{"id":678,"date":"2006-03-16T00:00:36","date_gmt":"2006-03-16T05:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/?p=678"},"modified":"2022-01-30T13:09:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T18:09:09","slug":"mch-copland-chamber-disc-gramophone-mag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dworkincompany.com\/site\/mch-copland-chamber-disc-gramophone-mag\/","title":{"rendered":"Gramophone Magazine on Music from Copland House’s “simply splendid” collection of Copland’s chamber music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Copland Chamber Works<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A fine collection of chamber works from the composer\u2019s own home<\/strong><\/h2>\n
March, 2006<\/h6>\n

Copland Chamber Works<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Pianist Michael Boriskin is the director of Copland House (www.coplandhouse.org<\/a>), which was the composer\u2019s home in Cortlandt Manor, New York, and is now a cultural centre. Its resident ensemble appears on CD for the first time with works recorded at various times and places in the past four years. This is not Copland\u2019s complete chamber output; the Two Ballads for Violin and Piano and the Elegies for Violin and Viola have recently appeared on Bridge (9\/04) but it is still a splendid collection.<\/p>\n

The earliest piece here is the 1923 Movement for quartet, from his Boulanger tutelage in Paris: it ends with pre-echoes of the first movement of the Organ Symphony. The Prelude for piano trio is an arrangement of the first movement of that work \u2013 and very effective, too, in this first recording. Of the two pieces for violin and piano from Copland\u2019s 1920s jazz phase, the Nocturne is bluesy and the Ukelele Serenade \u2013 borrowed later in Hear Ye! Hear Ye!<\/em> \u2013 is a gutsy, snappy number.<\/p>\n

The modernist Copland emerges with two masterpieces, both in excellent performances: the Vitebsk<\/em> Trio (1928), based on a Jewish theme coloured by wailing quarter-tones, and the Sextet. This was originally the Short Symphony<\/em> (1933) but it was found so difficult at the time that Copland made a chamber version four years later. Boriskin writes of this work \u2018striking fear into otherwise intrepid musicians\u2019 because of its rapid changes of metre \u2013 you can\u2019t tell here.<\/p>\n

By the time of the Violin and Piano Sonata (1943) Copland\u2019s style was simpler and he followed that economical duo with Appalachian Spring<\/em>. By 1950 there was a change again when the Piano Quartet drew on serial technique. But it\u2019s all recognisably Copland, as are the two Threnodies for flute and string trio. This release contains the finest versions available of most of these works. Durations are not provided but the recorded sound is bright and clean.<\/p>\n