Aaron Copland: Down a Country Lane

Brett Mitchell performs Aaron Copland's 'Down a Country Lane,' a solo piano piece commissioned by Life Magazine and featured in its June 29, 1962 issue. The sheet music was accompanied a brief article entitled 'The Premiere of a Noted Composer's Piece for Youngsters,' quoted here in its entirety: — — — — — — — — — — The charming piano piece that makes its debut above is a rarity. It was written especially for 'Life' by the dean of American composers, Aaron Copland, a Pulitzer prize winner for music. 'Down a Country Lane' helps fill a musical gap: it is among the few modern pieces specially written for young piano students by a major composer. 'Yet,' warns Copland, 'this composition is a bigger challenge than it first looks, and even third-year students will have to practice before trying it in public.' It opens in an easygoing pastoral mood, but the middle section is slightly dissonant and takes dextrous fingerwork. 'The music,' Copland explains, 'is descriptive only in an imaginative, not a literal sense. I didn't think up the title until the piece was finished—"Down a Country Lane" just happened to fit its flowing quality.' This is one of the few pieces of its kind that Copland has written in all his 61 years and it is likely, considering the number of young pianists, to be his most widely played composition. His other works of course have become standards in the repertoire of orchestras all over the world—the lyrical 'Appalachian Spring,' elegiac 'Lincoln Portrait,' dissonant 'Piano Fantasy.' Though Copland's style is highly varied, it is always stamped with directness and rhythmic ingenuity—even in so innocent a work as 'Down a Country Lane.' © 1962 Life Magazine — — — — — — — — — — WATCH NEXT    • Aaron Copland: The Piano Covers      • Classics at the Piano   FOLLOW ME   / brettmitchellconductor     / maestromitchell   #AaronCopland #DownACountryLane #LifeMagazine #AmericanMusic #Copland #Piano #PianoMusic #ClassicalPiano #ClassicalMusic #BrettMitchell