Copland Third Symphony recordings?

March 30, 2008 3:49 PM

Help me find a good recording of Copland's Third Symphony.

I just heard a really solid performance of Copland's Third Symphony, and I realized I have a friend who's probably never heard it, and would probably love it. I'd like to get it for him as a gift. But I don't know how to find a really good recording.

I searched Amazon, but I couldn't find a recording that looked good enough to buy unheard. Can you help me find a recording that's known to be good, or one by a big name orchestra / conductor? Alternatively, can you tell me where else to look?

posted by grobstein to media & arts (6 comments total)

Check out Leonard Bernstein with the NY Phil.
posted by Fins at 4:55 PM on March 30

Any of the following would be entirely recommendable: Bernstein on either DG or Sony, or the Naxos disc with the New Zealand SO. Absent the opportunity to listen to them for yourself, the choice of couplings may be the deciding factor - all three are different.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:02 PM on March 30

Sweetness, thank you. Embarrassingly, I didn't notice any of these (bad search terms).
posted by grobstein at 6:18 PM on March 30

Seconding ol' Lenny in general and the DG recording in particular.
Bernstein was such an uncannily sensitive interpreter of American composers.-- his take on Gershwin's "Three Preludes" and especially the piano phrasing and tempi in "Rhapsody in Blue" is nothing less than superb.
You will LOVE it.
(And after living with it for a year or so, so it's in your bones, get three alternate recordings of same.
You'll be amazed at how "inevitable" [as Copland called things he loved] it sounds...)
posted by Dizzy at 6:44 PM on March 30

(Plus the DG recording that Wolfdog recommends comes with another gem; "Quiet City"-- heartbreaking and spare.
Then move on to "An Outdoor Adventure"...)
posted by Dizzy at 6:46 PM on March 30

(Then buy his book "On Music". Then there is an excellent recent biography as well...)
posted by Dizzy at 6:48 PM on March 30