Aaron Copland

Pianist/composer Conrad Tao's third Warner Classics album, entitled American Rage, traces the roots of rebellion from the 1930s Harlan County labor disputes, through the trauma of 9/11, to the deep divisions of the present day. Bookended by two expansive works by Frederic Rzewski - Which Side Are You On?, based on Florence Reece’s 1931 protest song, and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, an industrial folk song that reflects the unjust factory working conditions - the album centres on Julia Wolfe's Compassion, written in the wake of 9/11, and Aaron Copland's elegiac Piano Sonata.

Copland wrote Billy the Kid in 1938 on commission from Lincoln Kirstein, a noted New York impresario and cofounder of the New York City Ballet. The music became an instant success, incorporating as it does several well-known folk and Western tunes and telling an episodic story more about the Wild West in general than specifically about the notorious outlaw William H. Bonney (born Henry McCartney).

Samuel Barber, sticking broadly to the European concerto format and ethos, produced a three-movement work that in many respects is gestural, with, as is revealed in the beautiful slow movement, the sheer gorgeousness of which he was capable in composition. Aaron Copland's short concerto, on the other hand, embraces the full jazz idiom and is a blazing masterpiece that should be played more often in concert. And, coming from the other end and in a different direction, we have George Gershwin, getting his inimitable style and memorable tunes into the brilliant and breezy classical format of his Piano Concerto, breathtakingly played by Wang and the RSNO, an orchestra clearly comfortable in the idiom.

The three Copland classics on this disc–Billy the Kid, Appalachian Spring and Rodeo–are all ballet scores, and from the very first bars of Billy, with its evocative depiction of the wide-open prairies, you are firmly in the territory of music that tells a story. But you don't need to follow all the ins and outs of each story to enjoy music which paints as vivid a picture of rural America as you could hope for. If the sprightly "Hoe Down" from Rodeo brings a splash of colour to concert programmes, the remarkable thing about so much of the music in these three pieces is how quietly sensitive it is. And while Michael Tilson Thomas does not hold back in wringing every last ounce of splashy razzmatazz, he is equally the master of introspective music which clearly demonstrates that you don't need to be loud to be a populist. The recordings were made in the San Francisco Symphony's home, Davies Symphony Hall. You couldn't hope for more authentic performances than this–more than 76 minutes of dyed-in-the-wool Americana.