For a composer whose reputation is so closely connected with the idea of Americanness, Aaron Copland's output of choral music, the central genre of American community music-making, is remarkably sparse. To make an album's worth it's basically necessary to employ the solution chosen here by the Camerata Singers and director Timothy Mount: to perform the two sets of Old American Songs, as arranged for chorus by Irving Fine. These are delightfully done by Long Island's youthful Camerata Singers, with the words clearly ...
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For a composer whose reputation is so closely connected with the idea of Americanness, Aaron Copland's output of choral music, the central genre of American community music-making, is remarkably sparse. To make an album's worth it's basically necessary to employ the solution chosen here by the Camerata Singers and director Timothy Mount: to perform the two sets of Old American Songs, as arranged for chorus by Irving Fine. These are delightfully done by Long Island's youthful Camerata Singers, with the words clearly articulated (a good thing, since no texts are given), all the jokes intact (sample I Bought Me a Cat if you're in the mood for a laugh), and a restrained attitude that puts across the cleanness of Copland's lines. That cleanness was a legacy of Copland's French neo-classic training, on view in the Four Motets composed in 1921, during his years as a student of the Paris pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. It is striking how much of Copland's personality comes through in these little works, even as...
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