Music like The Ruffled Feathers

Aaron Copland wrote the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra in 1924. It represents a major work in the composer's oeuvre, as it was his first fully realized orchestral work, his first work for organ, and the first piece whose orchestration he heard. In 1928, Copland re-orchestrated the work without organ as his Symphony No. 1, rewriting the organ part in the brass and adding saxophone.

Copland studied composition in Paris from 1921 to 1924 under famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He was especially appreciative of the confidence she displayed in her young American students, and she arranged for him to write a major symphonic work for organ and orchestra to be premiered by herself on organ and the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch followed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) under Serge Koussevitzky. He had come to be known around Paris as "that talented young American composer," and at a meeting at Koussevitzky's house with Sergei Prokofiev and Boulanger, the conductor remarked "You vill [sic] write an organ concerto, Mademoiselle Boulanger vill [sic] play it and I vill [sic] conduct it!" Despite his apprehensiveness about his preparedness to write such a large work — Copland had never heard his own orchestration — Boulanger reassured him that he possessed the skills and talent.