Album review: The Tender Land, Piano Concerto

CLASSICAL

AARON COPLAND

The Tender Land, Piano Concerto

HHHHH

Naxos 8.559199, £5.86

"If you write a piano concerto," the Boston Symphony's Serge Koussevitzky told composer Aaron Copland, "you can play it yourself". Copland today may not be known as a pianist, but his skill was regarded highly enough for him to record and broadcast, and the fun he had in composing his Piano Concerto is clear.

The suite of music from his opera The Tender Land may be even less well known, but this equally tender recording by the Elgin Symphony is well worth hearing, with its mature symphonic style.

Copland's Old American Songs regularly appear in the guise of concert encores, but they're rarely heard complete. Here, Nathaniel Stampley gives a rousing performance of them orchestrated by a number of different composers, with much characterisation and feeling.