Copland Plays Copland Piano Concerto

Copland Piano Concerto, soloist Aaron Copland conducted by Leonard Bernstein. This is from the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert, Jazz in the Concert Hall and was recorded February 8, 1964.

[@rodrigot7528]

This is the American culture that, as a foreigner, I admire and love. Back in the 1960's Mexican TV stations broadcasted the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts. These programs, together with the Mexico City orchestra broadcasts, changed my life. That is how my love for music, including Aaron Copland's and Heitor Villa-lobos' music, was born. This love only grew with time.

[@fakeadamlee]

how profound! happy that the love is genuine.

[@kathryngonder6852]

I was Aaron's hostess in April, 1979. We discussed this composition as well as other of Copland's compositions. He always referred to me as Young Lady, but I didn't care what he called me because what an honor to be one of a handful of people left alive that knew him as I did and was also in the audience when he narrated his own composition LINCOLN PORTRAIT. We actually had a good time. He very quietly asked me " May I?" And to my surprise he gently kissed my left cheek! I am currently working on a project entitled MY COPLAND EXPERIENCE. It will be offered to my Alma Mater, Wichita State University. Farewell from the Heartland!! And remember: Great minds talk about philosophy and ideas. Small minds talk about people! Be well!!!

[@robkeeleycomposer]

Incredible seeing those two masters having so much fun together!!! A precious piece of footage indeed.

[@n.b1434]

The kids they showed were so immersed in the music. Not one looked bored. Not one fidgeting. They had an appreciation for classical music. I don't think many kids today have patience for great music such like this.

[@johnnytheyoungmaestro]

I love how much fun they're having! :) I love Bernstein's dancing at 11:35! Fantastic job to Leonard, Aaron, and this absolutely phenomenal orchestra!

[@falstaff63]

Astonishing!! What a gift!! Copland and Bernstein together!!

[@danielmcdonald3527]

Has nothing to do with the music but this was one day before the the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. Just saying.

[@sutrasofdelight]

One of the most beautiful music moments in America. Thank you Aaron.

[@the_frumious_bandersnatch4367]

Bernstein and Copland, both in their prime! What I would give to have been there, had I not been slightly less than 2 1/2 years old...

[@flautalee3090]

Very cool that Copland included Soprano Sax in this concerto when he wanted a jazzier timbre than if the same music was played on clarinet. I watched these as a nine or ten year old in my parents bedroom in Seattle WA. I remember not exactly enjoying the concerts ~ but I do remember that my parents thought they were really important. Exquisite performance BTW.

[@abcrane]

ethereal! ethereal! absolutely takes me there! bravo Aaron, bravo Leonard! blessings to your eternal souls, carried on in the echos of your music.

[@georgerobertodlugosz2428]

Música contemporânea americana Simplesmente com esse piano fica maravilhosa

[@homeboyfour]

Leonard Bernstein -- and I say this with all the love and respect I can muster -- conductor and dance master of the New York Philharmonic..

[@jslasher1]

What a superb work. What a combination: Copland and Bernstein! Couldn't be better.

[@pfritz5976]

I'm a big Bernstein fan going back to the early 1960s when he would visit Westminster Choir College in Princeton to rehearse the choir. My first exposure to him in rehearsal was a performance of the Mahler 8th Symphony. I still love his series of Young People's Concerts. Love his passion for the music, his eloquence, and his conducting. I also greatly admire his composition.

[@andrewsmith6124]

My dad went to that college

[@klop4228]

"The prehistoric days of 1926". That's closer to there than this recording.

[@kerrichristopher740]

A really fine work, performed it once many years ago. Great watching Copland perform it!

[@DanielRobertspiano]

Wow, it´s incredible to have this footage.

[@MusicalMali]

This is a treasure!! Thank you for posting.

[@davidabarnes1993]

Thanks for posting! Copland is a master. 9:16 is a great moment in particular ;)

[@TatevVartikyanPiano]

Maestro, You are unmatched.

[@danielbeller972]

Thank you! This is amazing!

