Dennis Russell Davies, Romuald Tecco, Kenneth Harrison - Aaron Copland: Chamber Works (1990)

It's always risky to give superlatives, but it's safe to say that Aaron Copland is probably the most important and influential composer born in America. His professional life spans 50 years, he wrote symphonies, operas and ballets, sonatas and songs in a folk, friendly, urban, modern, simple style, although he always retained the sensitivity peculiar to him alone.
He was one of those who was liked by both professionals and amateurs. Such works as El salon Mexico, Billy the Kid, Fanfar for the Common Man, Rodeo, have entered the standard repertoire of classical music, as American in character as Huckleberry Finn.
But in a sense, Copland is a little-studied composer, since most of his works (this concerns what he wrote before the 1930s and in the mid–50s) are unknown to the general public.
This CD contains works that were not included in public collections and which were admired only by a select few. The earliest is "Vitebsk", a trio for violin, cello and piano, called by the author "A Study on a Jewish theme". Actor Peter Ustinov said about this work: "Hoarse, hard and dry, like a split tree, soaked with longing from the inability to go to sea."
The Violin Sonata (1941) was written around the same time as the much more famous Rodeo and Lincoln Portrait.
Piano Quartet (1950) is one of Copland's first compositions written in a 12–tone system (dodecaphony), and one of the most elegant and gentle.