Stockport Symphony Orchestra - Appalachian Spring and Brahms 1

Rimsky-Korsakov May Night Overture

Copland Appalachian Spring

Brahms Symphony No 1

Conductors - Julius Mauldin, Jasper Lecon

Copland's orchestral suite began life as a ballet telling of 19th-century American pioneers building a new farmhouse. It is full of American tunes, including the well-known Shaker song, Simple Gifts (later to become "Lord of the Dance"), which Copland incorporated into the music. He may have been thinking of a water source in the title but with a little poetic licence it falls nicely into our seasonal theme this year.

So overawed by Beethoven's symphonic genius, it took Brahms 21 years to pluck up courage to unveil his first symphony yet it proved such a triumph that it was once referred to as Beethoven's 10th and buoyed by the success Brahms' Second followed swiftly. It has stood the test of time and the comparisons with Ludwig!