Copland's film scores set new standards for Hollywood; the many ingenious subtleties and picturesque touches in this five-movement suite for small orchestra make clear why this is so. Each movement is derived from his three film scores to date: "New England Countryside" from the documentary, The City, "Barley Wagons" from Of Mice and Men (Copland's Hollywood debut), "Sunday Traffic" from The City, "Grover's Corners" from Our Town, and "Threshing Machines" from Of Mice and Men. It won wide critical acclaim, including a review in the New Yorker that praised not only its "clangy," "bitter" and "jocular" moments, but its "pensive quality" and "optimism." Copland himself explained, "It struck me that a suite might successfully mirror in music terms the wide range of American scenes in the three films for which I had written music." He dedicated the score to another film composer of popular achievement, Darius Milhaud.

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