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Copland, Aaron – Film scores and radio – 04 Prairie Journal
Identifier
026229
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Aaron Copland : Prairie Journal (Music for Radio) for orchestra (1937)
Performed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra conducted by Keith Clark
Copland composed (for radio broadcast) "Prairie Journal" on a commission from the Columbia Broadcast System. This was one of his first pieces to convey the landscape of the American West.
"There's a marvellous passage beginning at 2:30 where the leaden drudgery of hard labour eventually gives way to a pastoral beauty. Many such moments of positivity, usually in the form of dynamically charged, lovely melodies, recur. This is music born out of the Depression and the New Deal. The labour theme appears again towards the end, strings searching above..."