It’s Christmas, but, well, I hate Christmas and most Christmas music.

I do not, however, resist the nostalgia that comes over me at this time of year. Hence, a favorite from youth symphony that began my life-long love affair with the music of Aaron Copland.

Conductor Leonard Bernstein was one of Copland’s running buddies. Perhaps that’s why he understood Copland’s music so well. For my money, Bernstein’s recording of Copland’s music for Agnes deMille’s ballet, Rodeo, is the best one ever made.

This is the final “dance episode” from that work. For you bluegrass and old-time fiddlers wracking your brain for the source material, it’s Ruth Crawford Seeger’s recording, on piano, of “Bonaparte’s Retreat”.

This is Leonard Bernstein, conducting the New York Philharmonic in Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown”.