners heartily sick of hearing the Hoe Down!

I think I like most of Copland's output -even Hoe Down but preferably as part of the complete Rodeo and Billy the Kid(LSO/Copland) and Appalachian Spring(LSO/Susskind) were the first of his works I heard on a WRC LP (Everest), the Shoot Out in Billy still sounds fun!