Since becoming conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin has issued a variety of recordings. He has been able to call the shots as to repertory, and the results have generally been worthwhile. With this Copland release he and the orchestra have outdone themselves. Copland has always been one of Slatkin's specialties; he gets the peculiarly American mix of broadness and subtlety in the composer's music, and his readings of the big ballets are as fine as any on the market. Here you get the complete Billy ...
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Since becoming conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin has issued a variety of recordings. He has been able to call the shots as to repertory, and the results have generally been worthwhile. With this Copland release he and the orchestra have outdone themselves. Copland has always been one of Slatkin's specialties; he gets the peculiarly American mix of broadness and subtlety in the composer's music, and his readings of the big ballets are as fine as any on the market. Here you get the complete Billy the Kid, less often heard than the familiar Suite, and containing the solitary "Billy in the Desert" to match the card game nocturne, both hypnotically done. The real news here, however, is Grohg, written in 1925 at the suggestion of Copland's teacher, Nadia Boulanger, performed once in 1932, and then abandoned until the early 1990s. Performances are rare, but Slatkin's reading is good enough to change that. Having been given the task of writing a ballet and having recently seen the...
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