[@Dizzyfingers2]

One can really hear all the influences that Bernstein used in his own music later on ... I heard: West Side (Maria), and especially On the Town ... regardless, it is incredible to think this was composed only 2 years after Rhapsody in Blue ... Wow.

[@turnne]

@Aaron Robinson I agree with you. I could always hear the similarities in Coplands and Bernsteins music

[@urbinamdm]

They are having so much fun! Love it!

[@Dylonely42]

Wonderful ! Copland and Bernstein together, two american legends.

[@DavidA-ps1qr]

It is a wonderful concerto. Was privileged to see him play it at the BBC Proms in the 1970's. Needs revival.

[@michaelhayes690]

Beautiful. Thank you.

[@alvaroreyesalamo2187]

Fantastic music, thank you.

[@msandovalpc]

Aaron Copland … when I hear his music, I think of America 1950.

[@ezralowery7915]

Wow! Such a treat to see Copland and Bernstein on camera, in concert... much thanks Mr. Randolph. I also viewed the Barber & Stravinsky related videos as well. At the very least, You have got to admire the cadenza, & drastic change in the 2nd Mvt. at 9:14 with the orchestra recapitulation at 10:25. "Everything was supposed to be off the beat", or something to that extent i believe...

[@doubleinstruments6453]

Thanks for it from France

[@GenteelBrett]

that was amazing!

[@xugary9237]

I like Mr. Copland! Thx for posting this great video!

[@nikb6176]

Hard to believe they were both still so 'young' here, when put into context - they both passed away in 1990 just under two months apart.

[@Jon-zf3dq]

Brilliant piece.

[@alcyonecrucis]

Great intro, bravo!!!

[@Twentythousandlps]

Note that the 63-year-old composer has a score on the piano, but doesn't need to refer to it after all. The conductor did some heavy analysis of this piece in his 1939 Harvard thesis.

[@gerthenriksen8818]

WOW!

[@melvintheboxerdog2263]

the greatest generation of American musical generations, too--Copland, Gershwin, Hanson, Barber, Diamond, and, of course, Bernstein...I do not dismiss Stravinsky, but as expatriot, he is not homegrown. There were others, but the late 20th and early 21st centuries have brought us only interesting and competent composers--Glass, Reich, Riley...perhaps Adams emerges as one of the great....but none are in the Coplandesque pantheon.

[@pedrozappa]

Forgotting Frank Zappa, hum?

[@freewheeler8924]

They were all gay.

[@hayden1188]

Roy Harris should be in your list!

[@freewheeler8924]

Tie me kangaroo down, sport!

[@johnrandolph6121]

No they weren't.

[@johnferguson4089]

Sublime!

[@user-mn1di5ox2f]

Великий пианист. Браво!

[@jordifuentesandres226]

Copland,Aaron. 1900-1990.usa.Escribió basándose en su emoción directa,su clara armonía de amplios espacios,y su utilización,sin timidez ,de melodías populares,estableció enseguida una tradición "norteamricana" de lenguaje llano a la que aportó media docena de obras maestras.

[@MrInterestingthings]

What a document to have this! Bernstein must have fought for this this piano con has never been warmly received like the barber and Menotti piano concerti!!! it is a different kind of animal.

[@johnrandolph6121]

I've never understood why the Copland concerto hasn't caught on. Maybe it's not sufficiently flashy like the Barber, etc. It's too bad since it's a great piece. However, is the Menotti ever performed? I think of that as pretty obscure. At least there are lots of recordings of the Copland.... not the case with the Menotti.

[@MrInterestingthings]

@@johnrandolph6121 Very true. I'm ashamed that I don't really spend the time with this music that I should. The Variations are my favorite!

[@johnbryant8603]

🙏🏽♥️

[@willcwhite]

Wow those horns were really having a rough time of it!

[@willcwhite]

Yes, the music is written with a lot of dissonances... but listen closely in the first minute of the piece and you'll year quite a few of the brass players cracking, not hitting their partials, and otherwise straining to play their parts. Happens again around the 6:20 mark and later. The NY Phil's brass struggled with Copland's stuff in the 50's and 60's. You'll even hear misses like these on their commercial recordings, including the third symphony. No surprise - it's tough stuff!

