Aaron Copland: Clarinet Concerto

The United States is a land of immigrants, a mosaic of peoples and cultures spread out over countless different landscapes. American classical music echoes this cultural and geographic diversity.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Aaron Copland passionately devoted himself, both as a composer and as a teacher, to the development of a national music of the United States, with scope for everything ranging from military brass bands to jazz and blues. He wrote the Clarinet Concerto for the legendary jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman. It is a two-movement neoclassical work in which the dreamy first movement and the rhythmic, jazzy last movement are bridged by a lengthy, fully written-out solo cadenza. The Concertgebouw Orchestra’s principal clarinettist Calogero Palermo is performing the solo part.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Aaron Copland passionately devoted himself, both as a composer and as a teacher, to the development of a national music of the United States, with scope for everything ranging from military brass bands to jazz and blues. He wrote the Clarinet Concerto for the legendary jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman. It is a two-movement neoclassical work in which the dreamy first movement and the rhythmic, jazzy last movement are bridged by a lengthy, fully written-out solo cadenza. The Concertgebouw Orchestra’s principal clarinettist Calogero Palermo is performing the solo part.

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