Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring
This recommendation - as well as my admiration for this piece - comes mostly from one sentence that my father said to me about it. "You can listen to Appalachian Spring 100 times," he said, "and it'll still surprise you at every turn." I haven't been able to disagree with his judgement of Copland's masterpiece, even after listening to it hundreds of times. For me the central theme was always the Shaker melody "Simple Gifts", which is featured in only two of the eight parts. But since it was recognizable, I always waited for it and reveled in its beauty. Having never studied the score, which was originally ballet music written in 1944 for Martha Graham, I let it entertain and surprise me, as my father's notion had taught me. Enter Scribd , an online database full of books, articles, magazines and sheet music. No longer did I have to go to the library to check out sheet music, it was suddenly downloadable onto my tablet. I found a score ...