Eiji Oue - Copland 100

Eiji Oue conducts the Minnesota Orchestra performing selections by Aaron Copland.

Aaron Copland, America's best-known and best-loved composer, would have been 100 years old this centennial year. Reference Recordings is pleased to honor his memory with this memorial CD of three of his most renowned and memorable works. Fanfare For the Common Man has become emblematic of state and major sports occasions. Its majestic strains for brass and percussion inevitably raise goosebumps wherever they are heard. Appalachian Spring is Copland's most beloved dance score, and is indelibly associated with Martha Graham, who gave it birth. It sings of earlier-Americans whose lives were tied to the land and it features timeless folksong Simple Gifts. The Third Symphony is considered to be Copland's masterpiece, the finest symphony produced by any 20th-century American. Its finale brings back the Fanfare, scored for full symphony orchestra, to bring the program to a spine-tingling climax.