[@johnrandolph6121]

The horns sounded fine to me. There was one cracked note a by a trombone player (2:32) but I don't hear the problem with the horns. At 6:20 the horns nail two very high notes... not easy. The trumpet bit after that sounds a bit insecure though. But the horns sound great to me. Maybe your ears are better than mine.

[@johnrandolph6121]

The horns sounded fine to me. There was one cracked note a by a trombone player (2:32) but I don't hear the problem with the horns. At 6:20 the horns nail two very high notes... not easy. The trumpet bit after that sounds a bit insecure though. But the horns sound great to me. Maybe your ears are better than mine.

[@willcwhite]

Check out horns at 3:05, 2nd trumpet intonation at 2:47. I'm still convinced 6:20 is a problem with second horn. Also, I'm genuinely sorry for starting this nitpicking discussion - I don't think these little imperfections take away from the splendor of this performance.

[@willcwhite]

And yes, for several years my job was editing recordings for a major symphony orchestra, both for radio broadcast and commercial release, so I was trained to hone in on exactly these kinds of imperfections. Hard to turn it off sometimes. But I still love this piece and I'm so happy we have this document of the composer performing his own piece!

[@johnwest7993]

I was waiting for Leonard to tell Aaron he was playing it wrong.

[@tfpp1]

Aaron Copland -- the "Larry David" of composers.

[@flonsta]

...and not a one of those kids watching the concert on their cell phones.

[@benebacher2470]

I wonder why🤔

[@composenberg]

All the more interesting while reading Humphrey Burton's Bernstein biography, which discusses the friendship between Copland and Bernstein in good detail.

[@msimon976]

9:32. It's Monk!

[@ellenrosenblatt5463]

10:11-12:30 - the best part

[@davidj.7779]

Is it only me or does that passage starkly evoke the music of the gang fight in Bernstein's "West Side Story"?

[@bt10ant]

16:53. Wow, a young Stanley Drucker. A young everybody, I guess.

[@tenorsaxplayer77]

6:42 17:01

[@tfpp1]

15:07 -- homeboy couldn't hang and decided to take a nap. XD

[@TwiZoneInc]

Is the Copland Piano Concerto considered standard repertoire??

[@Torowe1]

I think I was busy watching the Ed Sullivan Show that night .... damn - I missed out on Coplandmania !!!

[@albertnortononymous9020]

Torowe1 haha you and the rest of America. Once the classical academics embraced, advocated for, and justified ugly music, normal people had no choice but to turn to Jazz and Pop.

[@user-mn1di5ox2f]

Круто👍

[@BeauJames59]

(5 min in) I'm totally jazzed out! It is lovely music though.

[@kathryngonder6852]

He kissed me at the airport as he was able ready to board a airflight taking him back to Copland House or as he calls it his Hideaway. I do have documentation of this extraordinary experience. Just in case some of you come from Missouri, The SHOW ME STATE 🎉. Why? Because I was his hostess at Jefferson City University, Jefferson City, Missouri! Again, how lucky can you get than being in the presence of Greatness for three days!! However, to quote Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that!"😊

[@BuckshotLaFunke1]

Bernstein sounds as if he is leading 'What's My Line'.

[@richs4703]

Great video of a masterpiece. I think that Gershwin aimed to please. Copland aimed to comment and let the pubic make what they will of it. Unfortunately it remains at the edges of concert repertoire. More artists need to take it up - pianists, conductors, presenters. C'mon!!

[@lizhahn2135]

i hear maria ....

[@a1s2d3f4g5q1w2e3]

Is this available on a DVD? I am struggling to make out the name of the piano maker.

[@johnrandolph6121]

Yes, Kultur has it. I don't know what kind of piano he is playing. Could be a Baldwin since I think Copland was a Baldwin artist.

[@a1s2d3f4g5q1w2e3]

Do you mean one of the DVDs on D1503?

[@johnrandolph6121]

They released two volumes. So just look in the contents for the one that contains the program Jazz in the Concert Hall.

