Copland describes the material for Inscape as coming from two different series of twelve tones that in turn give rise to subsidiary serial patterns. He felt that serialism "freshened his harmonic palette," although this one-movement piece is more tonal than is customary in serial composition. While Copland never attached a great deal of significance to titles, he admitted to being drawn to a literary source for Inscape, the title of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Following the less than enthusiastic reception of his only full length opera, Copland arranged an orchestral suite from the score. It includes the love duet, the lively square dance, and the stirring and beautiful The Promise of Living drawn from the quintet at the end of the opera's first act. The composer was gratified when the Suite garnered the good reviews he had hoped the opera would inspire. In 1996, Murry Sidlin created a new suite for soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble based on his successful reduced orchestration of the opera, which uses the same scoring as the 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring.

Leonard Bernstein conducts three works by Tchaikovsky: Symphony in F Minor, op 36 (performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra), Symphony in E Minor, op 64 (performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and Violin Concerto in D Major, op 35 (featuring Russian violin virtuoso Boris Belkin).

'Appalachian Spring' and 'El Salón Mexicó' are archetypical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast landscapes, cowboys and pioneer spirit. Yet, in the 20th century perhaps only Stravinsky was as adept in as many styles as Aaron Copland [1900-1990]. His Piano Concerto, first performed by Serge Koussevitsky, is a good example of Copland the modernist but he also wrote chamber music, ballets, operas and film scores, as well as teaching, writing and latterly conducting. The winter of 1950 saw Copland take a break from writing his superlative 'Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson' and, inspired by a Pears and Britten recital in late 1949, he took five of his favourite American songs and arranged them for voice with piano. Pears and Britten liked them so much that they gave the premiere together at the Aldburgh Festival in 1950.