Does anybody out there know where you can find Aaron Copland's extraordinary musical score to Lewis Milestone's 1939 version of Of Mice and Men? It's one of the most hauntingly beautiful film scores I've ever heard and obviously Copland is such a legend. I'm actually quite shocked that it has never been re-recorded (or if it has, I can't find it). Any tips would be very much appreciated.
shareHi, Andrew, from Joe. I am an occasional classical music dj for public radio and another move music and Aaron Copland fan. I had forgotten that Copland composed the "Of Mice and Men" score. Thanks for the reminder.
Sadly I too can find no recording of that score listed in any of my sources.
It sounds crazy but I suggest you (and I'll do it too) search Google for the conductor Michael Tillson Thomas who seems to have inheirited the mantle of Favorite Copland Conductor of the day. He's put out several acclaimed cds of Copland's music. If there's a MTT website through which he can be contacted I suggest doing so and writing him about looking at the score as a possible recording/concert project.
A good Copland "film" album is the cd RCA 61699 -- "Music for Films" by Copland performed by the St.Louis Symphony Orchestra with conductor Leonard Slatkin (no stranger to Hollywood music-- his father or uncle was famed film composer/arranger Felix Slatkin). It has wonderful performances of "The Red Pony," "Our Town," a reconstructed suite from Copland's Oscar-winner, "The Heiress," and "Music for Movies"-- a suite of pieces from several films-- as well as the "Prairie Journal-- Music for Radio."
If you can find out any more about the "Of Mice and Men" score please post and I'll do the same.
By the way, you readers who haven't enjoyed some of Copland's wonderful music-- check it out! You'll know it by the rollicking "Beef" theme on tv commercials-- which is from Copland's late 1930s ballet, "Rodeo" (pronounced in the Spanish term-- "ro-DAY-oh.") That work was commissioned from Copland by famed choreographer (and Hollywood daughter/niece) Agnes DeMille.
There is a recording of the "Of Mice and Men" score. I have one. I bought it about 40 years ago in a 'used' record store. One of the cuts, as I recall, is
called "Thrushing Machines." I have moved so all of my recording are still packed away so I have no easy access to the vitals on it. I think it was strictly a Copland recording and not 'great musical scores'. Good luck.
Actually, the title is "Threshing Machines", not "Thrushing". It's from Of Mice and Men, and it's on an LP of Copland's film music. You can buy it on Amazon dot com for ten dollars. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00138H70Y/ref=dm_sp_alb?ie=UTF8&; qid=1246893216&sr=1-11
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