My introduction to his piano music had happened when I was a music major in college. Listening to a broadcast of his Piano Variations, I was struck by the rightness of the music. It sounded exactly as I imagined modern music ought to sound. I purchased the score immediately and shocked my teacher by playing it at the next lesson.

Subsequent association with composers Ingolf Dahl and Lawrence Morton, both close friends of Copland, increased my enthusiasm, so it was natural for me to play a recital of his music when he visited Los Angeles in 1975. From this came the invitation from Nadia Boulanger to perform the program in Paris and the contract to record the music for Delos International. By that time, Aaron and I had become friends. We corresponded frequently and I would send him programs and reviews. He took a lively interest in young musicians and was always encouraging to them. This generosity of spirit set an example for professionals and amateurs alike and is one of the reasons so many musicians take pleasure remembering him.

On the surface, Copland's piano music appears to be radically different from the folksy Americana by which he is best known. How could the lofty Piano Fantasy come from the same pen as Billy the Kid? A closer look behind their apparently contrary styles shows a single set of values at work: directness of expression, primacy of melody and rhythm, absolute clarity of form, even some of the same harmonies. Copland always proclaimed tonality. Even in his most dissonant music (the Piano Variations), one can readily identify chord roots, key centers and a conventional harmonic plan. At a fundamental level, Copland the "modernist" and Copland the "populist" are really one and the same.

Copland's endowments were apparent from the beginning. The Passacaglia (1922) reveals the young composer not only in command of his craft, but with something important to say. Dedicated to Nadia Boulanger, to whom Copland had entrusted his advanced training in Paris, the Passacaglia continues French neo-classical traditions in its serious intent, logical organization and omnipresent tonality. Its searching eight-measure bass theme reappears in counterpoint to chromatic lines, in arpeggiated figuration and in ostinati, with motivic elements emphasized for their structural value.

Copland's masterpiece, the Piano Variations, was considered revolutionary when it appeared in 1930. By that time, Copland had his own ideas and he had developed a highly individual manner of expressing them. It was a style as virtuosic as Liszt's, but used to create a new sound-world of angular beauty -- taut, dramatic, economical. Each variation, clearly delineated in character, explores the latent possibilities of the opening motto and of the ten-measure theme as a whole. Harmonic confrontations and reiterative, irregular metres forge many diverse moods. At its climax the music enacts a life-death struggle between sound and silence.

The Piano Sonata (1941) rightly belongs among the finest examples of that form. Its message is universal; its tone is noble, its compositional craft subtle and consummately assured. Like a biblical prophet, Copland foresaw the devastation that would take place in his time; hence the elegiac character of the first movement. He uses the piano's sonorities to simulate great bells tolling in warning and lamentation, yet from this dark atmosphere a jazzy development emerges. It is remarkable how Copland takes seemingly incompatible ideas and integrates them at a high level. The second movement's tenuous lines, imitating Appalachian folk instruments, compulsively repeat a few elements over and over, creating a restless scherzo that changes from "delicate" to "crude" (composer's words). Amid the solemn chords that introduce the last movement, a lonely bugle call, echoing from far away like military "taps", deepens the feeling of loss and grief. An anthem appears, tentatively at first, then rises phrase by phrase to a grand peroration. At the strategic moment, Copland unifies the entire Sonata with a single master stroke by bringing back the opening theme from the first movement. The music subsides in a coda of peace and reconciliation.

The Piano Fantasy (1955-57) is a visionary work of extraordinary scope. The music ranges far and wide with seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Supporting this diversity of ideas is a monumental arch: slow-fast-slow, a plan favored by the composer. Declamatory single notes and clangorous fourth-chords announce the first and last parts. Between these landmarks are numerous contrasting subsections, developments, transitions and reminiscences. The concluding pages attain a sublime transcendence.