The Red Pony

The Red Pony, film score and suite for orchestra by American composer Aaron Copland for the Lewis Milestone film of the same name. The movie was based on a book of four interrelated stories by John Steinbeck, who also wrote its screenplay. (The three men had previously worked together on the 1939 film adaptation of Of Mice and Men.) The Red Pony was released in 1949, a year after Copland produced a suite from the film score for concert performance.

The Brooklyn-born Copland seemed an unlikely choice as composer for this western adventure. By the time he was commissioned to write The Red Pony, however, his ballets Billy the Kid and Rodeo had been completed, and he had proved his ability to capture the spirit of the American West. Much of the music sounds like authentic folk music, but Copland asserted that his melodies were original: “There are no quotations of folklore anywhere in the work.” Yet both his score and the orchestral suite he derived from it are deeply evocative. The movements of the suite are “Morning on the Ranch,” “The Gift,” “Dream March and Circus Music,” “Walk to the Bunkhouse,” “Grandfather’s Story,” and “Happy Ending. ”