Red Pony / The Heiress

Two film score landmarks from America's greatest exponent of musical Americana on CD! Aaron Copland brought his singularly influential orchestral voice into motion pictures on a just a few occasions, and two of those happily occurred together in 1949. Lewis Milestone directs The Red Pony from a screenplay by legendary American novelist John Steinbeck, who wrote the original 1938 novelette. Legendary actors Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy star. The result: a project Aaron Copland was born to score. Such was the success of this "wide open sound of the West" that Copland was compelled to adapt highlights from the film score into his famous 7-movement concert suite. Intrada is proud to present the CD premiere of the original soundtrack version Copland conducted at the Paramount Pictures Scoring Stage in March 1948. As part of Paramount's ongoing program of restoring the audio elements for classic films from the era, this release was mastered from the original 78rpm acetate discs made at the sessions plus recently discovered mono scoring stems, allowing for the inclusion of previously unreleased music including the main and end titles. The audio quality from these elements is excellent and reveals a treasure trove of material Copland dropped from his concert suite. Accompanying this score is the world premiere release in any format of Copland's other 1949 film soundtrack, The Heiress. Another legendary film project, this one has direction by William Wyler, origins in a 1880 Henry James novel and 1947 play by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, and features an Academy Award-winning performance from Olivia de Havilland plus an early starring role for Montgomery Clift. An Oscar also went to Aaron Copland for his masterful score. It is interesting to note that Copland never adapted any of the music into a concert piece. It wasn't until 1990, when Arnold Freed fashioned an 8-minute work for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Leonard Slatkin that any of this music made its way to audiences. Intrada is happy to present for the first time ever Copland's actual soundtrack version, also recorded at Paramount Pictures Scoring Stage, including both his "rejected" original main title and the subsequent film version, plus a wealth of additional music never before made available. Sadly, the condition of the master elements was not on par with The Red Pony. In this case, even with careful restoration work done by veteran audio expert Chris Malone, the original 78rpm acetate discs exhibited significant surface noise from heavy wear. The sound quality is archival at best. The music, of course, is revelatory. Jim Lochner provides detailed notes, Kay Marshall designs beautiful flipper cover art featuring original poster campaigns from both films. Pick your favorite cover! Aaron Copland conducts both scores.