[@rickintx1125]

Something really odd seems to be going on from about 15:45 to about 16:00. Two independent strands of music are apparently battling it out, but neatly dovetail at the end. I say "odd" because the piece is otherwise so linear.

[@albertnortononymous9020]

Richard McGee You had to be odd back then to be respected. He wrote this while Schoenberg and Ives had a stranglehold on western art music. With the critics and professors praising those two and eschewing anything that wasn't "modern," this kind of music was what needed to be written in order to give Jazz any kind of legitimacy.

[@rolandmeyer3729]

​​@@albertnortononymous9020 Your comment here reminds me of an LP that I listened to c. 50 years ago. It focused on several pieces composed by Anton von Webern. The liner notes state that serious music in the late 19th - early 20th century remained in the "stranglehold" of Richard Wagner. 😮 Of course, the Second Viennese School rebelled against the perceived excesses of late Romanticism.

[@josiasdiazarvelo7292]

0:1 ¿Maurice Ravel?

[@d.charlotte6859]

2:28

[@stefanstern7851]

And it has a “bebob” at the end

[@bigdogbrunet8881]

Paul Lewis

[@Skidoo22]

Americana!

[@llVincentRockll]

15:06, that kid in the backseat is having the time of his life! not.

[@mckernan603]

I'm 15:10 sorry...

[@flautalee3090]

Do notice that only men performed in orchestras such as the NY Philharmonic then. Before blind auditions.

[@tonylogan4092]

Funny waching these stodgy musicians being so hip.

[@acav5405]

Not one woman!

[@TIOMKIN1]

It's okay but it ain't Gershwin. Thanks for the upload. Out.

[@gabrielmeruelo3158]

This composition by a young Copland sounds more to me like Ives than mature Copland. He's much more exploratory and dissonant than in his more "American" style. Gabe Meruelo.

[@johnrandolph6121]

Really? When did Charles Ives ever write a jazz inspired work? What it sounds like is early Copland.

[@albertnortononymous9020]

Well, you had to be dissonant and exploratory back then to be respected. He wrote this while Schoenberg and Ives had a stranglehold on western art music. With the critics and professors praising those two and eschewing anything that wasn't "modern," this kind of music was what needed to be written in order to give Jazz any kind of legitimacy, which was what Copland was trying to do.

[@daria8962]

Wow, not a single lady on stage

[@YonkoKenji]

7:35 Nice to see that even during the extremely racist times black people were still able to enjoy the music

[@marcparella]

It's a wonderful piece but it never made the classical hit parade. The Russians own the 20th century piano concerto.

[@pauljackson1029]

Extraordinary to have this document. The orchestra look really tough, almsot no applause when Copland comes on. The first trumpet has an awful exagerated vibrato. Corigliano sr looks as though he coud' nt care less even when hes shaking Copland's hand

[@deanmansfield9238]

Rank. Mutilated Gershwin. Each to his/her own.

[@ericbenjamin2908]

Really no comparison to be made with Gershwin, apart from the jazz language. Copland's language is far more complex and, I think, deeper in this piece than is any Gershwin. It is a stunning work.

[@deanmansfield9238]

"Apart from the jazz" is exactly it. Jazz was natural to Gershwin. It oozed from his veins. He elevated it to a higher level. Copland borrowed from Jazz in this concerto. It is not authentic at all. It is mutilated and copycat. Don't like it. Be what you are. But like I said, "Each to his/her own."

[@ericbenjamin2908]

I think calling Copland's work "mutilaited Gerhswin" is what I object to. Copland was happily Copland, and not trying to be "like Gershwin". (There are and were plenty of jazz musicians who don't give Gershwin much credence as a jazzer. And both composers were sons of Russian Jewish immigrants learning jazz as a second language). Copland was, as you put it, borrowing from jazz - pitch relationships and rhythmic invention, to mix with the continental style he developed with Boulanger. I love the cragginess of it, with the grouchy, lurching rhythms and searing melodic lines rubbing each other the wrong way. And the gamey changes of mood. The counterpoint is worked out with rigor. Not "mutilated anything". Very good Copland.

