Copland & Menotti: Piano Concertos

For all of its associations with open prairies, cavorting cowboys, and manifest destiny grandeur, the contours of Aaron Copland’s sound were shaped in Jazz Age Paris under the tutelage of the famed French composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger. Nowhere is her imprint more apparent than in his 1926 Piano Concerto, with a languid opening theme, Ravelian harmonic palette, and bustling, syncopated finale that feels far more suited to a plush salon overlooking the Seine than a homespun log cabin on the American range. The work’s historic lack of support, in both the concert hall and on record, remains puzzling, especially given its technical accessibility, modest length, and conceptual coherence. That’s not for lack of trying on the part of Earl Wild. He coaxes the Concerto out of its shell in this persuasive 1972 performance, gilding it with a generous helping of vivacious, flamboyant pianism. Copland himself (then 72, with the Concerto nearly fifty years behind him) conducts the Symphony of the Air with palpable approbation and tinge of nostalgia for his formative Gallic years.