The Music of Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was one of the twentieth century’s most popular and distinguished composers. His ballets: Rodeo; Appalachian Spring; and Billy the Kid, are as warmly admired by music-lovers as his more abstract works are respected by musicologists and his fellow composers. Copland was born in 1900 in Brooklyn, where he began his musical career, before moving to the Paris of the 1920s, where Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Les Six were the centre of attention. On his return to the United States at the end of the decade he began to produce a series of works which could leave no one in any doubt that American composers were capable of writing music equal to the best of their European contemporaries. Neil Butterworth’s chronological survey of Copland’s entire output – the first book to appear on his music in 30 years – discusses ever one of his compositions and examines his influential writings on music. The book is profusely illustrated with music examples and photographs, includes a conversation on the piano music with Aaron Copland and Leo Smit and also features sketches of Copland in rehearsal by Milein Cosman.