An American Portrait: Aaron Copland
From the Barbican Hall, London, Anthony Burton presents the final concert in the BBC Symphony Orchestra's tribute to Aaron Copland. The Tender Land was Copland's only full-length stage opera. It was inspired by James Agee 's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the record of a journey through the American South during the Depression, from which librettist
Erik Johns derived the basic plot of the opera.
BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Leonard Slatkin Copland The Tender Land
8.15 Twenty Minutes: The Tender Land By common consent The Tender Land is not the great American opera, but did Copland ever intend it to be? Anthony Burton investigates.
8.35 Part 2