[@deanmansfield9238]

Hi, Eric. Nice conversing with you. Glad you like Copland. I have some really talented friends who also really like Copland. I guess the reason I say "mutilated" is that Copland's use of Jazz here is like he's saying, "I'm borrowing this, and I'm ashamed of it, but look, I can make it into something fancy and sophisticated." Whereas Gershwin (take his Concerto in F) says, "I may be of immigrant origins but I embrace my new environment and extol it." It's an attitude I sense in each. You may be right and I may be wrong, but that is how I see it. I don't like this piece. Compared to Gershwin's Concerto it seems stilted, disjointed and yes, mutilated. (I get the feeling--again, I may be wrong--that Gershwin's acceptance by Europeans such as Maurice Ravel gave some of his contemporaries in the US a "complex." Maybe that's why Copland felt he had to compose this a year later? Was he trying too hard?)

[@albertnortononymous9020]

The deal is that back then you had to be dissonant and "modern" to be respected. He wrote this while Schoenberg and Ives had a stranglehold on western art music. With the critics and professors praising those two, eschewing anything that wasn't "modern," and condemning jazz as mere entertainment, this kind of music was what needed to be written in order to give Jazz any kind of legitimacy with the higher-ups. Gershwin was trying to expose the jazz world to the classical sound, but Copland was clearly trying to expose the pretentious academic classical world to the jazz sound. Only in America, amirite?

[@jean6872]

*_This is unbearable._*

[@josephmarcello7481]

Copeland had his failures, to be sure, and the organ concerto and the piano concerto are among them. His textures were always clear and sparkling, sometimes even startling, his aesthetic was biblical, almost old testament in its declamatory, thorny style, but as with most of his other works, including the much beloved Appalachian spring, he was almost congenitally incapable of creating and attractive original melody, and so it is here. Here. This piece is merely a pastiche of hopeful ideas with nowhere to go. But yes, they are having fun, and Copeland is finally getting some much needed exposure. If one would be completely honest, from the point of view of craft, inspiration, and power, the Gershwin can share their dwarfs this and this has really no elements at all to speak of from the jazz world. Syncopation does not adjust peace, make, nor dominance 7th or 9th or 13th chords. Jazz is a way of moving, and Copeland is much to hide, bound and proper to ever let himself dance that way. Nonetheless, and excellent composer when at his best, which is clearly not here.

[@ShanevsDCsniperr]

there is no e in Copland

[@michaelcarroll7621]

Don't criticize what you don't understand.

[@ellenrosenblatt5463]

all white men in the orchestra. sad commentary on american orchestras back then

[@johnzielinski9951]

If you weren't racist and sexist, it wouldn't matter.

[@gramo63]

+John Lemmon -- the world is waiting for a Piano Concerto composed by a black Muslim lesbian.

[@iamfrank5171]

That said, white men have done an awful lot of great things. In fact, if it wasn't for white men, we wouldn't be having this exchange on the internet about this particular piece of music. I love being a white man. I'm proud of my lineage. (And that doesn't mean I love the injustices committed by white men, or that I think white men are superior to any other race or gender.) Way to bring politics into an innocuous piano concerto...

[@pauldavies6037]

and no women

[@pesterlis]

Please fuck off

[@shermanmacoy]

llevar a niños para escuchar eso?? pobres criaturas se estabn durmiendo..un martirio..que bueno que dura poco....no fue mucho de mi agrado.. what a noise..

[@kaleidoscopio5]

Pretty boring music. I prefer Gershwin's Piano Concerto.

[@galibmammadov3985]

Американская. Каша!

[@kaleidoscopio5]

Sorry, I don't understand russian....

[@leonmatterson562]

kaleidoscopio5 boring? Really, how old are you?

[@wotan9630]

At least Lennie Bernstein enjoyed it, more than did though. I thought it was hideous in the extreme, no comparison to Gershwin. I have over two hundred piano concertos in my repertoire but none as bad as this. I hope I never have to hear it again. It was totally tuneless!!!!

[@johnleiva7319]

I have to say I wouldn't want to hear that again! Hardly great music. Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff were much better composers.