Andreas Skipis’s film provides a fascinating insight into the music of Aaron Copland. Tracing Copland’s life and the path that informed his musical influences, it places Copland on the map of America’s musical history. It tells the story of how Copland, the son of Lithuanian immigrants, gradually found his roots in America, and in particular New York. Under the eye of Nadia Boulanger, we see him begin his career as a composer and gain his first publication. As well as the more obvious influences (such as Gershwin and jazz music), the documentary also demonstrates the more surprising influence of Mahler on the young composer. The film moves on to the Great Depression and how this impacted upon Copland. Later, Skipis explores how Copland was affected by the American political scene in the mid-twentieth century and in particular, the McCarthy era. The musical excerpts, mostly performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Hugh Wolff, are fairly substantial in length and give a good flavour of Copland’s music. As well as familiar favourites, such as Hoe Down and Fanfare for the Common Man, there is an opportunity to see a clip of Benny Goodman performing the Clarinet Concerto and an excerpt of Bernstein conducting the Lincoln Portrait. There are extracts from interviews with the composer, as well as Wolff discussing his views on Copland’s music and his own personal understanding of the composer’s writing. As Copland’s music became increasingly recognised, we see how the composer maintained his humble philosophy and, by all accounts, remained steadfastly unaffected by fame. Although the film is only an hour long, it manages to cover a lot of ground without feeling rushed and provides a good overview to both Copland’s life and his music.

Reviewed by Ruth Taylor