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The Copland Years: A Lyrical and Radical Pioneer

In his centenary year, Aaron Copland is still the most-played American composer

Final part of Leonard Slatkin's four-part profile of composer Aaron Copland marking the centenary of the birth of this pioneer of American music. Copland's first opera, the The Tender Land (1954) remains one of his least popular works. It was followed by the challenging and more abstract Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations (1962) and Inscape (1967). After 50 years of composing, Copland explained he just "dried up" but embarked on another career, conducting. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he died in 1990. Interviews with Copland and contributions from friends and colleagues including Virgil Thomson and Leonard Bernstein.

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24 minutes

Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Archive

This programme was restored as part of the World Service archive project