Cedille announces the 2025 Emerging Artist Competition semi-finalists!

Meet the Semi-Finalists

Your Shopping Cart


Your cart is currently empty.

Continue Shopping

Store

Store

Copland Piano Music — Romantic & Modern

Ramon Salvatore


While studying composition in New York, Aaron Copland composed a Romantic-style piano sonata in the grand manner. After nearly 75 years, his Sonata in G Major (1921) receives its performance and recording premieres by Chicago pianist Ramon Salvatore.

On this CD, Salvatore presents an unusually complete stylistic survey: the high Romanticism of the Sonata in G Major, Copland’s early flirtations with French impressionism and jazz, the classic Americana for which he’s best known, and his bold modernism. Unlike other Copland piano discs, Cedille’s includes only original piano works (no transcriptions), performed with clarity and imagination by a leading exponent of American piano music.

Composed at the behest of his traditionalist teacher Rubin Goldmark, Copland’s Sonata in G Major is his most ambitious early work. “It demonstrates a familiarity with and mastery of traditional form and harmony that is impressive,” writes composer Philip Ramey in his notes for the CD booklet. Ramey was a close friend and associate of Copland.

Pianist Salvatore says the German-Romantic style piece offers “all the elements that attract pianists and audiences to this kind of music” and could become a genuine audience-pleaser like Charles Ives’ similarly backward-looking First Symphony. “I invite the listener to decide,” Salvatore says.

Sonnet II (1919), a 27-bar miniature, is a sonorous, post-Impressionistic piece performed for the first time in 1985. The Cat and the Mouse (1920) caused a falling out between Copland and Goldmark over the “modernism” of its erratic rhythms and French impressionist veneer. The witty little piece became Copland’s first published work. Three Moods (1921) marks the first appearance of jazz in Copland’s work.

Serious, abstract, carefully articulated — yet emotionally stirring — Copland’s Passacaglia (1922) shows the influence of composition teacher Nada Boulanger, who stressed control and clarity.

Copland insisted that the sweetly pastoral miniature Down a Country Lane (1962), commissioned by Life magazine, had nothing to do with a country lane. “I didn’t think up the title until the piece was written,” he said. Ramey discovered Copland’s exquisite bagatelle Midsummer Nocturne (1947) while foraging through his friend’s files in 1977. It premiered in Cleveland in 1978.

The sternly challenging Proclamation (1973/82) and soothing Midday Thoughts (1944/82) are Copland’s last works in any genre. Both are based on sketches for never-completed works. Proclamation was originally intended as a large-scale piano piece. Midday Thoughts dates back to Copland’s Appalachian Spring period and shares the ballet’s sweet temperament.

The generous survey concludes with the fascinating Piano Fantasy (1957), Copland’s most complex and virtuosic work for solo piano. He wanted it to suggest “a spontaneous and unpremeditated sequence of ‘events’ that would carry the listener irresistibly (if possible) from first note to last.” Influence by 12-tone technique but fundamentally tonal, the work was commissioned by the Juilliard School of Music to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Preview Excerpts

AARON COPLAND (1900-1990)

Sonata in G Major

(22:22)

1
I. Allegro maestoso (11:16)
2
II. Andante cantabile (5:57)
3
III. Allegro vivace (5:00)
4
Sonnet II (1:23)

Three Moods

(4:18)

5
I. embittered (1:16)
6
II. wistful (1:46)
7
III. jazzy (1:10)
8
The Cat and the Mouse (3:25)
9
Passacaglia (6:52)
10
Down a Country Lane (1:59)
11
Midsummer Nocturne (1:54)
12
Proclamation (2:04)
13
Midday Thoughts (2:38)

Piano Fantasy

(29:25)

14
I. Slow
15
II. Rubato
16
III. Beginning a little slowly
17
IV. Quite fast and rhythmic
18
V. Suddenly Fast
19
VI. As at first

Artists

Program Notes

Download Album Booklet

Aaron Copland Piano Music

Notes by Phillip Ramey

Sonata in G Major

Album Details

Total Time: 77:00

Recorded: December – February, 1994 – 95 at WFMT Chicago
Producer: James Ginsburg
Engineer: Bill Maylone
Cover: East River from the Shelton (Georgia OKeeffe, 1928) © Private Collection. Photo by Malcom Varon, NYC.
Design: Cheryl A Boncuore
Notes: Phillip Ramey

© 1995 Cedille Records/Cedille Chicago

CDR 90000 021